Calliope Michail is a Greek-born mutt, poet, translator & instruments mule currently based in London. Her poetry, translations, and other writings, have appeared in Snow Lit Rev., Berfrois and Datableed (forthcoming), while her debut poetry chapbook Along Mosaic Roads (the87press) was published in 2018, and a leaflet of watercolour/erasure poetry, The Nature of the Physical Word was printed this summer by Penteract Press. She reads and performs in London, including for the European Poetry Festival, where she first presented this poem. She occasionally tweets and retweets @catonacanto.
Transposed;
After Anna Auzina, After Andre Breton
by Calliope Michail
“Ma femme à la chevelure de feu de bois...”
André Breton
“Mans vīrietis ar jūras acīm...”
Anna Auzina
My man with eyes of ploughed earth
With olive eyes
Behind heatwave eyelids
With walnut glances
My man grinning with a half-moon smile
My man with a jackal’s soul
Turtles on his shores
Difficult to sail through his meltemia
My man
Whose forehead is an aerial map
Along whose forehead potholed streets collide
On whose forehead marble crumbles
My man with hair of sunset shadows
With sea urchin hair
With hair that ripples like overgrown weeds
Whose cheeks are coral reefs
With fish weaving and jellyfish heaving
My man
Whose neck is a sun-kissed boulder
And whose nose is a kaiki
Whose belly billows like a white sail
My man whose chest is 6000 shorelines
Whose chest is a pair of blue shutters
Whose shoulders are unfinished developments
And dirt paths
My man with stray cats in his armpits
His shoulder blades are mountains and ravines
His waist is a wild goat
And the first wildfire
His back is a constellation
His ass is a football and yesterday’s spinach pie
His legs are ancient pillars
His arms are both the fish and their net
His feet are red mullets
His hands are tongue fish
Last year’s grapes swim down his throat
His fingers are pine needles
And oleander
His nails are crickets’ husks
And old orange peels
My man
Whose groins are isthmuses
Whose lap has salt pits
Whose dick is a pinecone
Whose balls are cockles
And apricots
My man
Whose children came out howling
Who himself has a newborn’s howl at his tongue
Draws a trail with his eyes
His eyebrows know the weight of hope
Mouth of a boiling hot spring
Ears of a limestone cave
My man cursing in one breath
Praising in that same breath
My man the wind, the asphalt, the sea
My man on his knees
If only it were just
In awe
Mans vīrietis ar jūras acīm...
Recording of the original in Latvian:
My Man with Sea Eyes…
by Anna Auzina
Translated by Ieva Lešinska
“Ma femme à la chevelure de feu de bois.”
André Breton
My man with eyes of sea at sunset
With ice floe eyes
Behind eyelids of mist
With neon glances
My man squinting with one eye
My man with a polar bear’s soul
Seaweed on his shores
Difficult to sail through his fjords
My man
Whose forehead is an iceberg
Along whose forehead clouds float
On whose forehead snowdrops bloom
My man with hair of noon
With pussy willow hair
With hair that unfolds like a piece of silk
Whose cheeks are mown fields
With snakes crawling and tractors chugging
My man
Whose neck is a thunderstorm
And whose nose is a steamboat
Whose belly steams like soil in spring
My man whose chest is a mountain of glass
Whose chest is the wailing wall
Whose shoulders are roots of ancient forests
And castle steps
My man with Icelandic moss in his armpits
His shoulder blades are cliffs
His waist is a deer
And the first snow
His back is a ski run
His ass is a football and yesterday’s rolls
His legs are water towers
His arms are both seagulls and their nest
His feet are pike
His hands are salmon
Last years grass burns in his hands
His fingers are ultra short wave
And reed flutes
His nails are bon bons
And old seashells
My man
Whose groins are bridges
Whose lap has gravel pits
Whose dick is an icicle
Whose balls are sea pebbles
And green tomatoes
My man
Whose children being born smelled so sweet
Who himself has a baby’s mouth
Trolls mouth at nipple
Mouth of an oath of silence
Ears of a vault
My man holding his breath
My man the deep, the garden, the shelter
My man on his knees
In awe
