Fortune Teller

by Gabriel Rosenstock

Out of sheer desperation
I went to the fortune teller
and begged her to tell me when the war would end.
Her lips curled.
What did that mean?
I felt my own lips beginning to curl as well, unwittingly.
She looked me straight in the eye.
Maybe she doesn't know, I said to myself.
Can she transpose herself
to the war cabinets of the world,
a fly on the wall?
Say something, for God's sake!

'How can it end, my dear Gabriel!' she said, eventually.
(I hadn't given her my name).
'Every war contains the seed of the next war.'

Bean Feasa

I dtánaiste an anama a bhíos
nuair a thugas cuairt ar an mbean feasa
is mé ag impí uirthi a rá liom cathain a thiocfadh deireadh leis an gcogadh.
Chuir sí strainc uirthi féin.
Cad a chiallaigh sé sin?
Bhraitheas go raibh strainc orm féin leis, gan fhios dom féin.
Chuir sí a dhá súil tríom.
B'fhéidir nach bhfuil a fhios aici, arsa mise liom féin.
An bhfuil sí in ann í féin a aistriú
chuig comh-aireachtaí cogaidh an domhain,
ina cuil ar an mballa?
Abair rud éigin, as ucht Dé!

'Conas a thiocfadh deireadh leis, a Ghabriel dhil!' ar sise i ndeireadh na dála.
(Ní raibh m'ainm tugtha agam di).
'Le gach cogadh a throidtear, cuirtear síol an chéad chogaidh eile.'

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson
(A bilingual limerick by Gabriel Rosenstock)

The whole thing's a bit of a blur
I admit, I have caused a wee stir
Please, don't be unkind
What's most on my mind
Is can I hang on to the 'Sir'?

An mbainfear díom an onóir
A tháinig chugamsa ón gCoróin?
Do bheadh Jeffrey leis féin
Gan 'Sir' roimhe bréan
Ní bheadh ann ach taca gan tóin

Poetry/ Filíocht is a bilingual poem by Gabriel Rosenstock in response to the latest conflict in the Middle East

Poetry

perhaps rabbi Nachman
could give me advice
but how can I find him
among so many ashes
Zbigniew Herbert

I have strained my eyes
looking at headlines
pored over in-depth analysis –
who bombed the hospital?
Poetry shouldn’t be like this
plumbing the depths of propaganda
sifting for evidence.
Poetry should enter the heart of the bomb
and defuse it
before it rips into the mother’s heart
the father’s heart
before it muffles the scream of orphans
Before . . .
Rabbi Nachman, have you any advice?

Filíocht

d’fhéadfadh an raibí Nachman
comhairle a chur orm
ach cá bhfaighinn a thuairisc
i measc charn luaithrigh

Zbigniew Herbert

Thuirsíos mo shúile
ag stánadh ar cheannlínte
ag léamh mionanailíse –
cé a bhuamáil an t-ospidéal?
Ní cóir don fhilíocht a bheith mar seo
mionscrúdú á dhéanamh aici ar bholscaireacht
fianaise á piocadh amach aici.
Ba chóir don fhilíocht dul isteach i gcroí an bhuama
agus an dochar a bhaint as
sula réabfaí croí na máthar
croí an athar
sula múchfaí scréach na ndílleachtaí
Sula . . .
A Raibí Nachman, an bhfuil comhairle ar bith agat dúinn?

Ukraine is a bilingual poem in Irish and English by Gabriel Rosenstock, inspired by Nie Wieder Krieg (Never Again War) by Karl Wiener (see above, Public Domain image)

UKRAINE

wooden crosses over graves
beginning to look like daggers
sunk with a squelch into the earth
to quieten the undead
but undead and quivering they are not
they are truly dead
empire masters of the east
empire masters of the west
those are the undead

AN ÚCRÁIN

crosa adhmaid os cionn uaigheanna
féachann siad anois cosúil le miodóga
a sádh de ghlugar sa chré
d'fhonn na neamh-mhairbh a shuaimhniú
ach ní neamh-mhairbh ar crith ina gcraiceann iad
táid ar fad marbh go deimhin
máistrí impireacht an oirthir
máistrí impireacht an iarthair
sin iad na neamh-mhairbh duit

níl súil ina cheann
dhá pholl dhú' ag stánadh orainn
níl aon anam ann
géaga leata mar bhultúr
chun barróg a bhreith orainn

look, he has no eyes
just two black holes in his head
and he has no soul
his arms spread like vulture wings
to hold us in his embrace

----------------
Wiener was a left-wing draftsman, graphic artist and photo-montage artist. His studio in Vienna was bombed out in 1945. A talented teacher, Vienna School of Applied Arts fired him in1947. He worked thereafter as an illustrator for left-wing media, and ended his own life in 1949.

Three Bilingual Tanka

by Gabriel Rosenstock

Kerouac 1 was written in response to a seldom-cited socialist manifesto by Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), novelist and haiku master:

Shorter hours will provide the labourer with a new desire to live, not to be a productive animal, but to have time to be a man, to have time to enjoy the rights of man in the use of his divine intellect, a gift of God that is overlooked by our overlords of the present Industrial Era.

giorraigh an lá dúinn,
a Thiarna, chun go bhfeicfí
ré nua Kerouac:
sciatháin aingil ag péacadh
trínár gcraiceann ainmhíoch!

~
Lord, shorten these hours
so that a new era dawns
as Kerouac dreamed:
angelic wings come, sprouting,
from this brute animal skin!

.

Kerouac 2 was written in response to an early story by Kerouac,
The Mystery, in which he speculates on the nature of ownership:

As I was approaching the rail crossing near the old depot that we have in my home town, I had to lean against a sagging fence (black with soot-years) for fully ten minutes while a mighty locomotive went by freighting ninety-six cars...

....and the thought arose, why didn’t this locomotive, its cars and its cargo belong to him and to his fellow men? He asks, as a child might ask:

Who covets these great things, so that myself and my fellow men are not heir to their full use?

mistéir is ea é
conas nach bhfuil sciar againn
de gach a bhfuil ann
cén fáth a dtaisceann daoine
níos mó ná a ndóthain mhaith?

~

it’s a mystery
why we all don’t have a share
in God’s great bounty
why do men squirrel away
more than they’ll need in one life?

Kerouac 3 was sparked off by the following passage from an early short piece by Kerouac, The Wound of Living:

I am a New Englander . . . a New Englander removed. Unlike Emerson and Thoreau, my real roots are not set in New England, though I was born there; my roots come from Brittany, and my people were hardy fishermen, like those in Synge and Loti . . .

an smaoiním orthu –
mo shinsir? deacair a rá
conas iad a bhrath
a ngnásanna a shamhlú
a dteanga, a dteacht i dtír

~
do I think of them –
my ancestors? yes and no
how to conjure them
imagine their existence
how they spoke, all their struggles

Gabriel Rosenstock’s bilingual edition of Kerouac’s haiku, sioc maidine/ morning frost was published by Arlen House in association with IMRAM literature festival

Gaza: two haiku in Irish and English by Gabriel Rosenstock in response to street artwork
by Banksy.

abair, cá bhfuil sé?
an clós súgartha
in Gaza

where . . . tell me!
where will they play
in Gaza?

Gaza! Gaza!
cathain a osclóimid
ár súile?

Gaza! Gaza!
when will we open
our eyes?

Gabriel Rosenstock presents a bilingual tanka, in Irish and English (5-7-5-7-7 syllables) in response to an artwork (above) by Henry Ossawa Tanner, the first African-American artist to achieve international renown. The Thankful Poor is the ironic title of Tanner's painting from 1894. 

The Thankful Poor

by Gabriel Rosenstock 

they are everywhere
their heads bowed, the thankful poor
it weighs heavily
their silence . . . their gratitude
for what - for being alive?

tá siad gach aon áit
na bochtáin, a gceann cromtha
is trom é a dtost
cén fáth tost, cén fáth buíochas
an buíoch atáid as bheith beo?