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March 02, 2005
Evitar/Avoidance
Su pelo tiene estrellas
que yo no lo queiro ver,
pero me detecto pesadillas
en sus ojos, castanos bellisimas.
La lengua tiene mentiras
(Her hair has stars
that I do not want to see,
but I sense nightmares
in her eyes, brown-eyed beauties.
The language contains lies)
that worlds deny.
If I see a chair
or a desk absent, my mind comes last,
derides the journey over
the shout of color. Deliver us
a watering hole that fits my square
-peg, or sketch
me a pattern made of tips of noses
when she is turned sideways.
Pulse garnets become pouty phonetics,
oclusivos of consonantes,
obstructions of
comic strip bubbles that drink emerald silabeos.
Pelo castano, fontanas de agua pura
that say "Hello", in fricative waves.
Solamente en tus suenos
pensarias de mi, mexicana.
Solamente en mi vida sana
durmiera cuando la morena,
mi corazon, es mi dueno.
(Only in your dreams
would you think of me, Mexican girl.
Only in my own safe and healthy life
will I sleep when the brown-skinned girl,
my heart, is my master).
I put my two lips juntos and blow trabalenguas, such as:
Mi mama me mima mucho/rubber baby buggy bumpers.
Posted by tony at March 2, 2005 08:04 PM
Comments
So, your heart is actually a brown-skinned girl? That explains a lot of things. Hahaha.
I understand the metaphor, maybe it sounds better in Spanish, but it seems cliche to say that the girl is your heart.
The first three stanzas are great. Very Neruda-esque, and I mean that to be a positive thing. They flow so well that when I get to the last two stanzas there's a bit of a jarring. Only because the sentiment that the language has been creating is now being foregrounded too much.
I think this poem would get even better if the last two lines were dropped and the fourth stanza reworded.
Posted by: josh ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.whypop.net/chopshop/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 3, 2005 07:53 PM
i must say, due to some recent reading (carolyn forche) i have warmed up a bit to multi lingual poems. Cela et le fait je suis à l'aise en français. all jokes aside, i like what it can do.
now your poem. i am suprised that josh is just figuring out your heart is a brown skinned girl. i knew that. it is also a small blond girl. (it is probably even a little canadian girl eh)
my main complaint: if you need to translate it, it looses its force. if you say it in spanish, and then english, i question why you needed the spanish. i understand what you were trying to do, but this is my biggest problem with this poem. i think it would be better to loose the english translation, or even better put the translation, but do not set it up to look like a translation. make it look like another stanza. i dont know, maybe i dont like to be so disoriented in a poem. maybe this is what you feel like when you read ashbery? it is my personal predjiduce i guess (that and i hate mexicans)
ok maybe two poems staked on top of each other. one in english, one in spanish, but the same poem? i might never get it.
Posted by: garth at March 23, 2005 12:09 AM