The Pontificators

This post is the result of a game played with some of my poet friends. We each found poems online in a foriegn language. We each then “translated” the found poems into English. We did this not by actual translation, but by writing English lines inspired by associations in the sounds of the original poem. (I confess, however, that my poem was Spanish, of which I know a few words, so “casa” inspired “house,” etc.) I chose the poem “VEM PARA FICAR.”

Here is the original poem:

Acontece quando mais o esperamos:
um punho bate à porta,
não se trata do carteiro
nem da juventude. Diz-se
da família. Vem para ficar.

Começa por brincar às escondidas
com os nossos pensamentos.
Acorda-nos de noite, diverte-se
a romper as sapatilhas,
deixa frascos de formol
sobre a mesa da cozinha.

Primeiro, não sabendo o que fazer,
tentamos distrair a sua fome,
mostramos-lhe o relógio,
passamos-lhe a carteira para as mãos,
os botões da gabardine, os anéis.
Por último, os dedos.

Neste passo, depressa nos convence
a tratá-lo por senhor, a ceder-lhe num sorriso
a cadeira do avô, o telefone
dos amigos, a vista da janela.
De cabeça descoberta
servimos o jantar.

Com o tempo percebemos:
quer vestir-nos do avesso,
forrar de vento norte
a gola dos casacos, levar-nos a dizer:
“há nas folhas do Outono vivo lume,
que faço eu em minha casa?”

Here is my “translation:”

The Corn Feast

I see four bushels of corn on the sidewalk:
cobbed bites all a-yellow.
The dancing sister brought her cart
and left these children, a brightness,
pleasant as parrots among the pinyon.

Come, you poor, and we will eat.
Come, I have sweet pimentos and Juan
will play the accordion! A diversion!
And sobriety isn’t for corn, so
bring beer if you can.

Primarily, we do not bend or hang our heads,
should even ten distresses advance. They will pass us
like the sister’s cart. We are natural like the corn
and the wind. We can live in our place.

We won’t die tonight, or be afraid of any beast.
Though we are poor we are firm, never sorry
to sing our songs and to tell our friends
of our jangling, inner vistas. So don’t
be disconcerted. Let us serve each other
from the pots and jars.

Come, let us be tempted to be at peace. I question
vestments and other aggrandizement.
The rich venture forth for nothing, clicking
their golden castanets. I remember the words of my father:
“All are fools, so enjoy the moonlight dance!
Are not our faces soon enough vanished from the house?”

This was such a fun exercise. I recommend it to all!

Oh yeah. For the curious, here is a real English translation of the poem:

HERE TO STAY

When we most expect it
there’s a knock on the door:
not the postman
and not youth calling. He says
he’s family and is here to stay.

First he plays hide and seek
with our thoughts.
He wakes us up at night, rips
our slippers apart for fun,
leaves jars of formaldehyde
on the kitchen table.

At a loss for what to do, we try
to divert his hunger.
We show him our watch,
give him our wallet,
the buttons of our raincoat, our rings.
And finally our fingers.

At which point he persuades us
to call him sir and to offer him
our grandfather’s chair, the phone numbers
of our friends, the view from the window.
With head uncovered
we serve dinner.

In time we realize
he wants to dress us inside out,
to line our coat collars
with the north wind, to have us say:
“the autumn leaves are burning bright,
what am I doing at home?”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 10:52 am and is filed under Alvin, Poetry, Song Lyrics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.