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“The Shared Fate of the Heavens and of Earthly Bodies,” “The Little Station Master,” and “A HYMN OF VICTORY”, by Elena Polygeni

Author
  • Holly Taylor

How to Cite:

Taylor, H., (2018) ““The Shared Fate of the Heavens and of Earthly Bodies,” “The Little Station Master,” and “A HYMN OF VICTORY”, by Elena Polygeni”, Absinthe: World Literature in Translation 24. doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/absinthe.9486

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Published on
2018-06-18

Peer Reviewed

The Shared Fate of the Heavens and of Earthly Bodies

We all revolve around ourselves like luminous bodies. Our central axis separates desires from necessities and still begs for peace. Our other planets are strangers to us. Swirling around their own misfortunes, their loneliness. All else is simply resplendent light. The hands of earthliness touch everything the same, some earlier, suffocating in a hideous manner. The mind receives external signals, which it recycles with zeal, transforming them, habitually, into symbols. Everything tires of living, yet fears dying. The continuous flow of water reminds us of the debt of existence, to which few exceptions are judged as unacceptable. The orbit is circular, it is not ever avoided, the return to the place of departure; and there is not the slightest exception to this rule.

The Little Station Master

My sweet darkness
  of a fractured, abandoned
  train
  
  I want to ascend your carriage.
  Darkness dragging through my fingertips
  along with the pain and trials
  that have ripped
  yes, have mangled
  my designs.
  
  At the station of defeat
  black coffee and a biscuit
  are sufficient to mourn.
  
  What remains
  of you, my melancholy
  little train
  
  No whisper, no caress
  will be given.
  For you, I will
  be the final,
  only passenger
  that will grieve.

A HYMN OF VICTORY

In all the lands and in all the countries and in all the houses and throughout the ages and all the kisses and tables and funerals and beneath the illuminations and behind curtains and under quilts and hiding behind disguises and drinking champagne and within songs and inside cars and beneath flashing advertisements and on rooftops and out on balconies and within tents and breaking into laughter and breaking into fights and breaking the law and above the people and spitting on blood lines and discovering solutions and sharing progress and scorched words and above the beds and on the lips of the lethargy and within carriages and constructing palaces and on top of carpets and in schools and in ships and clutching rackets and showing limits, hand-in-hand, triumphant singing and severed heads and in all the alleys and in all the town squares, during the day and night, among velvet, the pain is bedecked and with a new saw, inviting promises, in the fresh mud, illuminating the carcasses, with the heat and the cold, in the fresh mud, and with a new saw, treading with glory, and in all the hideouts, summoning grief, and beyond the woods and beyond sorrows and beyond winters

  Always,
  always
  the murderers
  celebrate.