Hello Goya and Everyone -
Bill's fun translation got me started and before I know it I was reading letters from hell. Great idea, Goya! And great slip, Bill! Here's the poem:
Letters from Hell
You read them with smoking fingers
and a glass of water at your elbow
to prevent blisters and stink.
Everyone in the house dreams
of meadows and ice-cream
while you sit as though chained to your desk,
reading by hell-light far
into the questionable part of the night.
In the morning you stuff them in the freezer
wrapped in an old towel,
hoping no one wants a frozen waffle
or a tube of orange juice.
Hunger doesn’t interest you now,
nor the dishes in the sink.
Children blowing through the doors
escape your notice at last.
Tonight you will clean up the puddle
of defrosted t.v. dinners and take the letters,
still blazing, from the freezer.
You’ll muffle their brilliance with the ruined towel
and creep past the sleepers
to your study, ducking low
beneath the smoke-alarm.
Dawn will find you still reading,
infernal script branded on each fingertip,
your eyes red as dragon eggs
and your blood simmering,
never more alive.
KateSinging
5 February 2008