Category Archives: Translation

“in fair verona, where we lay our scene”

22 Tuesday Feb 2022

Posted by in Armenia, Armenian, drama, Translation

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I am working on a translation of the Shakespearian sonnet that opens the play Romeo and Juliet.

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Since it’s impossible to translate the English rules of what makes a sonnet into Armenian I have simply used prose and so far this is what I have:

Վերոնա կոչվող գեղեցիկ քաղաքում կային երկու մեծ ընտանիքներ, որոնք իրար հետ հին վիճաբանություն ունեին, որը հավերժ պահեցին՝ նոր ոխը դնելով հին վնասվածքների վրա, ձեռքերը թաթախելով միմյանց արյան մեջ։ Այս թշնամիների դժբախտ արգանդից մի զույգ ծնվեց չար աստղի սիրահարվածությամբ, որի վիշտն ու մահը վերջ դրեցին այս դինաստիաների հին ատելությանը: Այս սիրահարների հանդեպ սիրո սարսափազդու անցումը, իրենց խեղճ երեխաներին մահ տված ծնողների կատաղի ոգին մեզ երկու ժամ նյութ է տալիս, որ եթե համբերատար լսեք պակասը, այն կփոխարինեք մեր ջանքերով ու պատրաստակամությամբ։

It is difficult finding people who can or will comment or critique my poor attempts at translation, though I keep hoping that if I post enough attempts someone, somewhere, might read it and offer their own suggestions. Fingers crossed.

sissyboy pale

16 Thursday May 2019

Posted by in Armenian, Erotic, Poetry, sonnet, Translation

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After your parents kicked you out, you hid
all month long in my dorm room. “Feminine

wiles ain’t me th’n.” Yis. After your dad forbid
you from seeing her all that we called fun

came down to cashed bowls, beer cans and bi porn.
“Na vat aghjik e,” your dad said. “She’s bad.”

Some nights we got to smuggle your lovelorn
girlfriend in. — It’s hard to have a triad

with just two. In the shower: her toffee,
your bronze, my sissyboy pale. Nothing lasts,

though: just footnotes. Sister? Lover? Other?
What were we? Best friends. That’s enough for me.

Twenty-eight days. Lilith, guide to outcasts,
at long last, did your daughters find shelter?

][][

NOTE:
There is a special ring in hell for abusive parents who cast out their queer children. Know the words that will get used against you so that they have no power. In Armenian, “she’s a bad girl,” gets translated into, “na vat aghjik e” (նա վատ աղջիկ է), as in: “bad girls are more fun/ vat aghjiknery aveli zvarchali yen” (վատ աղջիկները ավելի զվարճալի են). My broken broken vocabulary.

drubbing

14 Tuesday May 2019

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No. You loathed his want instead. His drab wants:
dull and ulcerous. Cankered cock outside.

Cankerous soul in. — In the restaurant’s
restroom, in stall five, she ground down astride

your face ‘tween tribadic drubbing, violent
priapism, the long slow insertion —

“I’ll frig ‘er,” she said, slapping your splayed cunt.
“Put yer randiness ‘ere. Soon yer semen

an’ mah spit shaa slosh frae deep in ‘er arse.”
Blessed be all dirty minds, “keghtot mitk’y.”

Blessed be all grandmothers, daughters and wives
who find love once marriage becomes a farce,

once their menfolk bloat with hate and vodka.
Blessed be all love that still somehow survives.

NOTE:
A dirty mind, as Prince would say, is, “keghtot mitk’y” (կեղտոտ միտքը), in Armenian; as in, “dirty minded friends are so attractive,” “keghtot sirvats ynkernery aynk’an gravich’ yen” (կեղտոտ սիրված ընկերները այնքան գրավիչ են) … because we are and so are you.

bad bliss

10 Friday May 2019

Posted by in Erotic, Poetry, Potawatomi, sonnet, Translation

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Don’t be jealous of the dead. Their yearning
is like yours. “Ggiskonyé ne?” That pain

filling all her voice asks. “Are you getting
undressed?” I take her absinthe and regain

all those old tensions, those itches. To kiss
a ghost is to feel her raw tingle glow

in your flesh, echo in the sky, bad bliss
from the bowels of the earth. She has no

bowels but — she’s horny as a hellcat
with two cunts. I have been moonstruck before.

When at last I undressed before you that
was mad but you had said more, always more.

The dead are like us: loving cock and cunt
and all that’s odd, loving what is different.

][][

NOTE:
In the Bodéwadmi (Potawatomi) language, “ggiskonyé ne?” translates as, “are you getting undressed?”

amenamair

30 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Armenian, Lilith, Poetry, sonnet, Translation

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Far more nervous for nightfall than I’ve been
for a while. Gloaming, some call it. The time

when paths open. — If I could leave my skin,
walk soft there, I would. I can’t. That sublime

skill is beyond me. The most that I do
is wait down by the crossroads for her guide.

Amenamair: a name the ancients knew.
The All-Mother. In last night’s dusk I spied

in the willow where her queer owl singsonged.
I have never been this close to an owl

before or had such a song burn in me:
“Amenamair. I have longed. I have longed.”

I long to leave my skin. I long to prowl.
I long to be your song in that dark tree.

Note:
Just as Odin, in Norse lore, is called the All-Father, one of the many names of Lilith, in Armenian (the ancient language that I keep going back to), is Amenamair (Ամենամայր), the All-Mother.

translating lorca

14 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in Poetry, Potawatomi, Spanish, Translation

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“VERDE, QUE TE QUIERO, VERDE.”
“Skebgezo, gmenwénmen, skebgezo.”
“Green, I want you, green.”
Potawatomi is an oral language meaning that it has only been until (relatively) recently that a dictionary using English has been made available to people like me who just want to learn the language because it sounds beautiful. To complicate things there are both Southern and Northern dialects that have their own vocabulary. I live in the north but my on-line language classes are from a southern band (Citizen Nation) who, logically, use southern terms. Today I am struggling over how to say green in Potawatomi in the context of the first line of Federico Garcia Lorca’s poem, Romance Sonambulo. “Verde, que te quiero, verde.” In Potawatomi the world is broken up into things that are animate (all that which is living, all which is spiritual, etc.) and inanimate (man-made things, etc.) The green that Lorca addresses (verde) embodies both hopeful and thwarted desire. I’ve always seen it as something otherworldly and alive. Animate green. One Potawatomi word-list I found on-line from Wisconsin says that green is, “eshkebok.” I liked that, since I could rhyme it with sleepwalk which plays nicely with the title of Lorca’s poem (Ballad of the Sleepwalker). However a different word list (this one from Oklahoma) says that green is, “skebgezo.” Perhaps it’s that regional difference I don’t really understand yet? Perhaps one is animate and the other not? I don’t know. The frustration of learning by oneself is that there is no one to correct my errors as I go along. Que te quiero (how I want you) is easier since I could find the actual phrase in Potawatomi in several sources. It is: “gmenwénmen.” I’m not at a place in my studies where I can keep translating the poem but one day I will. One day I will translate all of Lorca’s work and a brand new world will open up, just like that. I am endlessly excited to see a new world.

enough

14 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in Erotic, Poetry, Potawatomi, sonnet, Translation

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Soft or hard, purple or brown, my mouth takes
it deep your tongue tongues it, crests it. Our lips

purse as we start to suck, as her cunt quakes
and salt droplets her skin. With acid trips,

frigatrix fingers and chronic, we shared
a bed and your sister’s ruined body —

cancer had left her rickety and scared.
Deep love requires desire. The three

of us odd things. You say orgasms must
be the cure. I say with enough pleasure

we will hold on. But love, debanawen,
even death, nbowen, is neither just

nor fair. It just is. Like how we kiss her.
We pass the bong. We do it again.

NOTE:
Today marks Week 2 in my studies of the Potawatomi language. I want to learn it because it is beautiful to my ear. My goal is to one day translate English and Spanish poetry into Potawatomi, to help expand its edges, to make this world a little more interesting to be in. That said I am going to be working on this project for a long time to come. I’m constantly getting my verb tenses mixed up, which is why this poem is using only simple nouns. Love, in Potawatomi, is, “Debanawen,” while Death is, “Nbowen.” I hope soon to be able to form more complex sentences in my sonnets but today I’m being kind to myself. I’m a slow learner.

ndekwem

04 Thursday Apr 2019

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Dreams are coming fast these days. It started

with two — “wasabzo o seksi” — deer eyes

 

shining in the dark. Antlers caked with blood.

In the dark, underneath, curved hips and thighs

 

announce something else. I can’t even say,

“Ndekwem,” my Sister, but I need to.

 

You—whose daughters are lost, who men betray,

who I don’t understand—I’ll wait for you

 

by the tree that bears your name. Dreams of two

eyes, moon-mad bright, means that you’re drawing near—

 

In the dark, underneath all the abuse

and fear, I wish that I could talk. To do

 

something useful. Deer that is not a deer

at long last let me be of some damn use.

 

NOTE:

Violence against Indigenous women is at an epidemic level. According to armingsisters, “It is estimated that 1 in 3 Indigenous women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. However, a study done by Amnesty International found that 90% of all Indigenous women have experienced sexual assault.”

Organizations such as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women USA have made it their mission to find the staggering numbers who go missing across the United States and Canada each year. I say this because I want you to understand why I am (slowly) learning Neshnabé (Potawatomi language). I live near two sovereign Potawatomi tribes in West Michigan, Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band (near Gun Lake) and ‎Pokagon Band (near Dowagiac). To understand a problem you first have to be able to understand the language that it is spoken in and I do not think English will be the tool to help fight against domestic violence.

The words that I use in the poem are Potawatomi.  “Ndekwem,” means, “my sister,” and, “wasabzo o seksi,” talks about deer eyes (seksi) shining in the dark. I might be a slow student but I am confident that once I understand then I too can, “be of some damn use.”

cherubino

05 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Erotic, Latin, Poetry, sonnet, Translation

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Back then you loved Not-Mom-and-Son porn clips.
You hand-rolled your joints and read Catullus

to me after middle school. Your wide hips
and ass held Latin names, even, “flatus

vaginalis,” — what the Roman poet
called cunt-vapors, caused by, “coitus more

ferarum,” fucking like wild beasts, sounded
posh. Your missing breast, cancer scars, dismay

in your eyes each time you came meant nothing
to me. You were my awesome. Ghost, hellbent,

do you dream of your cherubino or
do the dead forget? Even now, reading

Latin recalls that time before lament
and lechery; before howl and hardcore.

NOTE:
The erotic world feeds our souls and I loooove learning new erotic ideas and words in other languages. The danger is, though, a poem full of foreign words, 9 times out of 10, falls apart because the very same words I get so excited about mean nothing to most readers, so they get skipped over. If you asked me what makes a poem successful, “not skipping over parts of it,” would be high on the list. For the record, “flatus vaginalis,” is the Latin term for a pussy fart; “coitus more ferarum,” means fucking [in the manner of] beasts and, “Cherubino,” is a pet-name for a young boy infatuated with an older woman.

infernal fountain

01 Friday Mar 2019

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The street kids all laughed at the noise we made,
hurried over at the first lop-bam-boom,

first toe-curling wail. Infidel who prayed
to false female gods, your mom declared. Womb

talk by a man? Tsk, she spat. She’s correct,
but it’s more than just talk. Window open,

slick with kisses, afternoon sweat, respect
for bald lust, for the infernal fountain

of your cunt. Call my promised land Lilith
and your clit. Your mom freaks at, “¡me haces

mojada!” At your skirt pulled up, midriff
exposed. At what I call prayer that gushes

sublime between her adored First Daughter
and the infidel who knows no better.

NOTE:
“Me haces mojada,” translates from Spanish as, “you make me wet.”