Inkblots

Don Cellini


Listen

Because I dwell
between whispers,

like snow,
like swallowed

secrets, I hear you
without words,

verbs of pause,
voice of marble,

the sound of e
in mute, elegant,

invisible in the
miracle of light,

in the sound
of this page

remembering pulp
remembering wood

remembering trunk
and leaves

and breeze
through its branches.
  Escucha

Porque habito
entre susurros,

como nieve,
como secretos

sigilosos, te escucho
sin palabras,

verbos de pausas,
voz de mármol,

el sonido de la h,
en hueco, espacio

invisible en el
milagro de luz,

en el sonido
de esta página

recordando pulpa
recordando madera

recordando tronco
y hojas

y una brisa
por entre sus ramas.
isbn 1-59661-092-1
47 pages/$9


The German poet Else Lasker-Schuler said "A true poet does not say azure; a true poet says blue." Thus, Don Cellini is a true poet; he uses such economy of language(s) to simultaneously pare back the world and make it expansive. These poems arrive as whispers with the intense, lyric force to reverberate like cries.
--Kristin Abraham, poet, author of Little Red Riding Hood Missed the Bus

The dual-nature of Don Cellini’s book--with poems in Spanish and English and mirror-image photos--is reinforced by its twin vertices of people and nature, humor and melancholy, solitude and solidarity. The language is so crisp and clean and polished that the poems simply beg to be read out loud. ¡Bravo!
--Sandra Kingery, translator, Of my Real Life I Know Nothing by Ana María Moix

Don Cellini is a poet, translator, and photographer. His first collection of poems, Approximations/Aproximaciones, also published by March Street Press, appeared in 2005. An electronic chapbook of translations, Like This Blind Dust/Como esta tierra ciega: Poems by Elías Nandino, was published by LanguageandCulture.Net (2007). He teaches at Adrian College in Michigan.


“Nightfall” originally appeared in Madonna Muse
“Confession/Confesión,” “Listen/Escucha,” and “Litany of Waves/Letanía de olas” appeared in Poetic Voices Without Borders 2, Gival Press, edited by Robert Giron.


Contents

Technology 2
La tecnología 3
Nightfall 6
Anochecer 7
Listen 10
Escucha 11
December 14
Diciembre 15
Ash Monday 18
Lunes de ceniza 19
Woman with the Birds 22
Mujer con los pájaros 23
Winter Storm 26
Tempestad invernal 27
No one has Walked 30
Nadie ha caminado 31
Confession 34
Confesión 35
Litany of Waves 38
Letanía de las olas 39
Not even five loaves and two fishes 42
Ni cinco panes y dos peces 43
A hundred fields, a thousand suns 46
Photos/Fotos 48