poems

[tmonk1]

Charity in its truest sense; the ability for meaning to gain a heightened hold; golden blossoms spring forth from dark mud; laughs in wild winds waiting for the musk to drip ... in the eyes of something massive, heavy breaths and shooting glances. Honoring the living spirit, alive in the night and day alike -- divided and undivided like them. Remonstrance of an accordian moment; then discord through the curtain of night; an egg might be cracking; say it's not the dragon; we fear them all the same; no matter if the breath be fire or of ice; we listen as the frost overtakes the night; while the chips fall from the sky, and we have our mouths wide open. Like hearts. Having the heart, and the ability to set it forth like a fountain, a cannon, a volcano you thought was only a mountain. Let the gushing sweetness cover the giant earth, as footsteps rifted in folly crack in thundering pangs, the laboring earth. Her screams fill the trees, and the shaking branches thrash in torrents and hurricanes. Her lifted up skirt and her lips spit poison, her snake-like limbs moving further, growing despite what isn't there to touch her ends. Like the prayer cast from the heart made of lead, of iron, of metal that just needs to be heated. Hear my cries, my pleas, my prayer: left alone in the night, I sing the same child ... I am the same singing child crying along with the nightsong of frost, the host of our chariot, the little budding leaf upon which sits the dragon-child. Little claws break the skin of the leaf, and deal such blows as would kill any animal around ... soon enough. The eyes drink in the terrible darkness -- such terrible depths and the names of which -- everything in between -- our drunken kiss in the chance, to watch the lightning stretch past her lips:-- and snake past the hinge of wattle, in the throat of roaring fire spewing forth from hers. I can't find whatever I thought was myself; I have a longing to be lost beneath those wings, in the shade of her Night. That song of her untired heart beating forever ... now ... ceaseless. Liquid skin cannot be broken, but her voice is still simmering. Just smoke now. Her smoky lips. You can hear the glittering laughter. Jewels tongue our precious being in the ancient song of the Darkest Sun. Living metals cast forth to froth and spit out each impurity:-- to melt again this passionless mould, to break this part of the night -- completely in half. To watch the bubbles break black abscesses; black death, the night's evil heart exposed, in a witches goblet the bloody wine, her swollen lips chapped with kisses; no breath;-- breathless from your kisses; and the death of the liquid in her mouth. Single me out, before I can even understand what might unite: the sound, the being in predilection, bends; sort of waits for its sack ot secrets, like ore that travels in rings of veins, geometrically spread across the land. Hills of phosphorescence, where she steps and earth responds. Little whispers through the grass, and healthy sprites majestically green dance. In a blur of a dizzy dance, hungry for knowing you; the weight of distance;-- touch what this is. This is nothing I personally was taught. All of my dreams, my enlivened visions, charcoal dust before the creator's brush. The brush crumbles in my hand; my hand also crumbles. Left like the silence which my breath feels as so entirely cold; my dilating pupils see the night alive with the song of God. God's song. Sung by his sons and daughters: that is all we do. That is what we are. Here, this eternal dance. An opposite; ...but a foe? I do not think so. Sands cover the face. The face is the color of sandy deserts. The silk of your lips. I can touch everything, except the poison things. I have eaten from the Poisoned Tree. I have drank the well of endless thoughts. I have expected forever ... in some way or another ... to cover me like sand, like the chopped up bits of what day and night let through them: endlessness, forever, as cold as the stars the singing God has put into being and placement; there where the hurricane swelled, and the night broke like a rock; and you were born. Dragon-child, soon to be more terrible than all the nights combined. But with your bloody fire-tongue you shall paint the bodies so boldly with the lack of shadow; that the truth of being burn them, and the extras be rent -- in twain. The bodies we built from the pain. All of these parts electronically connected: all of the bits and pieces reflecting ... coordinating in tandem these feathered moments we move through. Silence. Is there enough to live ... eternity? Silence. That is what this is. Make the decision. Breathe fire through the cracks in the earth. Feel so near to your face the air, the swirling air. And when morning finally dawns, after the longest night so far ... then you will know he truth of what the Sun's light can do.

[amenOra]

I wish I had a translation of this! I don't know 'the' language.

[Parkinsonspoet]

Vietnamese

An old painter guy
There are paintings and home
Suddenly fell in love with you
A very passionate flowers

And the beautiful people
To get the money to buy United
The guy gave sold out
Both the pics and the whole House

That's what google translate makes of it but not the best tool for poetry

[amenOra]

thanks, yeah translations aren't that "accurate" especially for "nuanced poetry".

[amenOra]

PS I still think the shape and the language is beautiful "looking" even if I can't read it

[Parkinsonspoet]

I am with you I wish I could read it

[Merkavah]

This is a vietnamese translation of a Russian poem "A Million Roses" by Andrei Voznesensky.

I thought I'd have a go at translating it and boy do I have more of a respect for people who do translation work! Do you try to convey meaning? Is that the meaning the original was going for? How can it still be poetic while fitting the original? So many decisions to make but I must admit, it was fun.

Heart of a Painter

An old master painter, tired and weary
Amidst only paintings and home was so dour.
But lo, there she was, more precious in theory...
A woman more lovely than flowers.

Later that evening, his heart pure and true;
To earn money for his most lovely of flowers
Went to the market, more money to accrue,
To sell paintings and house that very same hour.

With money in hand, he bought millions of roses
And on her porch we all will soon learn
Whether there is true love or just poses
When all is sold for love earned.

As morning arose so the woman arose
She stared out in silence at honeybees coursing
For there on her porch, a forest of roses
A dreamscape of passion and courting.

Stunned was she by such opulent largesse
For who could afford such a forest of red?
She looked for her wealthy suitor to address...
But found only a poor painter, dipping his head.

With money in hand, he bought millions of roses
And on her porch we all will soon learn
Whether there is true love or just poses
When all is sold for love spurned.

Standing there was a painter, tired and poor;
Still no lover or wife, no money or house…
Only a million roses in all their grandeur
And a life worth living for he wasn’t such a louse.



So yeah... there's a translation. Also, this is a translation of the Vietnamese of a translation of the original Russian so it's even further away from the original. Rhyming is mediocre, meter isn't great and the poem may or may not accurately represent the original but it was at least a fun learning experience? Also, the original Russian is a really good poem and definitely different than the Vietnamese--about as much as my English is from the Vietnamese I imagine.

[Merkavah]

Attempt #2 as my first one had an outside link and so was assumed to be spam?

Anyways... the above poem is a Vietnamese translation of a Russian poem called "Million Roses" by Andrei Voznesensky. Not having realized that until I researched it, I went ahead and tried to do a translation of the Vietnamese translation of the Russian original. Needless to say, my translation is quite different from the original now. I certainly have more respect for translators though, making choices on whether to convey a meaning or a phrase or a rhyme is hard. In the end, my translation has neither amazing rhyming nor good meter, but it was fun to create? So I hope you enjoy it. If you know Russian, read the original.


Andrei Voznesensky--A Million Roses, Translation--Heart of a Painter

An old master painter, tired and weary
Amidst only paintings and home was so dour.
But lo, there she was, more precious in theory...
A woman more lovely than flowers.

Later that evening, his heart pure and true;
To earn money for his most lovely of flowers
Went to the market, more money to accrue,
To sell paintings and house that very same hour.

With money in hand, he bought millions of roses
And on her porch we all will soon learn
Whether there is true love or just poses
When all is sold for love earned.

As morning arose so the woman arose
She stared out in silence at honeybees coursing
For there on her porch, a forest of roses
A dreamscape of passion and courting.

Stunned was she by such opulent largesse
For who could afford such a forest of red?
She looked for her wealthy suitor to address...
But found only a poor painter, dipping his head.

With money in hand, he bought millions of roses
And on her porch we all will soon learn
Whether there is true love or just poses
When all is sold for love spurned.

Standing there was a painter, tired and poor;
Still no lover or wife, no money or house…
Only a million roses in all their grandeur
And a life worth living for he wasn’t such a louse.