Modern Translation of Alastor by Shelly
For Kent Johnson www.blazevox.org/gatza.htm
On Air, Land, and Sea; Yo Joe, G.I. Joe!
If knowing is half the battle, my strength
Carrying only normal authenticity intuit
Your love, and repay the loan with my own;
Through slick morning traffic, and opaque offices, _5
To 5 PM and good evening Ms. Bossmadam,
And sincere quiet kiss after sports-center's end;
If October's pumpkins sigh suburban simulacra,
And December's Santa don's a crown of credit;
Of sparkling ice pales the driveway and parking lot;
_10
If spring breathes heavy like young internet porn
Her sweet camera kisses, have been dear to me;
If no big purple bird, spider, or gentle creature
I knowingly have hurt, but still in my heart loved
And appreciated these as family; then excuse _15
This jockish bragging, dear friends, and leave
Don't go away mad, just away; talk to the hand
Mother of this expanding universe!
Validate my parking, for I have paid
For the month, in advance; I have a receipt . _20
Your shadow casts black infinity on your shoe,
And my indifference opens and I can see girl
You have issues. I have made my bed
In morgues and half way houses, where AIDS
Keeps count of numbers taken from you, _25
Eager to quite their pigheaded curiosity
Of what lies beyond, by compelling some phantom,
Your FedEx guy, to provide some vision
Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,
When night makes that bizarre noise of its own stillness,
_30
Like a cell phone right before it rings
Knowing that life is on the other end,
Have I said something to offend you
Because you know you are my honey bunny,
Bringing together hot bodies, making
_35
Such love that could make the ugly old moon
Rise at our command:...and, although you tease
Pretty good you haven't given up the ass,
My wet dreams too wonderful for words,
And those happy hours, and warm afternoon highs, _40
Has brightened me right up, so much so that now
I'm lifeless, as a dusty guitar
Left at an old girlfriends house
Who you left on bad terms after selling her TV for drugs,
I sit here waiting to be played, My Muse, that my tensions
_45
Can work with the sirens of the street song,
And move with the SUV's and the jetsam,
And voice of real people, and woven hymns
Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.
----- Original Message -----
From: "david.bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 8:32 PM
Subject: Re: Languages Project - another attempt
> I'd politely say, from years of experience, that seeing yet another parody
> version of THAT WCW poem can get tedious, it can make me wish to hide in
> that fridge, I must have seen more than a 100 in the previous decade. I
> liked Arni's version, and Dom's, but why not strike out, take on a
> Shakespeare sonnet for instance or a Wallace Stevens poem? Those are just
> examples, I'd like to see Rob render a passage from Whitman or Pope into
> Scots! Or even better, a haiku in Glaswegian.
> Or Anny do an American-Italian version of some lines from George Crabbe!
Now
> that would be a real challenge for anyone, say 'Peter Grimes' maybe.
>
> It does interest me how some lines of speech can be represented in speech,
> as with Scots, but others fail hopelessly to come across on the page. I
> wrote a couple of poems in an artificial West Midlands dialect that I call
> 'Inglis' but the only thing I've ever done in 'Brummie' works wonderfully
in
> performance but can't be represented in orthography as there is no
tradition
> of representing the sounds in the standard alphabet.
>
> All the Best (in friendship)
>
> Dave
>
>
> David Bircumshaw
>
> Leicester, England
>
> Home Page
>
> A Chide's Alphabet
>
> Painting Without Numbers
>
> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
>
>
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