This week’s Translation Tuesday draws us into the mind of a middle-aged woman named Maria, who is struggling to find a job. As she moves through her humdrum morning routine, Maria’s thoughts stray to her parents, her husband, and her former employer, and, from these fragmentary memories, we begin to piece together the circumstances that led to her current situation. In a prose colored with pathos and loneliness, Anna Weidenholzer, in Elisabeth Lauffer’s translation, nevertheless maintains a lightness and humor that make this story a pleasure to read.
When he opens the door, I’ll say, Thank you for the invitation. I’ll say, My name is Maria Beerenberger, pleased to meet you. Have a seat, he’ll say, offering me a chair. I will have known what to wear. I will have thought about how I’d describe myself as a person. He’ll be wearing a necktie and a silver wristwatch. He’ll say, Frau Beerenberger, tell me a little bit about yourself. Gladly, I’ll say, gladly. I am familiar with the material. At least I’ve accomplished what I wanted to accomplish. And now we wait. What are you saying, he’ll ask. Frau Beerenberger, what are you talking about. Well, I’ll say, I am sitting across from you because I know the things people say, people who know what life is all about, because I’ll be one of those people. I didn’t believe in myself, you see, I didn’t believe in my future. Why, he’ll ask. Please explain. Then he’ll fall silent, lean back in his seat. Very well, I will say. As you wish. The day goes on, the light goes out, my neighbor used to say. Let’s start at the end.
We Stand With Ukraine: “The Ghost of Kyiv” by B. R. Dionysius
Through his phone’s / cracked canopy he plays you a black streak / over Kyiv
In this week’s edition of literary works written in support and solidarity with the citizens of Ukraine, we are proud to present a poem by B. R. Dionysius. “The Ghost of Kyiv” movingly comments on the distancing voyeurism of watching tragedy unfold from afar, and of wide-ranging human affairs condensed into byte-sized consumption. As we continue to navigate the ever-shifting boundaries between the virtual and the real, Dionysius’ poem works between man and machine, its precise lines edging out the bodies caught within them.
The Ghost of Kyiv
Your son shows you a Tik Tok clip;
You both play Russian computer games.
Simulators that glorify World War Two/
mid-century armour & the cold war era
where each new development increased
penetration; rounds that defeated steel’s
stubborn thickness. You watch your son
take to the skies over maps of Ukraine.
1941. Get shot down a lot. The next best
thing to flying solo. Through his phone’s
cracked canopy he plays you a black streak
over Kyiv; a medieval, barbed arrowhead
punching through the sky’s grey cuirass. For
fifty years the fulcrum has been idle; three up
-grades, engines, radar, missiles, but never seen
combat. Seventies bones good enough to mix
it over the capital with its modern successors,
flankers & frogfeet; a retro jet where the ghost
got good purchase from his re-engineered multi-
role fighter. The first ace in a day in fifty years.
Not since Alam’s F-86 sabre rattled in the Indo-
Pakistani war has the aerial world revelled in six
kills in one day. Your son doesn’t bother to fact
check the video, sold on social media’s bravado;
a pilot’s last stand. He tells you the ghost was shot
down, but ejected. His short clip trimmed to fit.
READ MORE…
Contributor:- B. R. Dionysius
; Place: - Ukraine
; Writer: - B. R. Dionysius
; Tags: - machinery
, - Poetry
, - social commentary
, - social media
, - voyeurism
, - War