To a Hindu Goddess

I drove her to a temple by the sea
on a World Bank moped,
a triple A rice spirit
two hours late for a ceremony.
She showed me a brochure
her face on it,
& practised a vengeful look
in her handbag mirror.
Chanting bamboo pages, annals & spells,
she sharpened her scythe, worn down
by the last imagined harvest.
I loved her then, but she
was spoken for,
underwritten,
payment dates
& the humble gifts I gave that day
deferred
to a distant, fiercer god.

An eine Hindu Göttin

Ich fuhr sie zu einem Tempel am Meer
auf einem Weltbank-Moped,
ein AAA-Reis Elan
zwei Stunden zu spät für eine Zeremonie.
Sie zeigte mir eine Broschüre
ihr Gesicht darauf,
& übte einen rachesüchtigen Ausdruck
in ihrem Taschenspiegel.
Bambusseiten singend, Berichte & Zaubersprüche,
schliff sie ihre Sense, stumpf
von der jüngsten Phantasieernte.
Ich liebte sie damals, aber sie
war vergeben,
verbürgt,
Zahlungsfristen
& die bescheidenen Gaben, die ich an jenem Tag darbrachte
wurden einbehalten
von einem fernen, grimmigerem Gott.

Übersetzt von Gerald Ganglbauer

Catching Breath

Worn out, slow and breathless as a bird
on a ten minute migration, I stop
to catch my breath
at a Foxtel dish on a fruit juice stand.
So this is America – the West Pacific
with height restriction,
gunshots only car exhausts.
The juicegirl turns up the juicer,
then the TV:
"If it sounded close, we ducked"
Venus the Harlem tennis-babe smiled
at the interviewer on Sports Sunday.
'My biggest weapon's not
my serve, but Dad's AK 47!'
I wonder what to do
when Mormons approach,
souls in training, triathletes of the bible.
Their goody goody looks make me tense.
They shouldn't jog in suits.
When to sing, when not to: that's life for a bird in the city.
Senators in thongs
sign footpath licences for friends.
Back at the hardware store
the war against insects hotting up
on a magnetised Creepy Crawly Fumapest chart.
The cockroach thrives on stale air
Public Enemy No. 1
foraging Ben Buckler' s stucco bunkers.
Only a fine blue powder
under a poster for new ideas
peeling off the rising damp will keep them there.
And the bird wonders
at the vast space it flew across
braving microwave static
to get here.
Preening on the people's beach,
the Empire starlight twinkles in its head.