Naomi

Naomi *

Naomi admit to me where you go

The complete answer is simple

The answer is plain to understand

Tell me for goodness sake - not long to tell me

I have stamina here alone

with a plain alibi, or certain yarn

Orice did not tell or offer shit

I received the news or truth from Florarul

Polenul confessed you did not hide

in the large palazzo you cavorted

without a care as though we were finished

With umbrage and not a sign of confession

No confession not a word to me

Yes nothing to hear, of me, you gamete craven

Yes nothing stopped your pair of lips

No turbulent adventurous feet

Naomi admit to me where you go

The complete answer is simple

The answer is plain to see

Tell me for goodness sake, it is not long to tell me

I now see without interruption of my need to disbelieve

I have no more latent ability to not hear your passion

My dear you are a whore it is true

Yes former love now we are forever finished

* since this is a fairly word by word translation the lyric sense has been interrupted and word placement may seem awkward at times – yet the passion of the original piece 

~

The following is the prompt from Dverse in its entirety ....

Hello, everyone, Marina Sofia here back behind the bar tonight and so pleased to see all your friendly faces after the holidays! I thought we’d try to keep the summer mood going for just a little longer and attempt something fun and different today.

I’ve always been very passionate about how poetry sounds and always need to read a poem out loud to ‘get’ it.  So I’ve been intrigued by the concept of ‘homophonic translations’, i.e. translations that rely on sounds rather than meaning. It’s a humorous and easy way to free up your synapses to make some brand-new associations. Here is a classic example of what a schoolboy understood of a Latin text.

Caesar adsum jam forte. Brutus aderat. Caesar sic in omnibus. Brutus sic enat.

Caesar had some jam for tea. Brutus ‘ad a rat. Caesar sick in omnibus. Brutus sick in ‘at.

The result is often humorous, but it can also be serious. It won’t surprise you to hear that I made a funeral dirge out of a sweet little ballad when I attempted this exercise with a Croatian poem. Since this exercise works best when the translation is from a language you don’t understand at all, I’m offering you a poem in Romanian.

Lucian Blaga (1895-1961) was a Romanian philosopher, poet and playwright, particularly active during the period between the two World Wars. After 1948 his lack of support for the Communist regime in Romania led to his works being banned for being too ‘idealistic’, rather than describing ‘socialist realism’.

The beautiful, romantic and very melodious poem featured below is one of my all-time favourites. I don’t expect many of you to understand any of it (Italian and Spanish speakers may pick up the odd word or two) but I would like you to allow yourself to be carried away by the sounds and imagine a translation for it. (Don’t cheat by using Google Translate!) Don’t worry about the diacritical signs – just invent your own personal way of reading those letters.

Ne-om aminti cândva târziu
de-aceasta întâmplare simpla,
de-aceasta banca unde stam
tâmpla fierbinte lânga tâmpla.

De pe stamine de alun,
din plopii albi, se cerne jarul.
Orice-nceput se vrea fecund,
risipei se deda Florarul.

Polenul cade peste noi,
în preajma galbene troiene
alcatuieste-n aur fin.
Pe umeri cade-ne si-n gene.

Ne cade-n gura când vorbim,
si-n ochi, când nu gasim cuvântul.
Si nu stim ce pareri de rau
ne tulbura, piezis, avântul.

Ne-om aminti cândva târziu
de-aceasta întâmplare simpla,
de-aceasta banca unde stam
tâmpla fierbinte lânga tâmpla.

Visând, întrezarim prin doruri -
latente-n pulberi aurii –
paduri ce ar putea sa fie
si niciodatã nu vor fi.

Read the poem out loud  and try and see if any of the words sound a bit like English words to you. Do any words look like English or Latin or German or other languages you might know? Allow yourself to be swept away by repetitions, melodious cadences or word associations.

Now, try translating the poem using just the sounds and look of the words. Bring in the images that those words awoke in you. If you can, stick to the original line lengths and stanza shapes. Don’t make the poem longer by ad-libbing or over-explaining. Just go wild with it and see what you can come up with! The end result doesn’t have to be full of puns or even humorous.

Sunday Visit

Teodoro S Gruhl

Sunday Visit 

up a long flight of stairs

climbing -  longing

to turn and run down

before they reached

the door - instead in

Sunday finery marching

each step too high 
for small legs pushed ahead - 
offerings to seal any rift, 
sustainers of  sight 
in the absence of light

in those flat near dead eyes

that sat right behind that

peeled-paint door - waiting

to stutter step–the beginning

of long talk in that small sour

scented room in a language that

bone-boring-baffles –  

Until flat dull eyed woman - rises

from her threadbare armchair

at the window moving toward

them, slowly, like a rickety

cart rattling with dry bones -

and they, good children, do

not cringe as she opens her

dry lips and vomits hot breath 

over them - delivering

 the wretched requisite kiss 

of their sweet release

Visit over ...

until

next

week

~






The Sunday Whirl

Fontanelles

In horror at the beheading and in honor of the life of Journalist, James Foley

this humble offering.... 

lisa runnels

~

Fontanelles

It is likely that the new mother

would have stroked and kissed

the down covered fontanelle

cradled the incomparable

softness that would

harden in time

Both mothers

long ago holding

newborn sons

down covered fontanelles

meeting in an unimagined

future in the harsh light

of this incomprehensible

yet to be

One bare headed

face open to the Universe

the other cloaked in darkness

As new mothers continue

to caress and kiss the softness

of their down covered sons’ head

perhaps it must be the mothers

after all that call as one mother has

for peace

after all

forever

protecting

the softness

My Mother – The Demimonde

Lynn Greyling

My Mother – The Demimonde

He had heard him in that black night

fragrant as rotting oranges 

exotic as Africa –
his father's hissed

single-soul-shaking-word woke him
snaking through heavy air from their bed

to his cot against the wall in the hall

“Demimonde”

his father hissed harsh and low, black and red

as a Mardi Gras mask –
though other words

slithered - spawn hurried after –

“abomination,” “transgression,”

“allegiance,” these unlike Demimonde - all
 familiar echoes returning from boomed

Sundays back home when he sat

in scratchy silence on a hard pew

Awful but spoken - unlike “Demimonde”

He was seized in the stick and sweat of

that summer night with a wave of wistful

protective ifs, - if  he could just jump from that

summer shack and run through the New Orleans

night, find a church, light a candle, for God’s sake

Help her,

If he could only return, his mother of sweetness and light

back to the shelter of their laughing-tickling

drinking sweet tea on the way to the beach

hands swinging together singing – before his

father came from to visit - he was ready

to perform any multitude of eight-year-

old rites to bring her and him back out of this

dark demon studded night

Yet in the gray stickiness of almost dawn

he shrank, knowing she was beyond salvation

for he remembered “Demimonde”

and the Sears catalogue, seen just this past Tuesday

in Penny’s brother’s stash – that stash

of nearly naked women wearing “demi” somethings –

their wanton breasts, thrusting, spilling on the pages

under knowing smiles and now – in this night of reckoning

shamed by his staring, he was reborn

into irrevocable knowing

his own mother

was such a demi-wearing one –

and somewhere perhaps a boy such as he would

stare at his own “demimonde” mother and whisper

in childlike incarnation of his fathers condemnation

“I want her – I want those demimondes for myself.”

~




The Sunday Whirl

Empty Arms

Empty Arms

there you slid from me

into my arms wet wriggling

new tears on our faces

I held you tight

now you slid from me

out of my arms – wriggling words

etching tears on my face

I hold you back within

Upside down

Upside down

He held me by my ankles and shook

me up and down –pennies fell from my

pockets upon the velvet carpet ground

He held me by my ankles as he shook

me up and down – laughter rippled as

never before or since in the silliness of

that finite three year old world soaked in

the rich ripples of my grandfather’s sound