1
Cablecars    Shigeji Tsuboi 1897–1975/Japan

Way way down, under beetling crags,
a quick, pinched river, startling blue, busies on.
Way way above, in the unmargined sky,
the cablecars move along in quiet order.
The heavy wire, invisible with air,
conducts with patient power
its hushed, believing loads
across the gap of Time. I think –
unsnapped so far – I too hold something
that goes on, and seems to work.


2
Worldsend    Jakob van Hoddis 1887–1942/Jewish Germany

Mr Normal’s hat flies off his head,
What should be nice fresh air goes eek and thud,
Roofers fall off rooves and fall down dead,
And round the coast (it says) it’s flood, flood, flood.
 
The wind is up, a mad sea storms the Drains
And crushes all the Dams and Overflows.
Everyone has coughs and colds, and trains
Fall off the railway bridges. So it goes.


3
Untitled    Sa’di 1210–91/2/Persia

In out, in out, these breaths, being the count
of love, are each worth the time they take.
I pass the night in expectation of day.
That is hardly new. Except it is your face.
I long to see you again: you who are
less faithful and less often than the planets.

Thud thud, this heart is strong enough
to bear it. You made it so to tire it out so well.
They can say what they like: I don’t care.
The wheel goes round. Winter turns into Spring.
Layla took Majnun for his mad desire.
My caution too has turned to fire. I love you.
A little tame dove you need no rope to keep.

I am strong with lack of sleep. And lack of hope.
One is past and the other will not come.
Let them go. These seconds and these breaths,
the old insistent heart: keep me alive.  


4
Smalltown Yala    Anonymous 20th century/Kenya

Yala, this song’s for you, Yala, your song –
O O O O

O all the little accountants are scribbling scribbling here
very busy here very very busy here

O Adoray’s dress is flowers on the outside here
and plain here on the inside here

O Amara’s mum can’t afford a bike here
so she walks here and there here

O the Kamnaras bowl round on bikes here
there here and everywhere here

O Oloo Nyabondo drummer has given up trains here
he’s so busy here so very busy here

O will they let Oloo drummer on a plane there
it’s so busy there so very busy there

Yala, this one’s for you, Yala, your song O O O –
with your little accountants scribbling scribbling


5
The Steam Chopper    Guiseppe Giusti 1809–50/Italy

In China there’s this steam machine
that drives a guillotine
in three hours it can shift 100,000 heads in a row
in one go.

Everyone’s talking about it. The Holy Thingummies can see
that the whole country
will be Civilized pretty soon, and make the Eurocrats
look like twats.

His Sublime Cloudiness is an Honourable Man: a bit nasty and tight,
a bit thick, but a real Benthamite,
and a Father to His People and happy to patronize whatever
looks Arty or Clever.

Some dumb, ungrateful tribe of his refused to pay
their Phase 2 Tax and Import Duty Section A,
so his Sublime Benevolence sent the Thing to persuade
them. They paid.

The Chief Chopper is famous and rich, with a Huge Pension
in honour of his Invention,
and Patent Payments and Prizes and Promotions, and spends his time shopping
In Beijing.

The Holy Brothers say they’re keen to get him baptised quick,
and the tinpot Duke of Modena says to his sidekick:
O O O why don’t such a super Social Pioneer
live round here?

*
Acknowledgements
1. Tsuboi – new translation
2. Hoddis – new
3. Sa’di – new
4. Kenya – from The Song Atlas (lineation altered)
5. Giusti – from 52 Euros (lineation altered)