Laura Mucelli Klemm: Translated by Margaret Saine

BIO

Laura Mucelli Klemm was born in 1964 at Forbach in Lorraine, France, the child of Italian immigrants. In addition to French, she has been writing poems in her native Italian. After studying languages and literatures at the university of Nancy, she became a certified court translator and interpreter, and after further studies, a high school teacher of Italian. Art and poetry are Laura Mucelli’s passions, beyond her teaching and translating, she has sung in choirs and been active in theater and folkloric ballet. Her writing was originally a long, passionate introspection that she kept to herself, but she now participates in the movenent “Din-Animismo” created by Zairo Ferrante. In 2013, she was translated into Russian and published in the journal Cypa, and in English, by Margaret Saine, in the California Poetry Journal CQ. In 2014 she has contributed to the Italian anthology Oltre Itaca [Behond Ithaca] edited by Enrico Marco Cipollini. In 2014 she will receive a prize about a poem she wrote about her father the miner, awarded by the Cenacolo accademico europeo « Poeti nella società » [Poets in Society].

 

 

BIO

Margaret Saine was born in Germany and lives in Southern California. She writes poetry, haiku, and short stories in five languages, also translating other poets in those languages. Her books are “Bodyscapes,” “Words of Art,” 5 haiku chapbooks, plus the mss. “Awkward Child” (in German, to be published), “The Five Senses,” “Lo efímero queda” and “Reading Your Lips” (tbp). Her poetry has also been published in Italy, Germany, and India, as well as on the internet.

 

 

(All poems written in the original French by Laura Mucelli Klemm and translated into English by Margaret Saine)

 

 

L’INSTANT…

L’instant
parfois
est si pur
que l’âme
se niche
dans la nuit
qui l’étoffe
L’espace
condense
le temps.

 

THE INSTANT…

The instant
sometimes
is so pure
that the soul
will nest
in the night
that fills it out
Space
condenses
time.

 

LIENS

Les larmes sont mortes
à bon escient
sans crainte
et sans regrets

brisant le cycle infernal
du souvenir amère
L’âme flotte
sur un plan vertical
annulant la Fin
L’émotion devient
un terrain fertile
qui monte et qui descend
au gré des mots
et des rencontres bienvenues
sans être attendues
C’est le prix du confort
d’un jour d’existence
Si les empreintes ont une mesure
je les adapte à ma pointure
Demain
c’est toi
c’est moi
c’est nous
de l’aube au crépuscule
car tout recommence
inlassablement
dans ce Jardin
que j’aime
et que j’arpente
De l’intérieur
à l’extérieur
sur ma route des Indes
l’île est en Soi
génératrice
Je hisse les voiles
comme une multitude
d’échos lumineux
qui colorent mon espace
visiblement harmonieux
soufflant mon propre transport
Une quête obstinée
se sait vivante.

 

TIES THAT BIND

The tears are dead
deliberately
fearlessly
and without regrets

breaking the infernal cycle
of bitter memories
The soul floats
on a vertical plane
canceling out the End
Emotion becomes
a fertile soil
rising and descending
at the desire of words
and welcome encounters
unexpectedly arriving
It’s the price of comfort
of one day’s existence
If the footprints have a measure
I will adapt them to my size
Tomorrow
it’s you
it’s me
it’s us
from sunrise to sunset
for all begins anew
untiringly
in this Garden
that I love
and that I walk in
From the inside
toward the outside
on my voyage to the Indies
the island in itself
is fertile
I raise the sails
like a multitude
of luminous echoes
that color my visibly
harmonious space
breathing a joy of transport
An obstinate quest
that knows it’s alive.

 

UN HOMME
MON HISTOIRE…

Ses yeux
deux ombres
sa flamme
mon souffle
son serment
ma Lune
Il me courbe
je l’ancre

Son reflet
mon regard…

 

A MAN
MY STORY…

His eyes
two shadows
his fire
my breath
his word
my moon
He bends me
I anchor him

His reflection
my gaze…

 

*****