Category: Chaim Semiatitski (Khayim Semiatitsky)

  • Warsaw

    The yoke is upon you, city, / forged to your stony shoulders, / for you’re hitched to hundreds of cities / and a violent con, a flogger, holds the reins.

  • Landscapes

    On the downy snow-bed / nights lie and serenely sleep, / in stalls, cows doze …

  • At the Tips of Trees

    At the tips of trees, days die, / at the tips of trees, magnificent dawns arise – / I am also a tree – and it will be the same for me.

  • My Guest

    On the street / the trodden snow lies. / Its countenance is pale / and it cries.

  • Warding Off the Evil Eye Talk (Folk Style)

    Two gals sitting on a mossy stone / gab about God, grass, and the marvel of horseradish root / which in winter hides with the worm deep in the ground / until it detects the thunder’s sound.

  • From the Cycle: Who Knows From Whence My Poem

    The linden shelters the twilight / like a leaf among its branches, / its flower enfolding the night in a bud / till dawn

  • It’s This Night

    It’s this night and this book and this poem I read / while being birthed, this night had heard my first scream

  • In My Shabby Home

    In my shabby home my kingdom blooms. / Daily at the window dawn arrives / with a tiding that the sky is now clad in blue.

  • Evening by the River

    Evening arrives at / the river’s shore in rose slippers / tells the white geese to go to sleep / and corrals a herd of stars / to bathe in the river.

  • Night Songs

    The night – a hungry dark dog – / as licked the red blood of the west / and quietly laid down on the earth / three crows stand on my roof and curse; / one pecks at my heart, / the heart has bloodied my way now dogs lick at my ways