Paul Celan and the Fugue of Logos

In the beginning was Schwarze Milch,

it was shaken into shapes and out came black milk,

I do not drink the holocaust in the English

rendition, it does not convey, nor tell,

it only apes the original, like they say of Yann Martel,

It has not the consistency of death and torture,

seems to be watered down in tone and the diction

but who am I to know? whose word do I share?

I can only go by my heart and ear, not by Deutsch,

Yet, am I a liar? I read the poem, Babi Yar

by Yevgeni Yevtushenko, not once did I protest,

like the bystanders, next to the pit, it was in Russian,

and I read it in the mother tongue: in this Babel

all truths and all knowledge ends in English

So Margarete and Ann, must from gold to copper

descend, and love to like, from atrocity to the weakest

synonym, and the myths behind the trees, like Hölderlin,

courtesy of David Constantine, are melodious to the eye,

but one must listen, carefully to the voice of Paul Celan

then one realises, there is more than meets the text,

it is in the mouth, the milk, the taste of deadly horror.