NaPoMo Day 28 Translation

L’accent grave*
Jacques Prévert
from Paroles
French version here

The teacher
Hamlet!

Hamlet (jumping up)
Huh…what…sorry…what happened…what is it…what’s up?...


The teacher (annoyed)
Can’t you say “present” like everyone else? It’s not possible, you are still in the clouds.


Hamlet
To be or not to be in the clouds!

The teacher
That’s enough. Not so many ways. And conjugate the verb to be, like everyone else, it’s all I’m asking.

Hamlet
Être…

The teacher
In English, please, like everyone else.


Hamlet
OK, Mr. (He conjugates:)
I am or I am not
You are or you are not
He is or he is not
We are or we are not…

Teacher
(excessively annoyed)
But it’s you who is not there, my poor friend!

Hamlet
That’s it, Mr. Teacher,
I am “where”** I’m not
And, in the end, huh, at the reflection, to be “where” not to be
That might also be the question.

*This is an accent in French, like this: où. If you translate the words literally it means ‘the grave accent.’ Take that as you will, and see the next note to get why Prévert chose it as the title.
** ‘Ou’ means or but ‘où’ means where. So this one is intentionally a double entendre, but it doesn’t translate that way in English.

NaPoMo Day 27 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:
Prompt courtesy Rach: Write a poem about prom night: While the seniors dance at Prom Night in Some Small Town, Middle America--a town of about 3,000—a tornado hits the town, destroying about a third of it. When the kids emerge from the dance, they discover what's happened.

We the survivors of prom night
didn’t feel our town crush, old receipt to the tornado’s
cracked fist. We thought the ceiling rained glitter
on our hair. Our town is small, but enough of us
in this sweating gymnasium and we can repopulate.
We’re not thinking of this as the guitarist riffs
something from the 70s, safe for our chaperones,
something that makes our backs bend, brings us closer
to the floor and to each other. Prom ends like it always
ends, desperate embraces like this is our last night.
Like we have survived a disaster. And then we realize
we have survived a disaster. We have lost our limos
to the spin. We have lost our stop signs our diner our cherry
blossoms. We do not panic, try to find home, get lost. Funny
how the landmarks guided us before. We see our house
has been scattered. In the middle of the yard, a small table
with our black cat on it. We find a pile of homethings: sewing
kit, dreamcatcher, energy saving light bulbs. How does a tornado
decide what it can do without? We scatter playing cards across
the ground. We meet a skeleton. We ask, who were you?
He can’t talk, but he breathes notes from the ribs
of that horn. A melody we don’t want to hear.
We plug our ears with bulbs.

NaPoMo Day 27 Translation

I've seen several
Jacques Prévert
from Paroles
French version here

I saw one who was sitting on the hat
of another
he was pale
he trembled
he was waiting for something…doesn’t matter what
the war…the end of the world…
it was absolutely impossible for him to make a move or talk
and the other
the other who was looking for “his” hat was even paler
and he trembled also
and repeated himself nonstop
my hat…my hat
and he wanted to cry.
I saw one who read the newspapers
I saw one who saluted the flag
I saw one who was dressed in black
he had a watch
a watch chain
a wallet
the legion of honor
and a pince-nez
I saw one who led his child by the hand and shouted
I saw one with a dog
I saw one with a cane sword
I saw one who cried
I saw one who went into a church
I saw one who left it…

NaPoMo Day 26 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Central
At the center of the frame a man, taller than most, holds
hands with a short woman, and in his palm stands a miniature

man in a suit. At the center of a café at the center of a small
town the man in the palm thinks he is the center of everyone’s
world. But he’s in the right hand of the tall man which means

he’s a little to the left. The miniature thinks he is the tall man’s
right hand, but he’s just in it. The tall man at center is in a trench

coat and black top hat. His calves shift his weight, but he’s still
at the center of the short woman’s gaze. She’s his right hand

man. Her feet push pumps into the concrete,
which is at the center of two roads.

NaPoMo Day 26 Translation

The beautiful season
Jacques Prévert
from Paroles
French version here

Hungry* lost frozen
All alone without a dime
A sixteen year old girl
Standing still
Place de la Concorde
At noon the fifteenth of August

*Hungry is not really the right word here, but it's the closest thing we have in English to "a jeun," which means that someone has not yet eaten in the morning, after a long sleep.

NaPoMo Day 25 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Souvenir
We walk on the beach. The moon is shedding
orange light on the waves, in our pupils, across
the hulking clutch of the ferris wheel. You tell me
the science behind the harvest. We are dressed
in tangerine.

The moments only happen once. I know because
I had words like this tattoed on my shoulder
and side. You tell me about sediment transport
as I carve letters into a dune with a stick. I love
is a complete sentence. I don’t need a direct
object.

You know you know you know stories of men
who played music on trains, purple hearts
in the war, weird statues made of computer
parts, but you don’t know we don’t know
three years from now you will breathe
along my hips, half-dressed and still
curious, an orange peel on the ledge and tubas
blaring from the tracks.

NaPoMo Day 22-25 Translations

I'm rocking the poem a day challenge. I can feel it. My voice has really come into its own. I wish I could say the same for the translation a day challenge. But the more I try to translate poems, the more I realize I really can't at my level. The best I can promise is that I'll give you a general sense of the poem. I'm stoked to see how that will change as I keep learning more about this language.

Day 22
Where I’m going, where I’m from
Jacques Prévert
from La pluie et le beau temps
French version here

Where I’m going, where I’m from
Why I am soaked
Come on, you can see.
It’s raining.
The rain, it’s rain.
I’m going down, and then
And then that’s it.
Follow your path
Like I follow mine.
It’s for my pleasure
That I wallow in the mud.
The rain, it makes me laugh.
I laugh at everything and everything and everything.
If you cry easily
Go back home
Cry for yourself
But leave me
Leave me, leave me leave me, leave me.
I don’t want to hear the sound of your voice,
Follow your path
Like I follow mine.
The only man who I loved
it was you who killed him
Clubbed, trampled…
finished.
I saw his blood run
run into the creek
into the creek.
Follow your path
like I follow mine
The man who I loved
is dead, his head in the mud.
That I can hate you
hate you…it’s crazy…it’s crazy…it’s crazy
And you you wait on me,
you are too good for me,
way too good, believe me.

You are good…good like the rat keeper is good for the rat…
but one day…one day will come when the rat will bite you…
Follow your path,
good men…fine men.


Day 23
Memory
Jacques Prévert
from La pluie et le beau temps
French version here

Twenty years after one hundred years later
still the sordid musketeers
still the same swashbucklers
still the carriers of the banner
Child I saw an image
of men in black clothes with a green face
standing around a man named Ferrer
Oh poor living men
how you have tough adversaries
still the same without one change
oh unhappy executioners
similar to those before.


Day 24
Familiar
Jacques Prévert
from La pluie et le beau temps
French version here

The mother does the knitting
The son goes to war
She finds this all natural the mother
And the father what is he doing the father?
He does business
His wife the knitting
His son the war
He his business
Hi finds this all natural the father
And the son and the son
What does he find the son?
He doesn’t find anything absolutely nothing the son
The son his mother does the knitting his father his business he the war
When he has finished the war
He will do business with his father
The war goes on the mother goes on she knits
The father goes on he does his business
The son is killed he doesn’t go on anymore.
The father and the mother go to the cemetery
They find this all natural the father and the mother
Life continues life with knitting the war business
Business the war the knitting the war
Business business business
Life with the cemetery.

Day 25
At the florist's
Jacques Prévert
from La pluie et le beau temps
French version here


A man enters a florist's
and chooses flowers
the florist wraps the flowers
the man put his hand in his pocket
to get some money
money to pay for the flowers
but at the same time he puts
suddenly
his hand on his heart
and he falls

At the same time that he falls
the money rolls on the ground
and then the flowers fall
at the same time as the man
at the same time as the money
and the florist stays there
with the money that rolls
with the flowers that rot
with the man who dies
obviously all this is very sad
and she has to do something
the florist
but she doesn’t know how to take it
she doesn’t know
what to start with

There are so many things to do
with this man who died
and these flowers that rot
and this money
this money that rolls
that won’t stop rolling.

NaPoMo Day 24 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Another personal one. Not ready to share the whole thing, but here's an excerpt. Happy Easter!

Lady, there’s a lion in your lap
You and I know he is always going
to go for the feather in your hat. Paws
will dirty your skirts. You can keep
this lion, lady, but not on your lap.

NaPoMo Day 23 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:


April: thinking of rain
after Jane Kenyon
First, the slick drop on my window,
the mist through the screen. I remember
we had a bird in a cage. My brother and I
would set it outside as we ran around
the yard. Grass crunched, flowers bloomed.
Sometimes he would chase me with a toy
gun. Most days, I am the bird.
When it rains, I feel like the cage.

NaPoMo Day 22 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Nude woman talks to a skeleton
Skeleton you are
my friend. Look
what you have
achieved. Shed
muscle and sinew,
cartilage and skin,
until you’ve only
curves of rib, jaw,
spine. You did it
skeleton, but you
are rusted now,
because it is raining
and because you have
nothing on your
person. How silly
you would look
carrying an umbrella.
Skeleton, if you insist
on being only a
skeleton, I wish
you would wear
some clothes.

NaPoMo Day 21 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Amateurs
Here’s an elderly couple, upset with a boy for clapping
between thunder and lightning flash. It distracts the raven,
they say. It won’t bring the storm inside.

He knows they are crazy. Knew it since he saw them grasping
the wire fence at his game. He went with them for the thrill.

They do this on Sundays. Find someone willing to play, pay
if they must. Last week it was a hippie at the beach – dread
locks twisted beneath a paisley bandana – they posed him
with a tiger cub and plums shining on hooks.

The couple is not looking for a certain aesthetic. They want
only to capture something unique. A suited boy stroking
a raven, the antlers heavy on his head; a young mother
in a tutu licking grains of salt from between her fingers,

or most recently, themselves, spooning oatmeal at dinner,
mixing mixing until the berries swirl color in their bowls.

In their spoons, hummingbirds. In their cups, cotton. They still
can’t get the shot. So they wait for the image that rounds
their lips. The one that contracts their pupils.

NaPoMo Day 21 Translation

Clouds
Jacques Prévert
from La pluie et le beau temps
French version here

I went to get my wool from a young goat and it followed me
the gray
he is wary not like the older one
he is still too small

She was teeny tiny too
but something inside her already felt old like the world

Already
she knew of terrible things
for example
that she must be wary
and she looked at the kid and the kid looked at her
and she wants to cry
He is like me
she says
a little sad and a little giddy
And then she had a big smile
and the rain begins to fall

NaPoMo Day 20 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Prompt: List 10 facts that make today seem different than any other day. Craft these facts into a poem. The common thread between the facts is the title.

Creation
A friend paints sea creatures for a nursery
at my dining room table. Pressed against
muscle and bone, the hard point of her son.
She lets me touch the fold of him. We have
been crafting tonight. It is almost Easter.
A painted egg is staring at me from a crate,
and for once there is nothing in the background.
No glow of the plasma screen TV, no blurred
lyrics spreading over us from dusty speakers.
It was 84 degrees today, and the pizza man
made a vegetarian turnover. We discuss
creation. How she can’t know which features
she will give her children. She would like them
to match, the way the paint on these wooden
fish matches the walls. She has nightmares
they will not be uniform, that they will stack
like men in old photos. The tallest in the middle,
an average brother and very short brother
on his flanks, all in trench coats and top
hats. All holding canes. I tell her I’m sure
they will be beautiful. Their filmed smiles
will inspire poets. Chinese tea eggs simmer
in a pot. She asks me about my day as we breathe
the spiced air. I answer: a frenchman thought
my translation of a song was perfect and no ducks
approached me in the park.

NaPoMo Day 19 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Woman finds two kids on an old metal slide
They say three women make a market.
But how about one woman and two
goats? She has no idea what to do
with these kids. She knows she can
not use their milk, their bones, their
hides any more than she could pluck
the bigger from the top of that slide.
A goat atop a slide sees further than
a goat at the base. That’s why he trots
on the way down, hooves cautiously
kneading the metal beneath him at each
step. Does or bucks? She strives to find
a purpose for them. She lets those horizontal
slitted pupils follow her to a tree. If angled,
she has heard, the goats will climb it. Their bleats
ascend; the woman tilts to watch them sniff, lick
each groove in the bark. She is not surprised
when they return to her, nibble her buttons, her plaid
camera case, the soft summer of her hair.

NaPoMo Day 20 Translation

Love to the robot
Jacques Prévert
from La pluie et le beau temps
French version here

A man writes to the machine a love letter and the
machine responds to the man and to the hand and to the place
of the recipient
She is really a perfectionist this machine
the machine for washing checks and love letters
And the man in the comfort of his
machine for living reads to the machine for reading the response
of the machine
for writing
And in his machine for dreaming with his machine for calculating
he buys a machine for lovemaking
And in his machine for realizing he dreams he makes love
to the machine for writing and the machine for making love
And the machine cheats on him with a gadget
a gadget for dying of laughter.

NaPoMo Day 18 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Lonely woman shares tips for making the perfect men with a crowd
Mold the body from cotton and clay. Dress
him in a suit and tie. He is the base for your
little Frankensteins. Don’t forget the neck
is a seam. The idea is to hide the hem, to twist
off and exchange the heads with discretion.
See, the paper doll companies got it
all wrong. We want one body and we want
heads, unshrunken, beautiful heads. You can make
them from the body’s spare parts, weave the scraps
until they stare into you. Fill their skulls with tokens:
rusted coins for the negotiator, a mike for the vocalist.
Craft each head into what you’ve always wanted
to be. Remember, every woman should have
a repairman. The lover, the protector, if they matter
to you. I need them all, and more. Last piece of advice:
at night sleep with the body alone. It doesn’t need
a mind to hold you in its arms. Let the heads
watch you together from your dresser, if you like,
or hang them from the racks in your armoire. As long
as they can see. If you dare leave one attached,
it will think it is yours.

NaPoMo 2011 Day 17 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Husband and wife talk to a therapist about communication issues
The wife has glued her lips together and sewn
the skin of her husband’s neck to a 12 bolt
diving helmet. Fused his body hair to the fabric
of a scuba suit. She wants to know why they cannot
communicate.

The wife is terrified of water, of losing her husband
to the slick of it. Still, she refuses to loosen the stitch.
Instead she cuffs herself to his arm in the shower,
the pool, walking through the sprinklers, even when it rains.

She knows the ocean is the only place he does not suffer
from vertigo. She can see he is dizzied by cold anywhere
but the sea. Each time he grows a gill, she threads a needle.

NaPoMo 2011 Day 16 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Judges’ comments to the beauty pageant contestants
Women, eight of you, the sum
of your beautiful parts. 16 panty
hosed legs, 64 abdominal muscles
that sing of heated symmetry hidden
beneath the curves of your veldted
flesh. 640 strokes of a tiny paint
brush across 160 manicured nails.

Eight finalists, grazing the stage.
Eight lower lips, five widows
peaks. Eight pairs of pumps. Is eight
your lucky number, 13? Liberty rolls,
bobby pins, powder applied at the high
of your cheekbone and brushed
toward your temples.

Women, eight of you, the secret
is this: you can all win. Just fan
yourselves out, mount our table,
smother us
like the mangled
spider that you are.

NaPoMo 2011 Day 15 Poem

Oh. Em. Gee. It's my America poem. It's my rodeo poem. It's a New Jersey poem. I am beyond excited about this. I cannot wait to (heavily) revise this. I want to play with the details, and work the epigraph in more. Here's the first draft.



Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

The rodeo comes to Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall

It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

It occurs to me that I am learning
America at the rodeo. The pleated
dismount of the clown
from the bleachers,
the glitter of the horse
trainer. Studs and spurs forever.

My daddy gave me this flag, this pistol
before he took me to see the cowboys
get bucked at Boardwalk Hall. A rodeo bag
with seven years of America crammed inside
hangs from my shoulders. My favorites: a baby
seal sticker. A half missing sheet of candy
buttons. Seeds from a Jersey tomato.

It occurs to me that this announcer
is America. She doesn't want to buck
tonight, he tells us. I’ve been doing this
for forty years, and I can tell you that cowboy
came here to buck and he’s gonna do it.

A cowboy from Bridgeton mounts
a bull. His daddy was a Mexican
fightin bull and he will hook your shorts,
my father tells me. The floor is sticky.
And they are cheering for the cowboys
and they are cheering for the animals.
This is the rodeo, this is how it has
always been. I am not meant to know.

NaPoMo Day 15-19 Translations

Catching up from camping weekend. These were done quick and dirty, so I'm sure there are plenty of errors/misunderstandings for you to sink your teeth into.

Day 15
The daughter of wind
Olivia Ruiz
from The Chocolate Woman
Video here

Yes, I have character
A wicked temperament
Which is credited to my mom
Of worry and of torment
It’s what I have in my arteries
My tannins and my pigments
Which make up the blood and the earth
Like lava from a volcano

I am the daughter of wind
Who crosses the mountains
I torment the passers-by
By stealing their clothes
I defy all the currents
All the greased stars
That pass while dreaming
In platinum and champagne

Yes, I have character
A wicked temperament
Which is credited to my mom
Of worry and of torment
It’s what I take from my father
The passion and enthusiasm
That \make the huts quake
And make the lovers hug

I am the daughter of wind
Who crosses the mountains
To assault the passers-by
The cities and the country
I am wary of convents
And the gods wearing cloth
For I carry in my blood
All the wounds of Spain

Yes I am complete
And I move forward
Without listening to my father
The warnings
It’s that I’m like my mom
I got it at birth
The glow of lightning
The force of wind

I who am his daughter
I carry madness
The beauties of Castile
Or of Andalusia
I hold to my family
That today I am
I tip my banderilles
Faced with dangers of life

For I have a temper
His damn character
Which makes me tell my father
That I am his white hair
That I am his white hair


Day 16
The right to look
Jacques Prévert
from La pluie et le beau temps
French version here

You
I do not look at you
My life doesn’t look at you either
I like what I like
and that alone looks at me
and sees me
I like what I like
I look at them
they give me the right


Day 17
The river
Jacques Prévert
from La pluie et le beau temps
French version here

Your young breasts glisten beneath the moon
But he threw
The frozen pebble
The cold stone of jealousy
On the reflection
Of your beauty
Which danced nude on the river
In the splendor of summer


Day 18
When…
Jacques Prévert
from La pluie et le beau temps
French version here

When the lion cub takes lunch
the lioness gets younger
When the fire claims its share
the earth blushes
When the dead speaks to him of love
Life trembles
When life talks to him of death
love smiles.

Day 19
Janine I
Camille
from Le Fil
Have a listen here

Why do you call me Janine
when my name is Therese?

Why do you call me Ardeche
when my name is Correze?

Why do you call me triangle
when my name is trapezoid?

Why do you call me Louis XV
when my name is Louis XVI?

Why do you call me rooster egg
when my name is omelet?

Why do you call me oboe
when my name is trumpet?

Why do you call me Don Juan
when I have a tiny prick?

Why do you call me cap
when my name is helmet?

NaPoMo 2011 Day 14 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Rentre dedans

There is an elephant in your
apartment. He is oblong,
he is taking more space
than he needs. His trunk
is sopping water from
a sink full of bubbles.
His tusk is prodding
me from between
the banister. You have
to move. But how are you going
to get this elephant in your car? Look,
since as long as he can remember,
this elephant has wanted to be
smaller, like a calf or large
pig, the kind of animal
who can fit in a tea cup
when he is born. You can
not stuff an elephant, not
this elephant, into your car.
Every wrinkle that does not fit
cuts him to the quick. The older
the car, the less likely the elephant
will want to ride in it. You try
everything. You sprinkle
peanuts on the seats, but
this is not enough to get him
in. It is still four walls and a roof.

NaPoMo Day 13 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Just so you all know, I am definitely revisiting this one. Just did NOT have the strength to write a real Snooki poem during catch-ups. Cinquains are enablers of cheating.

Love Song for Snooki

Some men
made a giant
pickle for Snooki. Soaked
in brine, jarred and frozen till half
her size.

Will you
take it, Nicole, this absurdist
portrait, curve into its
hollows? Do it
for them.

NaPoMo Day 12 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Watermelon Shame

The way my daddy slices you open,
sharp metal sawing the rind of you.
She is asking for it, he says. Look
at the way she blushes inside, seeds
choked with juice. See how the ants
can feel her opening, the beetles, watch
them dance toward her sugary flesh.
I do not want this slaughtered
sweetness, the swelling bright
of you weighing on my jaw,
my hands, sinking into my molars.
Drink, son, let her waters run
from your lips until they turn
red. She has been waiting.

NaPoMo 2011 Day 11 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

We don't want this

stinking sweet cement
beneath our feet. We do
not want this birthday
cake let it dance in the
rain until the green
of its icing runs
into the sewers, drips
down, falls down like
our mother, the day her
knees gave as she pulled
our favorite cake from
the oven, the day her recipe
card found the pocket
between the hutch
and the cracked
molding. We don’t see
it again until we re-paint.
We don’t see her again.
No, we do not want this
cowboy world on a thread,
and we can’t sing
worth a damn.

NaPoMo Day 14 Translation

This one was fun to translate, because I had heard the song lots of times but never really verbalized the meaning. What an awesome, weird premise.

The Chocolate Woman
Olivia Ruiz
from The Chocolate Woman


Size my hips with the axe
I ate too much chocolate
Crack my skin, if you like
Crack my bones, if you must

It’s a time of great metamorphosis

On the edge of my tiny breasts
Penetrating, pointed and plump
Two nuts, crack! You eat them

It’s a time of great metamorphosis

On the edge of my parted lips
grows a red silver raspberry
Could you kiss me to cut it?


Knead my hips with kisses
I become the chocolate woman
Let my hips melt Nutella
The blood that runs in me is hot chocolat


One day I’m going to fly away
To cross the sky to force it to swell…
And I’ll yawn lighting
A comet planted between the teeth
But on the earth, waiting
I transform into the chocolate woman

Size my hips with the axe
I ate too much chocolate…

NaPoMo Day 13 Translation

The return home
Jacques Prévert
from Paroles
French version here

There’s a man from Brittany who returns to his mother country
After having done several bad things
He walks past the factories of Douarnenez
He doesn’t recognize anyone
No one recognizes him
He is very sad.
He enters a creperie to eat crepes
But he can’t eat them
He has something that stops them from passing
He pays
He leaves
He lights a cigarette
But he can’t smoke it
There is something
Something in his head
Something bad
He is more and more sad
And suddenly he remembers:
Someone told him when he was small
“You will finish on the scaffold”
And through the years
He never dared do anything
Not even cross the road
Not even go to sea
Nothing absolutely nothing
He remembers
The one who predicted all this was his uncle Gresillard
Uncle Gresillard who carried unhappiness to everyone
Oh man!
And the man from Brittany thinks of his sister
Who works at Vaugirard
Of his brother killed in war
Thinks of all the things he has seen
All the things he has done.
The sadness tightens around him
He tries anew
To light a cigarette
But he does not want to smoke
So he decides to go to his Uncle Gresillard’s house
He goes there
He opens the door
The uncle doesn’t recognize him
But he recognizes him
And he says
“Hello uncle Gresillard”
And then he twists his neck
And he finishes on the scaffold in Quimper
After having eaten two dozen crepes
And smoked one cigarette.

NaPoMo 2011 Day 10 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Foxhead

The sailor’s hand moves
like a current, flashing bristles
through the fur of his pet
foxhead. On a surfaced submarine,
he strokes cold teeth against
his fox’s mounted scalp.
A small white cat sneers, calms,
sniffs the fox. The man’s beard
is pushing wiry hairs toward the sea.

NaPoMo 2011 Day 9 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Poem done and intensely personal. But here's the title:

Letter to the black bear who put his paw on my shoulder during a sad time

NaPoMo 2011 Day 8 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Prompt: poem answers the question ‘what is the girl going to saw?’ It must also include the action of sawing and the separation of what has been sawed.

I ask the little girl in a plaid dress what she is going to do with her saw

NaPoMo 2011 Day 12 Translation

The Dunce
Jacques Prévert
from Paroles
French version here

He says no with the head
But he says yes with the heart
He says yes to what he loves
He says no to the professor
He stands
We question him
And all the problems are posed
Suddenly laughter takes him
And he erases everything
The digits and the words
The dates and the names
The sentences and the traps
And despite the teacher’s warnings
Under the boos of child prodigies
With multicolored chalk
On the black chalkboard of unhappiness
He draws the face of happiness.

NaPoMo 2011 Day 7 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:

Poem for my friend

They say you are the mosquito, friend,
wings beaten and heart small
all proboscis and no bite.
Little fly, they want to know
why you think you are a crane.
Let them bait you, friend, with the pulse
of white heat beneath their skin. They crave
the tickle of your mouthparts
working their skin. They wish
to become dragonflies, wish to hunt
and smear you.

Friend, you are the bike. Pedal driven and human
powered. Your frame the center of gravity, rotating
on a piercing axle. If you must support this load, friend,
you must find someone to clean your chain, your spokes,
your sprockets. Someone to keep you suspended, keep you
from rusting.

Friend, they say you are the pagoda, attracting
lightning because you were made too high. What
do they know of your structure? What do they
know of the charge that pulls you up, up, up?

You are the lotus, friend, that the pagoda
represents. Not the flower but the plant. Men
disagree about where your family should belong.
Why must they refuse to let you live this terrestrial
life, friend, just because you choose to sit on the surface?

NaPoMo Day 7-11 Translations

Catching up now. Translations here. Poems to come.

Day 7
Immense and Red
Jacques Prévert
from Paroles
French version here

Immense and red
Beneath the Grand Palais
The winter sun appears
And disappears
Like it my heart will disappear
And all my blood will go
Go to look for you
My love
My beauty
And find you
There where you are.


Day 8
The garden
Jacques Prévert
from Paroles
French version here

Thousands and thousands of years
Will not be enough
To explain
The little eternal second
When you kissed me
When I kissed you
One morning under the winter light
At Montsouris Park in Paris
In Paris
On the earth
The earth which is a star.

Day 9
(took some definite liberties with this one)
Song
Jacques Prévert
from Paroles
French version here

What day are we
We are all the days
My friend
We are all our lives
My love
We love each other and we live
We live and we love each other
And we don’t know what is but life
And we don’t know what is but the day
And we don’t know what is but love.



Day 10
Breakfast
Jacques Prévert
from Paroles
French version here

He put the coffee
In the cup
He put the milk
In the cup of coffee
He put the sugar
In the coffee with milk
With the teaspoon
He turned
He drank the coffee with milk
And he put down the cup
Without talking to me
He lit
A cigarette
He had a discussion
With the smoke
He put the ashes
In the ashtray
Without talking to me
Without looking at me
He got up
He put
His hat on his head
He put on
His raincoat
Because it was raining
And he left
Under the rain
Without one word
Without looking at me
And me, I took
My head in my hand
And I cried.


Day 11
You are going to see what you are going to see
Jacques Prévert
from Paroles
French version here

A nude girl swims in the sea
A bearded man walks on water
Where is the wonder of wonders
The miracle announced most loudly?

NaPoMo Day 6 Translation

Turns out, translating is hard. It was easy to figure out I wanted to try to translate a song. It was hard to choose a song I felt I could translate. I have to say, though, as overwhelming as this is, I'm having a blast. I know I'm taking liberties with some of these translations. Playing with tone, with what tone I have interpreted. I am learning that a good translation is rarely literal. I just hope I'm not mucking up the original work too badly.

Toi + Moi
Grégoire
from Toi + Moi
Have a listen here

You plus me plus them plus all of those who want it
Plus him plus her and all who are alone
Come on, let’s go and get into the dance
Come on let’s go, let’s be reckless

Close to a thousand, I know we can do it
Everything is possible everything is doable
We can run much higher than our dreams
We can go much farther than the strike

Oh you plus me plus them plus all of those who want it
Plus him plus her plus all who are alone
Come on, let’s go and get into the dance
Come on let’s go it’s our lucky day

With desire, power and courage
The cold, the fear are nothing but mirages
Let unhappiness fall for once
Come on let’s go, re-find yourself with me

Oh you plus me plus them plus all of those who want it
Plus him plus her and all who are alone
Come on, let’s go and get into the dance
Come on let’s go and be reckless

I know it’s true my song is naïve
Even a little stupid, but not offensive
And even if it doesn’t change the world
It invites you to get into the discussion

Oh you plus me plus them plus all of those who want it
Plus him plus her and all who are alone
Come on, let’s go and get into the dance
Come on let’s go it’s our lucky day

Hope enthusiasm make everything we need
My arms my heart my shoulders and my back
I want to see the stars in your eyes
I want to see us smiling and happy

Oh you plus me plus them plus all of those who want it
Plus him plus her and all who are alone
Come on, let’s go and get into the dance
Come on let’s go and be reckless

Oh you plus me plus them plus all of those who want it
Plus him plus her plus all who are alone
Come on, let’s go and get into the dance
Come on let’s go it’s our lucky day

Oh you plus me plus them plus all of those who want it
Plus him plus her plus all who are alone
Come on, let’s go and get into the dance
Come on, let’s go and get into the dance

NaPoMo 2011 Day 6 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:
Prompt: Think of 10 interesting cosmic questions that the chicken can ask the girl. The poem is not the questions. The poem is you answering the questions.

Young girl responds to the questions of a chicken on house arrest as she smokes a cigarette

The meaning of life? You are not meant to know. The meaning is
not in the sauce, or on the table. You won’t know until you can see

past the fire. True love? It’s waiting for you, beneath a briefcase
in a terminal in Chicago. It’s been flattened into garlic skin. Press

it against your chest. Love is an iron-on transfer. You want to know
if the sun and moon are in love, who is in the sky. The answer is old
light.

You or the egg? Toss a coin.

You ask if you will be able
to conceive. In the future
you will pull the corners
of your child and zoom in.
You will sell this technology
to every dentist in the country.

Of course Colbert is a better lay.

I don’t know much about good health,
but I saw a special on extreme coupon
clippers once.

You can still be a good parent, all juke
and no bite. Your kids will cleave
the world.

NaPoMo 2011 Day 5 Translation

Paris at Night
Jacques Prevert
from Paroles
French version here

Three matches one by one illuminated in the night
The first to see your face in its entirety
The second to see your eyes
The last to see your mouth
And the darkness all around to remind me of all of these
While holding you in my arms

NaPoMo 2011 Day 5 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:
Prompt: Write a poem in triolet form

Accouchement

How proud they were to show the stained mattress
the day I wasn’t born; they had to support each other
with straps and breath. To pose the cradle on mother’s back –
how proud they were! To show the stained mattress,
five women, ready to sanitize, ready for striking matches,
held tightly to each other, wanting to tell my mother
how proud they were. To show the stained mattress,
the day I wasn’t born, they had to support each other.

NaPoMo 2011 Day 4 Translation

Writing Page
Jacques Prevert
from Paroles
French version here

Two and two four
four and four eight
eight and eight make sixteen
Repeat! says the teacher
Two and two four
four and four eight
eight and eight make sixteen.
But there is the lyrebird
who passes in the sky
the child sees him
the child hears him

the child calls him
Save me
play with me
bird!
So the bird descends
and plays with the child

two and two four
Repeat! says the teacher
and the child plays
the bird plays with him
four and four eight
eight and eight make sixteen
and sixteen and sixteen what do they make?
They don’t make anything sixteen and sixteen
and above all not thirty-two
anyway
they leave
And the child has hidden the bird
in his desk
and all the children
hear his song
and all the children
hear the music
and eight and eight leave when it’s their turn
and four and four and two and two
get out of there when it’s their turn
and one and one make neither one nor two
one and one leave equally
And the lyrebird plays
and the child sings
and the teacher yells:
When you have finished clowning
But all the other children
listen to the music
and the walls of the class
crumble quietly
and the windows turn back into sand
the ink turns back into water
the desks turn back into trees
the chalk turns back into cliff
the feather pen turns back into bird

NaPoMo 2011 Day 4 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:


They would follow you anywhere

Penguins.
sixteen of them. They shuffled down the city
sidewalk with you every day on your way to
school, wings tucked, beaks facing cement. The
penguins never made a sound.

Some questioned where they came from, others
wondered why you. Was it the lilac in your hair?
Your black and white Mary Janes? When you got
to school, they waited at the curb. They never
whined, never pitched. Just sat in silence, staring
at your window, until they heard that bell.

They found a home in you, and then you grew.
Turned into a creased woman who wore her hair
like a helmet. Now you wear your skin like a tux.
This is what they taught you, before they turned back
into water. Their beaks into stone.

NaPoMo 2011 Day 3 Translation

Alicante
Jacques Prevert
from Paroles
French version here

An orange on the table
Your dress on the carpet
And you in my bed
Soft present of the present
Freshness of the night
Warmth of my life

NaPoMo 2011 Day 3 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:


Mirror Cinquain

Love puts
down her gloves. Time
for a new sport. Careful
with the neck, she folds a crane, crafts
haiku.

Monday
she will lift the veil. Make a wish
on one thousand pretty,
curling sheets of
paper.

NaPoMo 2011 Day 2 Translation

For you, my love
Jacques Prevert
from Paroles
French version here

I went to the bird market
And I bought birds
For you
My love
I went to the flower market
And I bought flowers
For you
My love
I went to the iron market
And I bought chains
Heavy chains
For you
My love
And I went to the slave market
And I searched for you
But I did not find you
My love

NaPoMo 2011 Day 2 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:


And when you die, the sky will be bright blue

Not gray, like you’d imagined, but the kind
of blue that could make you pull over
and angle your self over the dash
to have a look. You don’t know it’s coming.
No one knows it’s coming. Your ’02 Taurus mangling
a fresh water lake, the lace of your just-washed cami hooked
over a rotting branch, the dirt they will push over your coffin.
These are the things that do not fit. The sky is the most
surprising, though, that blue. It will hit you, the way a kid
smoking a cigarette would, all stubby fingers and too-adult
face. They say the nails are the first to go. Just fingers, just
toes.

NaPoMo 2011 Day 1 Translation

To paint the portrait of a bird
Jacques Prevert
from Paroles
French version here

First, paint a cage
with an open door
next paint
something nice
something simple
something beautiful
something useful
for the bird
next place the canvas next to a tree
in a garden
in the woods
or in a forest
hide behind the tree
without saying anything
without moving…
Sometimes the bird comes quick
but he can very well also take long
years
before he decides.
Don’t be discouraged
wait
wait, if you must, for years
the speed or the slowness of the bird’s
arrival
doesn’t have anything to do
with the success of the picture
When the bird arrives
if he arrives
observe the most profound silence
wait for the bird to enter the cage
and when he is inside
lightly close the door with the brush
then
erase one by one all the bars
being careful not to touch any
of the bird’s feathers
Do the painting of the tree next
leaving the best of its branches
for the bird
paint also the green foliage and the
freshness of air
the dust of the sun
and the sound of bugs in the grass in the
heat of summer
and then wait to see if the bird decides to
sing
if the bird doesn’t sing
it’s a bad sign
a sign that the painting is bad
but if he sings it’s a good sign
a sign that you can sign it
so very gently tear off
one of the bird’s feathers
and sign your name in a corner of the painting

NaPoMo 2011 Day 1 Poem

Photo from Black & WTF Photos:


How to trap a porcelain pig

Start with an umbrella,
open it inside.

When piggy banks still looked like pigs
(not the rounded, perked-ear, pastel
ones we have today), you almost couldn’t tell
what was porcelain, what apricot flesh.

Spread three letters beneath the umbrella.
They must be red stamp sealed, or the pig
will not give.

If a younger sibling marries before
the older, the older must dance
in a trough for luck. Some keep the pig
trough stockings. Some never get past
the omen.

Put on your best Sunday hat. Remember, lean
pigs come quick for smiles and stockinged
legs. Hold fast to two of the umbrella’s ribs,
pull out, then up. The pig is there, moving
with your breath. Exhale, and the umbrella’s
folds bury him. But on the inhale, he is yours.

NaPoMo 2011

Hey! It's National Poetry Month, which means I'll be writing a poem a day!

Last year I fell off track right around day 26, when I tried to write a poem about a sensitive carpenter.

This year, to get me through to day 30, I have a plan. The first part of this plan: keep track of my efforts on this blog. I might not get to post every day, but I hope to post all 30 by the end of April.

The second element of this plan is inspiration. I didn't have a muse last year, and I struggled with topics. This year, I've got a crapload of black & wtf photos to keep me going. I chose my favorite 30 from the batch. Each day, a new photo, a new poem. I might stick to the thirty I chose, or I might branch out. Who knows? Black and wtf photos has a new one up every day.

Oh, I almost forgot. I'll also be translating a poem a day from French to English. So far, I've only translated Jacques Prevert. His language is simple, and his poetry is beautiful. It's a good fit for me. Still, holla if you want me to attempt a translation of your favorite French poem, and I'll do my best.

I leave you with two of my new favorite poems, from incredibly talented poets who I saw read at Drew University:

"For Estefani Lora, Third Grade, Who Made Me A Card" by Aracelis Girmay
"Who Says the Eye Loves Symmetry" by Pat Rosal