Poetry

Apollinaire experimented with audacious techniques for generating verse. On occasion he would sit in a café and weave overheard phrases into the composition. Read David Lehman’s translation of “Zone,” the central poem in Apollinaire’s...

I’m nearly eighteen, between ships, moping 
on the mess deck of Coast Guard Base 
Seattle. It’s Saturday night & I’m broke

How could they know,
how could anyone know
you were not formed by origins,

Picasso the matelot, his Colt cocked,
Amiably inert in the photo
From Houston’s museum studio,

A woman
downwind from Nagasaki now dying
is forced to decide

The last time you were beside me
it was April.
I knew it was over

In flight: bird, arrow, grief.
Static: a red chair
waiting for someone in a patch of sun

Tonight I walk out into winter’s fingers
stepping from one stone