This reads as if right there in the english, Dave. No feel of the
'translatese'...
Doug
On 23-Apr-06, at 10:32 AM, David Bircumshaw wrote:
> From the Spanish
>
> Oppression of a huge tree felled.
> Black eyebrows knit, as if to stitch
> together thought. Face with the fine
> curved line a bird's flight pencils in
> the sky. Nose like a falcon's beak.
> Feathery, white hair. Leaf-stripped tree
> gripped in ice. A razoring glint
> of water welled in a part-closed
> stagnant eye. I swat at the flies
> with a loose linen cloth. Across
> the sheer face of a corpse a vague
> shadow slips: a condor's.
> Also in flight.
>
> (1974, rev 2006. Based on the Spanish of Ruben Dario)
>
> I came across the 'original' of this yesterday - I thought I'd lost
> all the
> early poems I'd written. I did feel though this had possibilities, I
> heavily
> revised it, but here we are, me coming on 51 via 19 via Latin America
> late
> ninetenth century.
>
>
> Best
>
> Dave
>
>
Douglas Barbour
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Is that the flesh made word
or is that the flesh-made word?
Fred Wah
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