brianbrock.com Imaginary Poems in Translation everyone burns at once in the Mirror of Other reflecting flecks refracting fractures culture moves in waves through culture and yet I am a particle, up against the glass campfires tremble across the darkening valley drunken fever howls in the twisting wind I vex at the clatter of spoon in cold soup bats cleave black against the sky An Imaginary Poem in Two Translations 1. Rings of fire brand the sinners’ scalps: our blood, the brood construes, betrays the God. Who stop the spring of life-sustaining love will hungry reck on gods begot in flesh. 2. A halo limns around our mortal crown: divine unveil of lively human truth. Who barely bless a dog with food or drink abode divine if animal ate words. O! Coronary star, shimmering past the moonshadow, whose strange light stopped sound, I basked aloud in your umbra, in Oregon, ah! August, solo, wife accident'ly— then wept—"what if… it never returns…?“—'til you showed—but shouldn't— “Coronavirus” clockwork-creeps to conscious thought: Word of Doom, thing immaterially thinking. Matters not the manner—when? The thinging ring of fire is ringing (-inging, -inging)—when? Listen seers, turn leaves in scarlet darking deeps, in hut in window mirrors. Ring the bell: as rulers fruit and ruin, letters witness questions read aloud. ("Rings of Fire") Brian Brock, summer 2020