translation Archives

susurrar

of bodies in translation

It appears that the what of it all
such as it is, happens between
ordered chains of causalities
& wild storms of infinite chance
so if then i should glimpse & dare
some address, will it matter? where
are you going and where have you
been? & i wonder what other
questions hide behind the veil
of this one, a bawdy elegy for
some lost relic, now lucid,
now dense, entombed
where root whispers to
root then sings to leaf
amid reaching of singular
dendrites across impossible
gulfs, where i am made
of volatile stuff between
ice and liquid, you may

find me
in the melt between lake
and cloud where i must be
the flying off.

versions

of vegetal being

I still know nothing
but consider the heart
as flower, as door;
flower as carrier
from earth to sky;
each stem a work
in translation,
rooted in an original
story, evolving, the
heart of which,
branching into
constant revision,
continues to echo:
this is how,
becoming.

Solute

To dissolve some absolution

Always wants. An attempt to loosen the fibers that seemed to contain the riddle of becoming. From that bonebound island I thought I knew what I was and knowing only wants, dreamed that if I were only more, I might hold those skies, that ocean, and swell to blooming so I could let it all go into the living. I used to imagine you a landscape I might photograph in pieces to print on transparencies, hold the light of you up to your light to translate for you this wonder at your nearness. I remember where we stood above the sea holding hands up into sunset as if to catch whatever heavens might finally rain.

But what do you want, always?
What does Always want?
I am impatient to know.
Please speak slowly.

I lack fluency and miss the nuance of your most important phrases.

The phrase “bonebound island” comes from The Notebooks of Dylan Thomas.

Seaworthy

Sight fishing lessons

The first thing to learn was forgetting well enough to dream a boat to help with crossing the night, its busy port thick with interdimensional commerce. The next was how to watch the anchor, watch the ropes, keep a pen and a lighthouse nearby to allow for return and remembrance.

Trance

Translation

Once when I was a mouth burned from the effort it took not to scream, something not me rose to walk that mouth to this stream where something not yet was beginning.

Skull Talk

And hearing range.

I know, love. The anxieties are legion.
But for now, I would like if you could
return to me the absence of my face
from where you’ve been hanging
these ghosts on its edges like
draperies to keep out the draft.

I rather like the velocity of that chill.
I have other uses for these bones.
I want to feel the air run through them.

It is something else, the air.
But that word is the custom
in this place.

I try using terms you know
––air, face, bones––
because the rest will not

translate.