The Face of Summer: ひまわり Tornasol Sunflower Tournesol Girasole Girassol ひまわり
Posted: July 31, 2012 Filed under: English, French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish Comments Off on The Face of Summer: ひまわり Tornasol Sunflower Tournesol Girasole Girassol ひまわり
Mang Ke (1950 – )
Sunflower in the Sun (Excerpt)
きみは見たのか
陽光の中のあのひまわりを
見たまえ、うつむくこともなく
頭（こうべ）をうしろにふり向け
そっぽをむいてしまった
まるで一口に
あの頸にかけられた
あの太陽の手に引っ張られている縄を
噛み切ろうとするかのように
きみは見たのか
あの頭をもたげ
太陽に怒りの視線をなげかえすひまわりを
その首は太陽をさえぎるほど
その首はたとえ太陽のない時でも
やはり光の束を輝き放っている ….. …..
*
Mang Ke
Sunflower in the Sun (excerpt)
Do you see?
Do you see that sunflower in the sun?
You see, it didn’t bow its head
But turned its head back
As if to bite through
The rope around its neck
Held by the sun’s hands.
*
Do you see it?
Do you see that sunflower, raising its head
Glaring at the sun?
Its head almost eclipses the sun
Yet even when there is no sun
Its head still glows. ….. …..
Anónima
Invocación (un extracto)
Quédate bajo el brillo tornasol
o arrástrame
a tu sombría transparencia
Murciélago de luz
que sabe tanto de volar
como de sueño
agarrado
del techo
y de cabeza hacia la oscuridad.
Quédate bajo el brillo tornasol y arrástrame
a tu sombría transparencia
Soy sólo yo, a contracorriente
sólo mi corazón,
piedra vertiginosa
que rueda.
Dale Harris (New Mexico, USA)
Manzano Sunflowers
You missed Indian Market
And of course the sunflowers.
As usual they swept across August
At first a few, a yellow trickle along the fence line
Then more, making pools in the pasture
And splashing down into the “arroyo”
Then, incredibly many more,
Dappling the distance,
As though a giant hand had buttered the land.
*
Yet with the entire prairie to expand into,
They prefer crowds of themselves
They mass along the roadside,
Lined up as though a parade were about to pass.
Here and there one stands alone,
But not for long.
Soon his kin will come
And there will be sunflower squalor,
There will be sunflower squalor, a floral slum.
*
Once they are out,
They will not be ignored.
Stretching their skinny stalks,
They top our roof-line,
Press against the window screens,
And peep in at the door.
Familiar foot paths to the out buildings are obscured,
And from the road we seem afloat,
Our cabin, an odd tin boat
In a sea of sunflower faces.
*
They are the most staccato of flowers.
I catch them humming snatches of polkas
And John Philip Sousa marches,
Bobbing in the wind to the Boogaloo,
The Boogie Woogie and the Lindy Hop.
I call their names,
Clem, Clarissa, Sarah Jane
To try and tame them.
*
My neighbour comes by.
She has a field full
They’re useless, she complains.
Her horses can’t eat them.
I should hope not! I exclaim,
After she’s gone.
*
I don’t remember if you even liked sunflowers
But you liked Life
And they are all about that.
Today I wrote to your family, finally.
I expect they are occupying themselves,
With beautiful gestures
In order to get over the grief of you.
As for me, I have sunflowers…
Michèle Corti
Tournesol
Vieille fleur du Pérou au bel astre pareil,
Sunflower, Sonnenblume, Girasol, Girassole
L’oiseau trouve un abri sous ton grand parasol,
Au plus chaud de l’été, éclosent tes merveilles.
*
“Hélianthus annuus” ou même “grand soleil”
Tu envahis les champs de mille têtes fières
Qui rebrodent d’or pur notre dame la Terre
Frissonnante d’azur, émeraude et vermeil.
*
De ton coeur irradié par l’astre solennel
Va couler la douceur d’une huile flavescente
Radieux tournesol, sur ta tige puissante
Tu règnes glorieux, et parais éternel !
*
La folie de Vincent a cru, dans tes pétales
Entrevoir les grands feux d’un lointain paradis
Tu as su fasciner le grand peintre maudit
Qui, au milieu des champs recherchait les étoiles…
Eugenio Montale (1896-1981)
Portami il girasole ch’io lo trapianti
Portami il girasole ch’io lo trapianti
nel mio terreno bruciato dal salino,
e mostri tutto il giorno agli azzurri specchianti
del cielo l’ansietà del suo volto giallino.
*
Tendono alla chiarità le cose oscure,
si esauriscono i corpi in un fluire
di tinte: queste in musiche. Svanire
è dunque la ventura delle venture.
*
Portami tu la pianta che conduce
dove sorgono bionde trasparenze
e vapora la vita quale essenza;
portami il girasole impazzito di luce.
Lô Borges e Márcio Borges
Um Girassol da Cor do Seu Cabelo
(Letras cantada por Milton Nascimento)
Vento solar e estrelas do mar
a terra azul da cor de seu vestido
vento solar e estrelas do mar
você ainda quer morar comigo.
*
Se eu cantar não chore não
é só poesia
eu só preciso ter você por mais um dia
ainda gosto de dançar, bom dia,
como vai você?
*
Sol, girassol, verde vento solar
você ainda quer morar comigo
vento solar e estrelas do mar
você ainda quer morar comigo.
芝不器男 Fukio Shiba (1903-1930)
Sunflower Haiku
向日葵の蕊（しべ）を見るとき海消えし
Looking into the sunflower’s centre,
the sea has disappeared.
The Voice of Summer: セミ Cigarra Cicada Cigale Cicala Cigarra セミ
Posted: July 31, 2012 Filed under: English, French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish Comments Off on The Voice of Summer: セミ Cigarra Cicada Cigale Cicala Cigarra セミ
Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694)
セミ
静けさや
岩に滲み入る
蝉の声
shizukesaya
iwa ni shimiiru
semi no koe
utter silence
penetrating the rocks
the cicada’s voice
María Elena Walsh (1930-2011)
Como la Cigarra
Tantas veces me mataron,
tantas veces me morí,
sin embargo estoy aqui
resucitando.
Gracias doy a la desgracia
y a la mano con puñal
porque me mató tan mal,
y seguí cantando.
*
Cantando al sol como la cigarra
después de un año bajo la tierra,
igual que sobreviviente
que vuelve de la guerra.
*
Tantas veces me borraron,
tantas desaparecí,
a mi propio entierro fui
sola y llorando.
Hice un nudo en el pañuelo
pero me olvidé después
que no era la única vez,
y volví cantando.
*
Tantas veces te mataron,
tantas resucitarás,
tantas noches pasarás
desesperando.
A la hora del naufragio
y la de la oscuridad
alguien te rescatará
para ir cantando.
Roderic Quinn (Australia, 1867-1949)
The Song of the Cicadas
Yesterday there came to me
from a green and graceful tree
as I loitered listlessly
nothing doing, nothing caring,
light and warmth and fragrance sharing
with the butterfly and the bee,
while the sapling-tops a-glisten
danced and trembled, wild and willing
such a sudden sylvan shrilling
that I could not choose but listen
Green Cicadas, Black Cicadas,
happy in the gracious weather,
Floury-baker, Double-Drummer,
all as one and all together,
how they voiced the golden summer.
*
Stealing back there came to me
as I loitered listlessly
‘neath the green and graceful tree,
nothing doing, nothing caring,
boyhood moments spent in sharing
with the butterfly and the bee
youth and freedom, warmth and glamour
while Cicadas round me shrilling,
set the sleepy noontide thrilling
with their keen insistent clamour.
*
Green Cicadas, Black cicadas,
happy in the gracious weather
Floury-bakers, double-drummers
all as one and all together—
how they voice the bygone summers!
Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974)
La Cigale
Le soleil fendille la terre,
Aucun bruit ne trouble les champs;
On n’entend plus les joyeux chants
Des oiseaux qui chantaient naguère.
Tous par la chaleur assoupis
Sous les buissons se sont tapis.
Seule une cigale est sur l’aire.
*
Son ventre sonore se meut;
Sur une gerbe elle est posée;
Seule elle n’est point épuisée
Par l’astre à l’haleine de feu.
Et la chanteuse infatigable
Jette dans l’air brûlant et bleu
Sa ritournelle interminable.
Francesco Fabris Manini
La Cicala
La cicala del mattino frinisce
E mi sveglia su una tazzina di caffè
Bisbigliando gracili parole su ascolti assonnati
Di spettinati pensieri.
L’uscio s’apre al giorno con forzati ardori
Che dissolverà la sera sui passi
Di un solitario ritorno.
Olegário Mariano (1889-1958)
A Última Cigarra
Todas cantaram para mim. A ouvi-las,
Purifiquei meu sonho adolescente,
Quando a vida corria doidamente
Como um regato de águas intranqüilas.
*
Diante da luz do sol que eu tinha em frente,
Escancarei os braços e as pupilas.
Cigarras que eu amei! Para possui-las,
Sofri na vida como pouca gente.
*
E veio o outono… Por que veio o outono ?
Prata nos meus cabelos… Abandono…
Deserta a estrada… Quanta folha morta!
*
Mas, no esplendor do derradeiro poente,
Uma nova cigarra, diferente;
Como um raio de sol, bateu-me à porta.
正岡 子規 Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902)
セミ
tsuku tsuku boshi / tsuku tsuku boshi / bakari nari
nothing but
cic-cic-cicada
cic-cic-cicada
Neal McLeod: “Songs to kill a Wîhtikow” ᐐᐧᐦᑎᑯᐤ
Posted: July 24, 2012 Filed under: Cree, English, Neal McLeod Comments Off on Neal McLeod: “Songs to kill a Wîhtikow” ᐐᐧᐦᑎᑯᐤ
Neal McLeod
Wîhtikow *
They spoke of the time
beings broke the stillness of water
retreating from the pollution
that rested on the skin of days
kî-mistâpâwêhisocik, they drowned themselves
and the water became still
*
I went to a place to rest
and lay in the remnants of thunder
I collapsed in ripped and dried hollow earth
a fugitive of spent moments
which had outgrown their divinity
*
The old ones spoke of how the beings dug into the earth,
kôtâwîwak
to retreat from the pollution on the skin of the earth
the old ones spoke of wîhtikow
who hunted dreamers, under thick, dark, coarse sun
took their prey in
like the wind of trains
draws us to the tracks
Wîhtikow wandering
wîhtikow whispers
and pulls the light from the sky
only cluttered cover, electric neon
makes my steps heavy
pass abandoned house
windows opened
no longer covered by glass
emptied of people
and stories
burned out black hollow
my body
has also known
the fire of wîhtikow
bingo caller gives false hope
white johns
circle the wagons of families
cops who drive brothers
to cold places
wîhtikow wanders
in the grey, concrete forest
Crow cross
body heavy wooden
black circling round
crow crowned head
claws extended, cutting
arms extended
wrapped into horizon
feet on hands
abrupt blood pecks
expired fright scarecrow
pulled off
hands fling free
legs fall hard
extend relaxed hand
ready legs
onto road
away from crows
remember tracks
upon skin
sing praises
black crow crying
Kôkôcîs **
plaid crumpled and folded
hidden patterns of fabric
clung around his arms
his brown, storied hands
with lines of memory
which marked events
stories, and words
reached for the chewing tobacco
which slid through the
spaces of his mouth
and with the taste of tobacco
through his tongue
which created words
moving through the room
*
I remember the open windows
and brown, wet roads
cars and trucks
would pull up
and people would fill the windows
with colours and movement
*
familiar faces and rhythms
I remember the sound of his voice
of his laugh
the eternal song
up through his mouth
added stories
and layers of memory
to the photographs
bringing old ones alive
*
I remember kôkôcîs
words came from him like water
formed from the shallow fog
of the early spring afternoon
the room held his voice
the voice of others
pushed through
the fold of eternity
were held in
his textured voice
*
kôkôcîs, kâ-kî-itiht,
the once called kôkôcîs,
was my living link
to eternity and relatives
Cree-language words:
* wîhtikow — a being who consumes other beings – greedy, like a vampire
** kôkôcîs — the name of the poet’s great-grandfather
_____
Neal McLeod is Cree (having grown up on the James Smith reserve in Saskatchewan), and Swedish, having had the fortunate opportunity to study abroad at the Swedish Art Academy at Umeå. He has exhibited art work throughout Canada including at the 2005 exhibition au fil de mes jours (in my lifetime) at Le Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec – remounted at the Museum of Civilization in 2007. In addition to being a painter he is also a curator: his latest project was as co-curator of the exhibition James Henderson: The Man who Paints the Old Men which was organized by the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Neal’s first book of poetry, entitled Songs to Kill a Wîhtikow, was nominated for several Saskatchewan book awards including book of the year in 2005. It was nominated for book of the year at the Anskohk McNally Aboriginal Literature Awards, and won poetry book of the year by unanimous decision of the jurors. In 2007 Neal published Cree Narrative Memory which was also nominated for book of the year at the Anskohk McNally Aboriginal Literature Awards. In the fall of 2008 he published his second book of poetry entitled Gabriel’s Beach.
Neal is currently editing a volume entitled Indigenous Poetics. In addition he is working on the following books: Dreaming Blue Horses – a novel, a collection of humour short stories entitled Neechi Hustle, 100 Days of Cree, a biography of Noel Starblanket, and a book of poetry called Casting Spells of Neechery. He teaches Indigenous Studies at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario.
Nurun Nahar’s “Travellers”: An Inspirational Bengali Poem for Ramadan 2012
Posted: July 20, 2012 Filed under: 7 GUEST EDITORS, Bengali (Bangla), English, Laboni Islam, Nurun Nahar | Tags: বাংলা কবিতা, Bengali (Bangla) poems, Poems for Ramadan Comments Off on Nurun Nahar’s “Travellers”: An Inspirational Bengali Poem for Ramadan 2012
Nurun Nahar (1924-1992) was born in Tangail, Bangladesh. She wrote this poem in her youth. Artist, writer, and mother of five, she could crochet blankets in her sleep. Translation by Syeda Parvin Shirin, her only daughter. Photo by Laboni Islam, one of Nurun’s many grand-daughters.
* * *
¡Buffy Sainte-Marie, en Toronto esta noche! / Buffy Sainte-Marie, in Toronto tonight! Una traducción para honrar a la cantautora y activista Cree
Posted: July 18, 2012 Filed under: Buffy Sainte-Marie, English, POETS / POETAS, Spanish, ZP Translator: Lidia García Garay Comments Off on ¡Buffy Sainte-Marie, en Toronto esta noche! / Buffy Sainte-Marie, in Toronto tonight! Una traducción para honrar a la cantautora y activista Cree
Buffy Sainte-Marie
(First Nations Cree singer-songwriter, activist, born 1941, Saskatchewan, Canada)
No No Keshagesh
Editor’s note: Keshagesh means Greedy Guts,
a child (or an adult) who eats his own food – and then wants everybody else’s, too.
_ _ _ _ _
I never saw so many business suits
Never knew a dollar sign could look so cute
Never knew a junkie with a money jones
Who’s buying Park Place? Who’s buying Boardwalk?
*
These old men they make their dirty deals
Go in the back room and see what they can steal
Talk about your ” beautiful for spacious skies “?
— it’s about uranium, it’s about the water rights!
*
Got Mother Nature on a luncheon plate
They carve her up and call it real estate
Want all the resources and all of the land
They make a war over it — they blow things up for it.
*
The reservation out at Poverty Row
There’s something cookin and the lights are low
Somebody tryin to save our Mother Earth… I’m gonna
Help ’em to Save it and Sing it and Pray it… singin:
No No Keshagesh you can’t do that no more…
No No Keshagesh you can’t do that no more…
*
Ole Columbus he was lookin good
When he got lost in our neighborhood
Garden of Eden right before his eyes
Now it’s all spyware — now it’s all income tax.
*
Ole Brother Midas lookin hungry today
What he can’t buy he’ll get some other way
Send in the troopers if the Natives resist
Same old story, boys — that’s how ya do it , boys!
*
Look at these people, Lord, they’re on a roll
Got to have it all — gotta have complete control
Want all the resources and all of the land
They break the law over it — blow things up for it.
*
While all our champions are off in the war
Their final rip-off here at home is on
Mister Greed I think your time has come… I’m gonna
Sing it and Say it and Live it and Pray it… singin:
No No Keshagesh you can’t do that no more…
No No Keshagesh you can’t do that no more…
_____
Buffy Sainte-Marie (nace 1941, Saskatchewan, Canadá)
¡No, no, Panzas ávaras! (No, no, Greedy-guts!)
Nota del editor:
Keshagesh quiere decir Panzas Ávaras.
Así se le llama a un niño (o un hombre) que se come su comida
y después quiere la de los demas.
_____
Nunca vi tantos atuendos formales
Nunca supe que un signo de dólar pareciera tan bonito
Nunca conocí a un adicto con una obsesión por dinero
¿Quién está comprando el Park Place – y el Boardwalk?
*
Estos viejos, hacen sus tratos sucios
Van al cuarto interior para hacer sus tratos sucios
¿Habla de “hermosa por cielos espaciosos”?
– ¡ se trata del uranio, se trata de derechos sobre el agua!
*
Tienen en un plato a la Madre Naturaleza
La dividen y la llaman: bienes raices.
Quieren todos los recursos naturales y toda la tierra
Hacen una guerra por eso – exageran las cosas para eso.
*
La reservación es Condenada a la Pobreza
Están cocinando algo y atenuan las luces
Alguien está intentando salvar a nuestra Madre Tierra
Voy a Ayudarles a Salvarla, Cantarle, y Orarle…cantando:
¡No, no, Panzas ávaras!
Ustedes ya no pueden hacer éso…..
Ustedes ya no pueden hacer éso…..
*
El bueno de Colón muy fresco
Cuando se perdió en nuestra vecindad
El Jardín de Edén en frente de sus ojos
Hoy día todo es spyware – ahora todo es impuesto sobre la renta.
*
El buen Hermano Midas parece hambriento hoy día
Lo que no puede comprar lo obtendrá de otra manera
Envian a los policías estatales si los Indígenas resisten
La misma historia de siempre – muchachos, es así como lo hacen.
*
Mira toda esta gente, Señor, son imparables
Tienen que poseer todo, tener control absoluto
Quieren todos los recursos naturales y todo lo de la tierra
Quebrantan la ley por eso – exageran las cosas por eso.
*
Mientras que nuestros campeones están lejos en la guerra
Su estafa final occurre aquí en casa.
Señor Avaricia – pienso que su tiempo ha llegado…Voy a
Cantarlo y Decirlo y Vivirlo y Orar… cantándolo:
¡No, no, Panzas ávaras!
Ustedes ya no puede hacer éso…..
Ustedes ya no puede hacer éso…..
_____
Traducción del inglés al español / Translation from English into Spanish: Lidia García Garay
Hari Malagayo Alluri: “eyes beat heart wide…”
Posted: July 11, 2012 Filed under: English, Hari Malagayo Alluri Comments Off on Hari Malagayo Alluri: “eyes beat heart wide…”
body body
eyes beat heart wide
n sine co-patience
blink rare breath laugh
un sin go pay shun
deep shared step speak open tongued rhythms
story tell in the pattern of a mischief
round each other’s oldest voices caress
in
syncopation
abi bellybuttons shoot
memory glances
raven city
rain follows snow follows shine hollows
clouds hollow graves into roots hollow
cracks into tar fallow talk hollows
dreams nightly migrating birds hallow
sky copper indigo follow trickster heart
conjure lion’s roar from spitting cobra’s belly
one language
used to hack
all the others
from my body
this pentongue
my balisong now
jai!
_____
The poet explains several special words:
abi – Nigerian pidgin, from Yoruba; final interrogative particle on a yes/no question
balisong – a.k.a. balisong batangas, butterfly knife, fan knife or veinte y nueve; a swing-bladed folding pocketknife used in Filipino martial arts and for self-defence.
jai – I use jai in the sense of “Long live” (Hindi). It can also be translated as “Up with,” “Hail” or “Victory”. Often it’s a part of call and response chants.
*
Hari Malagayo Alluri is a poet, activist, facilitator and filmmaker who migrated to SouthVancouver, Coast Salish Territories, at age 12. He will be at Surrey Muse on July 27th. Hari’s writing appears in several publications.
Cynthia Dewi Oka: Nomad Legends – Midwife and Moon’s Benediction
Posted: July 11, 2012 Filed under: Cynthia Dewi Oka, English Comments Off on Cynthia Dewi Oka: Nomad Legends – Midwife and Moon’s Benediction
nomad legend: Midwife
I am what remains. Here,
on this crop of volcanic rock. At the knees of the temple
where for thousands of years we worshipped
as the moon began her slow retreat
in deference to the gong, the jubilee of roosters –
our women with lotus lily towers on their heads,
our men with bronze curved daggers at their waists.
I still hear their children and recognize
each hungry wail, each budding tenor.
My hands were the first they knew,
the heat from my body preceded their mothers’ milk.
I was the one who rinsed their coats of blood
and breathed the story of this island and its specific stars
into the plaintive Os of their mouths.
In time, they forgot the ocean and learned to trust
paddy, clay, the gods. I began to assume
in their eyes the same madness perceived by their elders.
A madness feared, because no woman should
scratch letters to the drowned with a shark tooth
in cream colored sand. No woman should hunt
fish from her bed of rock, bare-handed, and eat them raw.
No woman should claim the sea is her mother,
the sea snake her husband. No matter.
When the babies were ready to cleave
the shell of their mothers, it was me they summoned.
See now how the land empties. How skin and slender
bones wash to sea. For moons I watch from the temple’s roof
skirmishes between soldiers and vultures
over moonstone anklets, ruby studded rings and abalone
still clinging to blue, salted flesh. At the cusp of daylight,
I fill my eyes with wine and sheathe my body
in seawater. The currents pound my eardrums like our warriors’ fists,
tiny fish make meals out of my calves, and time is measured
by the goldening ends of sea grass. This is the only place
where I do not smell, taste or think in blood.
My body cleaves tunnels through the satin depths,
clean and weightless. Ether.
The old people used to say that water snakes guarded the rock
cradle of our temple, that in fact, the rock was
the temple of greater creatures that came before us.
Pillars, courtyards, pagodas of copra were constructed
to house not the gods, but humans after we shed our hooves and horns.
According to some, we were once winged.
The men laughed at this story as they fondled their bows.
The women rubbed sandalwood oil into each other’s smooth backs.
This is before tips of bayonets split our children down their lengths.
This is before bows and backs were snapped alike.
I know what they did not know because the sea is my mother,
the sea snake my husband. This is why I leave my heart in the water.
The longer I stay, the closer I draw to their secrets.
The more I resemble salt. Within me, bones begin
to loosen. The bloom of my lungs acquires an echo.
I come up less and less for air.
On the seventy seventh year of the midwife’s submersion, at the moon’s zenith, it is said that new bodies crawled out of the waves. Their teeth were adamantine and their skin sequined. They spoke to each other in sign, for they had not yet invented a language for soil. They were not men and women. They were multiple, each with their own distinctive architecture. They practiced the art of disappearing, walking children home and dancing at street corners. Their dances could not be imitated for they moved in ways unknown to our imagination. When they looked at you, you heard the sea mother. It is said that they had solved the alchemy of bone to water.
_____
nomad legend: Moon’s benediction
[at rising]
bless the round belly, elephant tusk, sago
root straining dark moist earth, tongues
of aloe peeled open, their juice kneaded
into the crowns of old women, gypsum
powder, ash scrubbed into linen and skin
preparing them for touch, the flintlock
at rest with nomads and their fire
[in descent]
bless lightning, the unsung flute, proverbs
spelled in tobacco leaves, owl’s hoot
rippling east, its timbre grained in salt
from the palms of fishermen, a coastline
beaded in pearl, pith of a woman
listening for her name in the throng, iron
sphere, devil’s oar, snake’s teardrop.
_____
Cynthia Dewi Oka lives in Vancouver. She writes of these poems:
“Although they are in English, they incorporate elements, landscapes, concepts and re-imagined myths embedded in my native language, Bahasa Indonesia, and experiences of historical and contemporary displacement.”
Rogr Lee: “Half the world is waking from the shaking of the earth!”
Posted: July 11, 2012 Filed under: English, Rogr Lee Comments Off on Rogr Lee: “Half the world is waking from the shaking of the earth!”Rogr Lee
In Exile
At first, life without you
didn’t seem so bad
I could do what I want to
and keep your picture in my hand
But things have gone so crazy
in this world of extremes
-half the world is lost inside
a dream within a dream!
An’ that’s why I am so lonely
why I am in exile
why I am so disenchanted
by the human profile
why I always feel so heavy
why everything feels hostile
why the dam is breaking
why I am in exile
(Y’know I’ve come to see that)
life without you doesn’t offer much
except your face
in everything I see and touch!
An’ that’s why I am so lonely
why I am in exile
why I am so disenchanted
by the human profile
why I always feel so heavy
why everything feels hostile
why the dam is breaking
why I am in exile
So I live without you
and that doesn’t make much sense
but I do what I need to
to “keep the wolf behind the fence”
when there’s half the people sleeping
from the moment of their birth
and half the world is waking
from the shaking of the earth!
An’ that’s why I am so lonely
why I am in exile
why I am so disenchanted
by the human profile
why I always feel so heavy
why everything feels hostile
why the dam is breaking
why I am in exile…
(I’m so lonely
I’m in exile…)
© D. Roger Lee 2003
Keep some of you hidden
One error can set you back
Truth is different from the facts
One lover can set you free
One idea can shatter and bleed
And in the end
You’ll tell your friends
Everything as it isn’t
Keep some of you hidden
Keep some of you hidden
Keep some of you hidden
One day I will happen
Upon another stranger
There won’t be any reason
To fear over-exposure
One error can set you back
Truth is different from the facts
One lover can set you free
One idea can shatter and bleed
And in the end
You’ll tell your friends
Everything as it isn’t
Keep some of your heart hidden
Keep some of your heart hidden
Keep some of your heart hidden
© D. Roger Lee 201o
_____
Élève la voix
Building a life
Buidling a beast
Building ten times what you need
Power-building
Scrape the stars
Addicted to buildings
Addicted to cars
Build a temple
Try a new form
Élevez la voix
Levez les normes
Building your mansion
building on fault lines
Clear-cutting forests like there’s
No end in sight
Reaching far
Beyond his grasp
Man breaking every
Thing in his path.
Build a temple
Try a new form
Élevez la voix
Levez les normes
_____
French phrases:
Élève la voix – Raise your voice
Levez les normes – Raise the standards
© D. Roger Lee 2010
_____
Rogr Lee was born in B.C. and spent his 20s in Toronto’s acoustic music scene with various musicians and poets. He then moved to Vancouver where he started to explore painting and home recording, producing his 2nd and 3rd indie CDs. Recently Rogr found the love of his life and is planning a wonderful future with him – and some cats.
Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz: “Stupid, conceited Men…..” / “Hombres necios…..”
Posted: July 11, 2012 Filed under: English, Juana Inés de la Cruz, Spanish Comments Off on Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz: “Stupid, conceited Men…..” / “Hombres necios…..”
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
(1651-1695, Nueva España/México)
Hombres necios
Hombres necios que acusáis
a la mujer sin razón,
sin ver que sois la ocasión
de lo mismo que culpáis:
*
si con ansia sin igual
solicitáis su desdén,
¿por qué quereis que obren bien
si las incitáis al mal?
*
Combatís su resistencia
y luego, con gravedad,
decís que fue liviandad
lo que hizo la diligencia.
*
Parecer quiere el denuedo
de vuestro parecer loco,
al niño que pone el coco
y luego le tiene miedo.
*
Queréis, con presunción necia,
hallar a la que buscáis,
para pretendida, Thais,
y en la posesión, Lucrecia
*
¿Qué humor puede ser más raro
que el que, falto de consejo,
el mismo empaña el espejo
y siente que no esté claro?
*
Con el favor y el desdén
tenéis condición igual,
quejándoos, si os tratan mal,
burlándoos, si os quieren bien.
*
Opinión, ninguna gana:
pues la que más se recata,
si no os admite, es ingrata,
y si os admite, es liviana
*
Siempre tan necios andáis
que, con desigual nivel,
a una culpáis por crüel
y a otra por fácil culpáis.
*
¿Pues cómo ha de estar templada
la que vuestro amor pretende,
si la que es ingrata, ofende,
y la que es fácil, enfada?
*
Mas, entre el enfado y pena
que vuestro gusto refiere,
bien haya la que no os quiere
y quejaos en hora buena.
*
Dan vuestras amantes penas
a sus libertades alas,
y después de hacerlas malas
las queréis hallar muy buenas.
*
¿Cuál mayor culpa ha tenido
en una pasión errada:
la que cae de rogada
o el que ruega de caído?
*
¿O cuál es más de culpar,
aunque cualquiera mal haga:
la que peca por la paga
o el que paga por pecar?
*
Pues ¿para quée os espantáis
de la culpa que tenéis?
Queredlas cual las hacéis
o hacedlas cual las buscáis.
*
Dejad de solicitar,
y después, con más razón,
acusaréis la afición
de la que os fuere a rogar.
*
Bien con muchas armas fundo
que lidia vuestra arrogancia,
pues en promesa e instancia
juntáis diablo, carne y mundo.
_____
Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz
(1651-1695, New Spain/México)
Stupid, conceited men
Silly, you men – so very adept
at wrongly faulting womankind,
not seeing you’re alone to blame
for faults you plant in woman’s mind.
*
After you’ve won by urgent plea
the right to tarnish her good name,
you still expect her to behave–
you, that coaxed her into shame.
*
You batter her resistance down
and then, all righteousness, proclaim
that feminine frivolity,
not your persistence, is to blame.
*
When it comes to bravely posturing,
your witlessness must take the prize:
you’re the child that makes a bogeyman,
and then recoils in fear and cries.
*
Presumptuous beyond belief,
you’d have the woman you pursue
be Thais when you’re courting her,
Lucretia once she falls to you.
*
For plain default of common sense,
could any action be so queer
as oneself to cloud the mirror,
then complain that it’s not clear?
*
Whether you’re favored or disdained,
nothing can leave you satisfied.
You whimper if you’re turned away,
you sneer if you’ve been gratified.
*
With you, no woman can hope to score;
whichever way, she’s bound to lose;
spurning you, she’s ungrateful–
succumbing, you call her lewd.
*
Your folly is always the same:
you apply a single rule
to the one you accuse of looseness
and the one you brand as cruel.
*
What happy mean could there be
for the woman who catches your eye,
if, unresponsive, she offends,
yet whose complaisance you decry?
*
Still, whether it’s torment or anger–
and both ways you’ve yourselves to blame–
God bless the woman who won’t have you,
no matter how loud you complain.
*
It’s your persistent entreaties
that change her from timid to bold.
Having made her thereby naughty,
you would have her good as gold.
*
So where does the greater guilt lie
for a passion that should not be:
with the man who pleads out of baseness
or the woman debased by his plea?
*
Or which is more to be blamed–
though both will have cause for chagrin:
the woman who sins for money
or the man who pays money to sin?
*
So why are you men all so stunned
at the thought you’re all guilty alike?
Either like them for what you’ve made them
or make of them what you can like.
*
If you’d give up pursuing them,
you’d discover, without a doubt,
you’ve a stronger case to make
against those who seek you out.
*
I well know what powerful arms
you wield in pressing for evil:
your arrogance is allied
with the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Traducción del español al inglés / Translation from Spanish into English: Alan S. Trueblood
In his biography of Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695), Octavio Paz states that the self-taught scholar and nun of colonial New Spain (later called México) is the most important poet of the Americas up until the arrival of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson in the 19th century. We must include the Aztec “poet-king” Nezahualcóyotl (1402-1472) in a statement so broad, yet de la Cruz does have something unique: a prototypical “feminist” point of view.
Juana Inés de la Cruz lived in México City from the age of 16 onward, and died during a plague at the age of 43 – after tending to the stricken. The out-of-wedlock daughter of a Spanish captain and a Criolla woman, she was an avid reader from childhood, and though she begged to disguise herself as a boy so as to continue her studies “more openly, in the Capital”, still she was “found out” and barred entrance to the university. That didn’t stop her – she kept on educating herself – and she’d already had a good head start, sneaking ( – in colonial society women were strongly discouraged from becoming literate in all but religious devotional texts – ) her grandfather’s books to read from his hacienda library. By her mid-teens she could speak and write in Latin, as well as Náhuatl, the language of the Aztecs. Devout and a “Daughter of The Church” though she was, yet she challenged male hypocrisy in the poem featured here, Hombres Necios/Stupid, conceited Men. Written in the conventional rhyming-quatrain verse form of the 17th century, Sister Juana addresses all Men; the poet analyzes their attraction to, and efforts to attain, women who will have sex with them — women whom the men reject and judge utterly, afterwards.
Ann-Marie Scarlett: “La Vida” y “Quien yo soy” / “Life” and “Who I am”
Posted: July 10, 2012 Filed under: Ann-Marie Scarlett, English, Spanish Comments Off on Ann-Marie Scarlett: “La Vida” y “Quien yo soy” / “Life” and “Who I am”
Ann-Marie Scarlett
La Vida
Viviendo en un mundo sin paz,
De poco amor que no dura
¿Cuándo terminará la guerra?
Todo trabajando juntos
Y amándonos la una a la otra
En la Vida no hay límites
No hay satisfacción
Sino mucha distracción
Cavemos dentro de nosotras mismas
Buscando estar completas
Resultados, arrepentimientos,
Pensando en el tiempo
Cuando no lloraremos más
¿Habrá un tiempo de gozo puro
Un tiempo sin dolor?
¿O será siempre el desdén?
El Tiempo no espera a nadie
Y aún, solo el Tiempo lo dirá.
*
Life
Living in a world of no peace
Little love with no endurance
When will the war stop?
Everyone pulling together
And loving each other
With Life there are no boundaries
No satisfaction
But lots of distraction
Dig into ourselves
Looking for completeness
Results, regrets
Thinking of the time
When we’ll cry no more
Will there ever be a time of pure joy
A time with no pain
Or will it always be disdain
Time waits for no one
But still; only time will tell.
_____
Quien yo soy
Siempre estoy pensando en ese tiempo
Cuando yano estaré asustada
El tiempo cuando estaré liberada de mis miedos
El tiempo cuando no me preocuparé
El tiempo cuando diré:
Ésta es quien yo soy.
El tiempo cuando diré:
Me importa un bledo.
El tiempo cuando diré:
No necesito un hombre.
El tiempo cuando diga:
Ésta es quien yo soy.
El tiempo cuando no me sentiré tan sola
El tiempo cuando me sentiré bienvenida en casa
– el tiempo cuando diré:
Ésta es quien yo soy.
*
Who I am
I always think about the time
When I’ll be scared no more
The time I’ll be free from my fears
The time when I wouldn’t care
The time that I’ll say
This is who I am
The time I’ll say
I don’t give a damn
The time I’ll say
I don’t need a man
The time when I say
This is who I am
The time when I
Won’t feel so alone
The time when I’ll
Feel welcome at home
The time when I say
This is who I am.
* * * * *
Traducciones del inglés al español / Translations from English into Spanish:
Alexander Best and Lidia García Garay
Zócalo Poets 