ASSASSIN 6-1979 FREE El cam po americano es coma un agua c!ara, /impia Y, fresco, recien destilada despues de un largo viaje a troves de caner/as, tubas y toda close de vasijas de pl6stico, y que ya se ha olvidado de las ra!ces de /os arbo!es, def barro, de las noches de 1/uvia, def viento, de los !adridos de !os perros, de los logos y de las nu bes, y que tu te tomas sin sentir el olor de los bosques y sin comprender por que el deseo de beber se ha ido mientras la sed te asedia. The american country is like very clear water, just purified after a long journey through pipes, tubes, and all sort of plastic vessels, I, which has already forgotten the roots of the trees, the mud, the rainy nights, the wind, the barking of dogs, the lakes, and the ll clouds, water that you drink without feeling the smell of the woods, wondering why the desire to drink is gone while you are still so thirsty. -Pilar Titus ·1 THE TRANSLATION ISSUE. ASSASSIN iull ASSASSIN/6 summer 1979 TABLE OF CONTENTS GERMANY Editors: Will Bennett, George-Th1fr~se Dickenson Heinrich Heine (Ted Berrigan & Gordon Brotherston) 3 Layout/Cover Design: Will Bennett Rainer Maria Rilke (Jeff Wright; Ted Berrigan) 4 Paul Celan (Will Bennett) 7 Typesetting: Magazine Co-op Friedrich Holderlin (Frank O'Hara) 9 JAPAN Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (Hiroaki Sato) 10 Yamanoue no Okura (Hiroaki Sato) 11 · ASSASSIN is published quart~rly at,65 2nd Ave., Suite 2H, RUMANIA N.Y., N.Y. Submissi-ons welcomed w/SASE. Ion Alexandru (Andrei Codrescu) 113 Gellu Naum (Valery Oisteneau) lf7 All works Copyright © 1979 by the translators. Printed in the U.S.A. FRANCE Thanks to Jim Brodey ed ..,of Clothesline for his kind permission to reprint Paul Morand (Ron Padgett) 18 Frank O'Hara's translation of Rene Char's Exploit of the Steamroller, and Francis Picabia (Tinker Greene) 19 to Transgravities Press for Peter Nijmeijer's translation of Lucebert's The Phillipe Soupault (Tinker Greene) 21 Tired Lovers They Are Machines, Amsterdam, 1974. Max Jacob (Ted Berrigan) 22 Charles Baudelaire (Annabel Levitt) 123 Phillipe Jaccottet (Susan Plunkett) 24 Andre Breton & Benjamin Per~t (Tony Fusco) 25 ASSASSIN wishes to thank CCLM for the grant which made this issue Blaise Cendrars (Annabel Levitt) 27 Stephane Mallarme (Roger Kamenetz) possible. 28 G~rard de Nerval (Bill Davis) 30 Paul Valery (Charley Shively) 31 Joyce Mansour (Susan Plunkett) 32 Louise Lab~ (George-ThlrJse Dickenson) 33 Saint-Pol-Roux (A. Mangravite) 37 Rene Char {Frank O'Hara; Tony Fusco) 41 Pierre Reverdy (Tinker Greene & Susan Plunkett) 44 CHILE ASSASSIN/5 HOT LUNCH SINGLE (45 rpm) Pablo Neruda \ (Janine Pammy Vega; Dan Propper; "DIZZY" B/W "CELEBRATE THE CRIMINAL" Evelyn Villalba & Jeff Wright) 66 AVAILABLE FROM ASSASSIN RECORDS. $2.50 Jorge Teillier {Pilar Titus) 70 Pilar Titus (Pilar Titus) back cover NETHERLANDS Heinrich Heine Harry Hoogstraten (Harry Hoogstraten) 72 Lucebert (Peter Nijmeijer) 73 HAITI DER ASRA Jean-Max Calvin (Barbara Holland) 74 Jacqueline Beauge (Barbara Holland) 75 Every day back & forth PERU The exquisite daughter of the Sultan walked At evening by the fountain, C~sar Vallejo (Janine Pommy Vega; Gerard Malanga) 76 · Where the white water splashes. PERSIA Every day the young slave Stood at evening by the fountain, Rumi (john Eskow) 82 Where the white water splashes; Every day he grew pale, and paler. VISUALS: Douglas Bessette Then, one evening, the Princess, turning Jonathan Newman (verse from 0/05 NUMER0S0S by Mark Mendell) Came up to him with these words: Richard Kostalanetz Thy name will I know! thy Country! thy Kin! And the slave spoke: I am called Mohamet I am from Yemen. And my people are the Asra who die, when they love. translated by Ted Berrigan & Gordon Brotherston 3 L Rainer Maria Rilke LAMENT Oh, how everything seems long ago and far WHAT WILL YOU DO, GOD, WHEN I SPLIT? I believe that star which lights my way The empty bottles will still be here has been dead this thousand years when I your Coke, am all drunk up. I'll be gone but what will you do? I believe Thirst stays on with the empties. in the car that passed something fearful was said The motels are full, all over the world TVs click shut when you In the window overhead come on, what will you do when I the hour strikes ... quit making guest appearances? but which hour ... Your Cadillac will get a flat. I would like to step The rider & the driver argue out of my heart over the radio for the last time into the dark night before it splutters into silent garble & the abandoned vehicle I would Ii ke to pray glows fiery in the sinking West. Surely a single star Where's the spare, God? I'm scared. still lives I believe I could find a star . if I could follow its beams of light which would bless this darkness translated by Jeff Wright tonight ... 4 5 AUTUMN'S DAY Paul Celan Lord, it is time. Summer was very great. Now cast your shadow upon sundials. Let winds remind meadows it is late. ONE DAY & THE NEXT Mellow now the last fruits on the vine. Allow them only two more southern days. Hasten them to fullness, and press You, like the wind in the mountains. The quiet The last heavy sweetness through the wine. like a bird before us, another clear presence. Who has no home can not build now. Who dwells alone must now remain alone; I won, I lost, we believed Will waken read, write long letters, and in the austere wonders the branch Will wande~ restlessly when leaves are blowing. quickly drew upon the heavens, carrying us & growing through heaving white to the path of the moon a tomorrow lept into yesterday, we brought ' the atomized candelabra, I placed everything in the hand of no one. translated by Ted Berrigan 6 7 Friedrich Holderlin INTO DISTANCE Quiet once again ballooning into a home­ come in, and live here. Tl;:ARS Hours, measured and lovely as oaths: a sanctuary to be had. Heavenly love! tender love! if I ever forget you, forget, 0 you fateful spirits, The air left behind, richer than ever: for you to breathe, you burning ones who are full of ashes and to breathe and be you. wasted and already left to your own wildness, you beloved islands, eyes of the miraculous world! you who are now my sole preoccupation, you shores where the blasphemous translated by Will Bennett repent and so does love, now heavenly! for all too gratefully the holy ones have served there in days of beauty and the furious heroes; and many trees, and the cities themselves still stand, are visible, Iike a pensive man; yet are the heroes dead, the islands of love are almost in ruins. Thus must love be everywhere distorted and abused. You weakening tears, do not drown out the light of my eyes quite yet; just one memory! so I may nobly die, you thieves! you deceivers! let one memory live after me. translated by Frank O'Hara 9 8 Yamanoue No Okura Kakinomoto no Hitomaro I A DIALOGUE ON POVERTY IN UTTER GRIEF AFTER HIS WIFE'S DEATH On nights when, wind mixing in, the rain· falls Because the road to heaven-flying Karu on nights when, rain mixing in the snow falls' was near my love's village I'm utterly lost, it's so cold ' ' I wanted to look at it closely, as at roots. I take out a piece of black salt and nibble it, But for visiting constantly there were too many eyes, I sip hot water with sake dregs. if I went too often, people were sure, to '5now. Coughing, nose snuffling, So I thought we'd meet later as rooty vines do scratching my skimpy beard, and trusting her as one trusts a great ship I boast to myself, "I'm the only one I merely longed for her, hidden who's worthy." But it's so cold like an abyss fenced in with gleaming rocks. I pull the hempen quilt over myself, But just as the coursing sun goes into darkness, put on all the cloth vests just as the shining moon hides behind clouds, I have. On such a cold night, so my wife, as yielding as kelp in the offing, someone poorer than I am- passed away like a yellow leaf, h~sfa_ther and ~other must be starved, freezing, so said the messenger bearing the catalpa branch. his wife an~ ch1l?ren must be feebly weeping. I heard this as a sound like that of a catalpa bow, At a time ltke this, what are you doing I didn't know what to say, what to do. to live through it all? But I couldn't leave it just as a sound. Wondering if I could console Heaven and earth are wide, they say, my longing even one thousandth but for me they have grown narrow. I stood and listened at the fair at Karu The sun and the moon are bright, they say, where my lover used to look for me. but for me they do not shine. But, though on Mount Unebi o~ the robe-tucking sash ls this so for everyone, or for me alone? birds sang, I did not hear her voice, I happened to be born a human though on the spear-adorned road people walked by but am no worse than others.