Stille Wasser

... sind tief –

aber das ist noch lange keine Garantie dafür, dass etwas drin ist.

– Iself

Dringend notwendige Ergänzung eines alten Sprichworts.

Yannis Ritsos / Tischkalender

Monate und Monate, Wochen, Tage – unlernbares Jahr.
April mit kurzsichtiger Brille auf der Gartenbank.
Juli verbietet dir, allein zu schlafen.
September erinnert sich an verschlossene Häuser –
zwei Papierblumen und ein schwarzer Kamm mit groben Zähnen auf dem Tisch.
Im November hält ein Mann einen Stein auf dem Knie.
Januar, Februar – alle sind im Ausland.
Der Wind macht verzweifelte Gesten
vor der Glastür des geschlossenen Hotels.
Dann erscheint die stille Reinemachfrau frühmorgens
mit einem Schwamm, um die Fenster zu putzen.

– Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990)
Ins Deutsche übertragen von Johannes Beilharz (© 2010)

[Titel des griechischen Originals: Επιτραπεζιο Ημερολγιο. Aus: Ritsos in Parenthesis, Princeton University Press 1979]

Nachbemerkung des Übersetzers
Wie kam ich dazu, heute dieses Gedicht zu übersetzen? Bei einem Gang durch die Wohnung fiel mir auf, wie verstaubt Ritsos in Parenthesis im Regal war, nahm das Buch mit, staubte es ab, schlug es planlos auf der Seite mit diesem Gedicht auf, las es und beschloss, es zu übersetzen. Es schien mir sehr gut zu dem heutigen goldenen Herbst-Sonntag zu passen.

Clod-stuck poem invigorated

or: Liturgy in the Sky

Again
 
Presentation of the role of straw Heron
This lake. For taking steps
Besides, why bother in the water, and
Pull up a blank, but only once.
Later, in the streets for miles, and some
He said that he will be there when the came. How to
Every day that fragile legs
Cool green scum, a good library door
The heat and light? This is the world's stupid.
Their streets every day, the sky,
Crypt in his cave,
Tin from surface distortion, Scattered in the yard.
daisied West
Changes in three colors, dandelion
The road was. Each year, influenza
Thick volume of air and tingling in wild
Hot, thin grass, leaves light
The beginning. Heron's position
The stone on the ground or behind me.
And broken wings, and then open and remove the iron
Blue rhythm, his body during the flight.
I felt the heat, and straw. Hope song
Taste of the wild, I empty
I said: No, but warm in the fields of
And skin. It is not long before
Start normal breathing,
The liturgy is still in the sky.

- Not Iself

Notes
Received another clod-stuck poem from that well-known ex-poet laureate this evening, which trampled its clod-stuck path about something or other very realistic from one trite line ending to the next.

What to do to breathe some sort of life into that still-life?

Well, I decided to pass it through Google Translate in a bunch of iterations - from English to Chinese to Bulgarian to Georgian to Arabic to God knows what and eventually back to English.

The above is the unadulterated result.

It's a wee bit puzzling ... but at least it's puzzling, which could not have been said about the pedestrian original.

Robert Bly might appreciate it - it has some of those leaps and bounds he thought great poetry should have.

Here's the Hindi version ... just for kicks:

फिर

भूसे की भूमिका की प्रस्तुति बगुला

इस झील. कदम उठाने के लिए

इसके अलावा, क्यों, पानी में परेशान है, और

ऊपर खींचो एक खाली है, लेकिन केवल एक बार.

बाद में, मील के लिए सड़कों में, कुछ और

उन्होंने कहा कि वह वहाँ जब आया होगा. कैसे करने के लिए

हर दिन है कि नाजुक पैरों

शांत हरी मैल, एक अच्छा पुस्तकालय दरवाजा

गर्मी और प्रकाश? यह दुनिया की बेवकूफी है.

उनकी हर दिन सड़कों, आकाश,

अपने गुफा में तहखाना,

विरूपण की सतह से टिन, यार्ड में बिखरे हुए.

पश्चिम गुलबहारों से ढंका हुआ

तीन रंगों, पीले फूल का एक पाक्रर का पौधा में परिवर्तन

सड़क था. प्रत्येक वर्ष, इन्फ्लूएंजा

हवा की मोटी मात्रा और जंगली में झुनझुनी

गर्म, पतले घास, पत्तियां प्रकाश

शुरुआत. बगुला है स्थिति

या मेरे पीछे जमीन पर पत्थर.

और टूटे पंख, और फिर खोलने के लिए और लोहे हटायें

ब्लू ताल, उड़ान के दौरान अपने शरीर.

मैं गर्मी महसूस किया, और पुआल. आशा गीत

जंगली का स्वाद, मैं खाली

मैंने कहा: नहीं, लेकिन के क्षेत्र में गर्म

त्वचा और. यह लंबे समय से पहले नहीं है

शुरू सामान्य श्वास,

मरणोत्तर गित आकाश में अब भी है.

Good-bye to Haiku Very Much

Indelible

Bright flags strung up on
timelines flutter their good-byes
into the present

– Johannes Beilharz (© 2010)

A haiku to say good-bye to Haiku Very Much and its haiku challenges. They will be missed!

Nightingale

Grey melody.
Earth and sky sing in you
And are Spring.

– Peter Hille (1854-1904)

(Translation of Nachtigall; copyright © of translation from German by Johannes Beilharz 2010)

Nachtigall

Graue Melodie.
In dir singen Erde und Himmel
Und sind Frühling.

– Peter Hille (1854-1904)

Dieses Gedicht flatterte mir in der gestrigen Lyrikmail ins Postfach.

You do ignite

You do ignite that
rotten side of me – now please
be gone, old fart – depart!

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2010)

Written around depart, ignite, rotten from 3WW and a slightly failed haiku.

NYC

redeeming snowy rooftops
upper east side manhattan
looking toward sunrise
12th floor blinking red for planes
and below the neighbor's hillocked roof garden
at night the jewelry of tiny glowing rectangles
infinite humans in that flying brick
the chirping of a small bird
a siren far then near then far
the rush of tires
a horn

– Deirdre LaPenna (© 2010)

This poem was originally posted in response to one of my own (Ditty in celebration of a grey city morning).

Other poems by Deirdre:
First poem
It is not imaginary
Older poems

And give us today our daily mixture

Elton John says GOP oil leak in trouble for 5 states
Shootings kill census mail blockade of Bullock
Illegal Alabama immigrants say new congress may not tackle
Baby results could be well of sunken drilling rig
Ariz. governor candidate plans to leave over Obama
This is Mexican border city: we speak law
US Navy has encounter with Ryan White
AP source is divorcing James, adopting immigration soon
Iranian jet turned his life around
Banking regulation bill abandons 16 people in English

– Iself 2010

Blended, mixed, inverted, contorted from 10 current headlines for napowrimo #29, front page news

From across the river

Dark-eyed,
from across the Hooghly she beckons to me

Mysterious night
across the river beckons to me

The old chamber softly lit
beckons to me

A sweetly solemn thought, sun and wind and beat of sea
beckon to me

“I am your woman,” she says
and beckons to me

– Iself (© 2010)

Written for napowrimo #26, get scrappy.

Note
As I was quite sure that I did not have any scribbled or unfinished poem in my wallet or in a notebook, I went to a random poetry generator for inspiration, picking a poem from the “poetry in motion” category. The above romantic/folkloric poem, which is more or less in the form of a ghazal, is the result.

I’m not posting the original generated poem because it has ingredients I did not care for and did not use.

The Hooghly river is a distributary of the Ganges in West Bengal, India, and flows by Kolkata.

The first word to hear

It’s 7 a.m. on Sunday morning.
It’s the apartment and me.
The first word to hear is yet to come
from somewhere –
most likely through a telephone wire
or wireless or from someone
at a bakery.
But there’s bird song
through the open window,
and those birds
seem to be saying something.

– Iself (© 2010)

For napowrimo #25, first things first.

La salsa

Alors vint la salsa...
– Gino Ducreuil

I

     The salsa enters on the tiptoes of celery
its bongos are maroon leathery mushrooms
     And the fat singer after margaritas
is pulsating fire: Celia Cruz

II

     The little black angels deform
under the blasting wall of electric strings
     Willie Colón the outlaw in-law
and this is the moment Brunilda Ruiz rises

     from a vogue for an eternally long
second-long long bridge
     The span of her foot is the graves of Puerto Rico
and the glistening rainy streets of Nueva York

     Spanish words by Adrés Eloy Blanco
music by Manual Álvarez Maciste
      for this elating bow the salsa
now playing in some nightclub in París

– Johannes Beilharz (© 1981/2010)

One quarter elemental for napowrimo #17, something elemental.

Note
Some explanation might be in order here to make this less cryptic.

This poem came about some time after the purchase of El Baquiné de Angelitos Negros, a 1977 album by Willie Colón. The cover shows dancer Brunilda Ruiz, and I somehow wove her, salsa and the much older song by Eloy Blanco and Álvarez Maciste into this poem along with salsa queen Celia Cruz, transplanting the whole show to Paris and quoting a non-existent Frenchman to introduce it.

I wanna be your hero

You call my attempts
risible, but please
leave me some lowly
pedestal at least

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2010)

Written for napowrimo #20, the hero poem.

A tiny little antidote to Bonnie Tyler:

Crystal clear

Crystal clear is my love.
– Jackie de Shannon

I approach the dark forest
Its darkness swallows me up
After a while I discern a path
It takes me up a slope to a clearing
In the middle of the clearing there is a pond
I dip my right hand into the pond
The water is cool and clear
It seems to do something to my hand
I take it out and look at the palm
But there is nothing

– Johannes Beilharz (© 2010)

What code could be more secret and elusive than dream? Put on the 'net for napowrimo #12, secret codes.

They call him the breeze

It happened by unthought known –
he knocked up my friend

Said shucks when told
and for amendment from his native country
Há tempos ... there are times

Don’t cry sister cry – get ready
for the times to get better

– Iself (© 2010)

A late entry for napowrimo #1, iTunes on shuffle. The pieces were:

Knocked up – Kings of Leon
Don’t cry sister cry – J.J. Cale
Shucks – Bill Frisell
Unthought known – Pearl Jam
Há tempos – Legião Urbana  

From memory I added a modified version of “They call me the breeze” by J.J. Cale for the title and “Ready for the times to get better” by Crystal Gayle for closure.