in this issue
volume 2, no. 1, 2007
Chimneys
Instead of thinking about something useful, you look out the window; and because you live high above the ground, you see God Himself, and a bit below Him the sky, and a bit, a very little bit below that, the roofs, nothing but roofs and chimneys. And all of a sudden you recall that you looked out on the roofs of Paris in just the same way, although the roofs are different there: they are like a base from which two or three slender tubes with little twisted heads are sprouting, and you seem to see two or three likeable fellows standing there, turning their heads and talking about girls or politics. Here in Prague, chimneys are short and squat, thickset and somewhat stooped; that’s why you so often find them in Czech literature compared to little old men sitting on rooftops, smoking tiny pipes. And in Germany, the chimneys are spindly, upright, and angular; they don’t look like anything but chimneys. But that’s so very little, for chimneys.
December 28, 1922
Carpenters
Carpenters are working beneath my windows. I like carpentry, it’s pleasant work; often when I’m writing I wish I were a carpenter. I was just chewing on my pen, because it seems no ideas wanted to come to me, no matter how hard I tried, and my eyes wandered down to the courtyard, where an apprentice was sawing a nice-looking board. He scrubbed away at it until the sawdust showered and the saw thrust through the wood like a knife through fresh bread. “Time to quit, Franta,” cried an admonishing voice from the work shed. Franta was so startled that he didn’t even finish, but laboriously extricated the saw from the half-cut board instead. Then I realized that “time to quit” is a higher, indeed a metaphysical command, and that something terrible would happen if Franta had finished sawing the board; that even in these unglued times there are laws which have an absolute, sacred, binding authority. I could not do otherwise, I bowed before the impressive supremacy of the phrase “time to quit” and put aside my half-chewed pen and my half-chewed thoughts, as well.
July 7, 1923
Enrique Chagoya | The Pastoral or Arcadian State, Illegal Alien's Guide to Greater America
2006 | Color lithograph
Paper size: 23.75" x 39"
Print courtesy of Shark's Ink., Lyons, Colorado
Aku Wuwu
translated from the Nuosu by Mark Bender with Aku Wuwu and Jjiepa Ayi
Dragon Egg
Should a dragon egg be placed in a grassy spot,
the torn grasses would flourish by next day.
Placed in a rice bin,
the rice would soon overflow.
Placed in a warehouse of gold and silver,
the gold and silver would increase like stones,
to be carried off at will.
Should a dragon egg be placed in the brain...
Should one be placed in the heart....
Ancient stories were like the clear light of a crescent moon. Dogs barked, sounding like the tides.
Down to this moment, each one on earth searches for dragon eggs
from within the lines of the ancient stories.
Yet, it seems that someone has placed the dragon eggs on a rough,
winding road;
getting one has become ever more difficult.
Dragon eggs, though, never seem to be placed on the path of a
person’s life;
thus only such a man as Yote syni could grow younger and younger
during his lifetime. Even so, he lived only 360 years.
It is said that one who swallows a dragon egg will be in constant
thirst.
Even a big bucket of water won’t slake that thirst,
nor will the waters of rivers and lakes.
Only waters of an ocean can stop that thirst.
It’s no dream.
So, where is the ocean that belongs to me?
And what of the feelings of an only son’s mother?
Thirsty all the time.
When did that ancient dragon egg appear in my gut?
Over time, my body has become a burning stone,
become the reason for my thirst.
At that moment, gold and silver lay rotting—
fields filled with mutated grain.
A thirst as I face the hilltops.
A thirst when facing the elders.
A thirst when facing the young couples.
A thirst when facing the infants.
A thirst when looking back 300 million years;
A thirst when looking ahead 300 million years.
“If a dragon can lay eggs, the son of a dragon must grow wings.”
Tears of an only son’s mother flying like autumn leaves.
A girl was born, last night, in the village of my dreams.
So much water was needed to produce that child.
Water for washing it burnt like fire.
Before she opened her eyes for the first time,
the drunken men in the village nicknamed
her “Lu ddur mo”: Emerging Dragon Girl.
At that moment, I was transformed into a watchdog.
Above: Dragon Egg in the original Nuosu