Trinity Journal of Literary Translation
Online: Onward, onward, noble steed
Onward, onward, noble steed
to the place my face can follow
to the place where the noontime hour illuminates the night.
Forward, backward, onward, what do we care
if the arrow points here or there for all arrows are traitors in the horizons’ circuit.
Onward, onward, noble steed, train with a driver gone mad,
whistling through night’s gardens, happy for no reason,
lost in the labyrinth, my steed. Whinny, rejoice,
not for love, not for anything,
hurrying toward your fate, rejoice toward birth, rejoice.
Hyenas howl with lust,
and a sleepless young beauty shrieks at the pages of a story
you crushed beneath your hooves and a poem onto which you liberally emptied
the contents of your bladder. Whinny, rejoice, and gallop on
among the spears, gallop on
between the teeth of killers, my steed, gallop on over the faces of the dead
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trans. Emily Drumsta