Bestiary

Mitchell, Poems by Don Pagis, translated by Stephen

BESTIARY POEMS BY DAN PAGIS The Elephant The elephant, a crusty old general, scarred, patient, thick-skinned: on his pillar-like legs stands a whole world of belly, But he is so strong that he...

...Stephen Mitchell's translation of Job, Into the Whirlwind, was published by Doubleday last June...
...They multiply in the shade of potted philodendrons...
...He has four limbs, two ears, a hundred hearts...
...And though they are glad to live more slowly than elephants, they are continually setting out to a secret safari that has no end...
...The paragon of creation among the fossils is the Venus de Milo, she who forever abstains with arms of air...
...The arch-fish renounced even himself and left just the imprint of his bones in the rock...
...Afterwards the rubber bodies languish on the edges of a filthy rug, and the souls wander through the in-between world just about as high as your nose...
...The Biped The biped is quite a strange creature: through his flesh he is related to the other predators, but he alone cooks animals, peppers animals, he alone is clothed with animals, shod in animals, He alone thinks that he's a stranger in the world, alone protests against what is decreed, he alone laughs, and, strangest of all, rides of his own free will on a motorcycle...
...The soul suddenly leaks out in a terrified whistle or explodes with a single pop...
...But even the eternally humble must come to their appointed end...
...They are ready for any hint, willing to obey the slightest breeze...
...Fossils They are all unparalleled deniers, these creatures that go on living forever...
...Balloons Balloons at parties caress one another between paper serpents and humbly accept their limit, the ceiling of the room...
...f i Translated from the Hebrew by Stephen Jvlitchell Armchairs The slowest animals are the soft large-eared leather armchairs that wait in the corners of salons...
...The arch-shell is an ear that refuses to listen...
...BESTIARY POEMS BY DAN PAGIS The Elephant The elephant, a crusty old general, scarred, patient, thick-skinned: on his pillar-like legs stands a whole world of belly, But he is so strong that he overcomes himself through himself: at zero-hour, with cotton-puff caution, with love dependent on nothing, he steps on sixteen marvelously accurate wristwatches, ties four on each foot like little wheels and skates forth smoothly J out of his elephant fate...
...The royal arch-fly frozen in amber scorns time and with a thousand eyes takes his nap in the sun...

Vol. 4 • October 1979 • No. 9


 
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