Sunday, April 30, 2023

Poem by Bobby Goosey, "The Truth"

 

Bobby Lee Goosey

 

The Truth

 

for Nathan the Grecian

I’m telling you; it’s true, it’s true!

I’m telling you; it’s true, it’s true!

 

Would I fib to you? Not I!

Cross my heart and hope to die.

Cut my throat if I tell a lie,

Lay me down and gouge my eye.

 

Certain true, black and blue;

Tie me down, then cut me in two.

Would I ever fib to you?

That’s one thing I’d never do!

 

All my words are true-blue true.

Lock me in limbo, leave me to stew,

Kick my bottom and call me a shrew,

Make me dog-paddle in stinking do-do,

 

I’m telling you; it’s true, it’s true!

I’m telling you; it’s true, it’s true!

 

The world is flat and the grass is blue.

Your name is Boo, and my name’s Boo too.

We’ll live forever, me and you,

We’ll fly on clouds, eat rainbow stew,

We’ll swim on the moon in the lunatic dew.

 

When the whole world explodes we’ll survive, me and you,

But if I should die I’ll go on loving you,

My love for you will drift on through the blue.

I’m telling you, Grecian, what I say is true!

Would I ever fib to you?

 

[April 28, 2023, from Bobby Goosey’s Compendium of Totally Sensible Nonsense]




Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Translation of Poem by Ivan Bunin, И. А. БУНИН, "МОГИЛА В СКАЛЕ," "The Tomb in the Cliff"

 


 

И. А. БУНИН

(1870-1953)

 

МОГИЛА В СКАЛЕ

То было в полдень, в Нубии, на Ниле.
Пробили вход, затеплили огни —
И на полу преддверия, в тени,
На голубом и тонком слое пыли,
Нашли живой и четкий след ступни.

Я, путник, видел это. Я в могиле
Дышал теплом сухих камней. Они
Сокрытое пять тысяч лет хранили.

Был некий день, был некий краткий час,
Прощальный миг, когда в последний раз
Вздохнул здесь тот, кто узкою стопою
В атласный прах вдавил свой узкий след.

Тот миг воскрес. И на пять тысяч лет
Умножил жизнь, мне данную судьбою.

6.VIII.09

August 6, 1909

d

Literal Translation

The Grave in the Rock

 

It was midday, in Nubia, on the Nile.

They broke through the entrance, lit torches;

And on the floor of the vestibule, in the shade,

In a thin and light-blue layer of dust,

They found a distinct and living trace of a footprint.

 

I, a traveler, saw that. In the tomb

I breathed the warmth of dry stones. They

Had preserved what was hidden for five thousand years.

 

There was a certain day, there was a certain brief moment,

A valedictory second, when for the last time

Sighed here the one whose narrow foot

Pressed its narrow trace into the satiny dust.

 

That second was resurrected. And by five thousand years

Was multiplied the life granted to me by fate.

 

d

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

The Tomb in the Cliff

 

On the Nile, in Nubia, the sun shone on midday.

They broke into the entrance, torches lit.

And on the floor of vestibule, a shady bit,

In thin and light-blue layer of dust there lay

A clear and living footprint, faint with grit.

 

I, a traveler, saw that print, torchlit.

Within the tomb I breathed the warmth of stones

That hid five thousand years the sight of it.

 

A certain day once was, a short-lived hour,

When here, the final time, in farewell’s flower,

He sighed, the one whose narrow footstep gleams,  

Pressed down in narrow trace on satin dust.

 

That hour resurrected, five thousand years I must

Make as my own, embrace all eons’ fondest dreams.  

 


 


Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Nonsense Poem by Bobby Goosey, "My Resistance Is Down"

 

Bobby Lee Goosey

 

My Resistance Is Down (And So Am I)

 

My resistance decided to fall today;

It fell plumb flat on the ground.

And all of the germzies came out to play:

They jumped on the chump they’d found.

 

I tried to resist but I couldn’t resist;

My resistance was flat on the ground.

And all of them germzies refused to desist,

Till they’d flayed me and laid me right down

(Beside my resistance, plumb flat on the ground).

 

Now we lie here together, we groan and we cuss;

Why can’t we get up and run free?

Them germs is a-romping and stomping on us,

My laid-out resistance and me,

My romped on and stomped on,

My played out and flayed out,

My dead beat resistance and me.



[from Bobby Goosey's Compendium of Perfectly Sensible Nonsense]

This poem is dedicated to Mac Jack Bowie on his tenth birthday.

Monday, April 10, 2023

Translation of Poem by Ivan Bunin, И. А. БУНИН, "БЕРЕГ," "The Far Shore"

 

 

И. А. БУНИН

(1870-1953)

БЕРЕГ

За окном весна сияет новая.
А в избе — последняя твоя
Восковая свечка — и тесовая
Длинная ладья.

Причесали, нарядили, справили,
Полотном закрыли бледный лик —
И ушли, до времени оставили
Твой немой двойник.

У него ни имени, ни отчества,
Ни друзей, ни дома, ни родни:
Тихи гробового одиночества
Роковые дни.

Да пребудет в мире, да покоится!
Как душа свободная твоя,
Скоро, скоро в синем море скроется
Белая ладья.

August 16, 1909

 

d

 

Literal Translation

The Shore

 

Beyond the window a new spring is gleaming.

And in the peasant hut, is your last

Thin waxen candle, and a long boat

Made of plank boards.

 

They combed you, dressed you up, celebrated you,

Covered your pallid face with a linen cloth;

And went away, for a time leaving

Your mute double.

 

He has no first name, no patronymic,

No friends, no home or kin.

Quiet are the fateful days

Of loneliness in the coffin.

 

May he abide in peace, may he find rest!

Just as your soul now at liberty,

Soon, soon, into the blue sea will disappear

The white boat.

 

 

 

d

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

The Far Shore

 

Outside the window brand-new spring gleams on.

Inside your candle drips the wax of nevermore,

While, carpentered, a skiff, plank-board and long,

Prepares its journey toward the distant shore.

 

They combed you, dressed you up, bid fair adieu,

They placed a linen cloth on visage pallor—

Then went away and left in place of you

A double, pale of face and void of valor.

 

He has no name, no patronymic, naught,

No friends, no home, a dearth of cherished-nearest;

Quiet, ever quiet are his days devoid of ought,

Lonely in the deathly still, no hope of panegyrist.

 

“May he abide in peace, find sweet repose!”

Your anguished soul at last knows liberty;  

That off-white skiff soon sails for No One Knows,

Evanesces, fades into the sky’s blue sea.

 

 


Saturday, April 8, 2023

On Translation: the Russian Word for "ASK"

 

On Translation

In Russian you say “you ask” this way: спрашиваете (SPRASH-ee-vah-ee-teh). In other words you take five syllables in Russian to equal the one syllable (ask) in English. This demonstrates the impossibility of exact equivalent translation, for how can you render the splash of the SPRASH and the gentle ripples of the ee-vah-ee-teh with the abrupt jawbone blow of an ask?

[excerpted from the book by U.R. Bowie, Here We Be. Where Be We?]




Translation of Poem by Nikolai Gumilyov, Николай Гумилев, "Мужик," THE MUZHIK

 

Николай Гумилев

(1886-1921)

 

Мужик

 

В чащах, в болотах огромных,

У оловянной реки,

В срубах мохнатых и темных

Странные есть мужики.

 

Выйдет такой в бездорожье,

Где разбежался ковыль,

Слушает крики Стрибожьи,

Чуя старинную быль.

 

С остановившимся взглядом

Здесь проходил печенег…

Сыростью пахнет и гадом

Возле мелеющих рек.

 

Вот уже он и с котомкой,

Путь оглашая лесной

Песней протяжной, негромкой,

Но озорной, озорной.

 

Путь этот — светы и мраки,

Посвист разбойный в полях,

Ссоры, кровавые драки

В страшных, как сны, кабаках.

 

В гордую нашу столицу

Входит он — Боже, спаси!-

Обворожает царицу

Необозримой Руси

 

Взглядом, улыбкою детской,

Речью такой озорной,-

И на груди молодецкой

Крест просиял золотой.

 

Как не погнулись — о горе!-

Как не покинули мест

Крест на Казанском соборе

И на Исакии крест?

 

Над потрясенной столицей

Выстрелы, крики, набат,

Город ощерился львицей,

Обороняющей львят.

 

«Что ж, православные, жгите

Труп мой на темном мосту,

Пепел по ветру пустите…

Кто защитит сироту?

 

В диком краю и убогом

Много таких мужиков.

Слышен но вашим дорогам

Радостный гул их шагов».

 1916

 

d

 

Literal Translation

 

The Muzhik

In thickets, in enormous swamps,

By a river the color of tin,

In moss-bedecked dark hovels

Live strange Russian peasants.

 

Such a one stands in the trackless wastelands,

Where the feathergrass has run rampant;

He listens to the cries of [the pagan god] Stribog,

Sensing the legendary times of old.

 

His gaze fixed ahead of him,

The Pecheneg tribesman once passed this way . . .

The smell of dampness and reptiles

Hangs over rivers growing ever more shallow.

 

Now he has a knapsack slung over his shoulder,

And his song rings out over the forest pathway,

A song not loud, long drawn out,

But malign and roguish, roguish.

 

His path is both light and sheer darkness,

With a highwayman’s whistle over the fields,

With quarrels, bloody brawling

In hideous, nightmarish lowlife taverns.

 

He makes his way—Lord preserve us!—

Into our proud capital city,

He bewitches the wife of the Tsar

Of boundless Rus’.

 

With the gaze of his eyes and his childlike smile,

With that roguish way he has of speaking,

And on his gallant breast

There glimmers a golden cross.

 

The cross on Kazan Cathedral—o woe!—

The cross on St. Isaac’s as well,

How could they not bend crooked in place,

How could they still stand there tall?

 

All over the astonished capital

The tocsin sounds, gunshots, shrieks,

The city bares its teeth

Like a lioness protecting her young.

 

“Well then, you Orthodox Christians,

You can burn my corpse on a dark bridge,

Let my ashes fly to the winds . . .

Who will stand up for a poor orphan?

 

“In our wild and squalid land

Many are the peasants like me.

All over your roads can be heard

The joyous tramp of their footsteps.”

 

d

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

The Muzhik

 

In thickets, in bogs of enormity,

By rivers the color of tin,

In moss-bedecked hovels’ deformity,

Dwell peasants bizarre with their kin.

 

Such a one stands in the wilderness

Where feathergrass spreads neath dark skies,  

Sensing times olden and villainous,

Listening to pagan, Stribogian cries.

 

Gaze firmly fixed on the distance,

The Pecheneg passed through these lands,

Where dry rivers eke out subsistence,

As fetid smells soak through the sands. 

 

And now he’s tramped off with a knapsack,

His song tells of gore and rapine,

Long drawn out this song made of gimcrack,

But roguish and O so malign.

 

His path through the woods is dark/light,

With the sound of a highwayman’s whistle;

He joins in a bloody good fight

At a hideous roadhouse abysmal. 

 

He finally arrives—Lord help us, we pray!—

In our capital city resplendent,

All too soon has vast Rus in his sway,

O’er the wife of the Tsar he’s ascendant,

 

Beguiling with gaze of his eyes,

With smiles, with words that transfix,

Seeking his farce to legitimize 

By wearing a huge crucifix.

 

The cross on Kazan, on St. Isaac’s,

How could they not bend askew?

How could they cope with demoniacs,

How consternation eschew?

 

The tocsin, the gunshots and shrieks,

Petersburg stunned and dumbfounded,

Hackles raised, baring sharp teeth,

Like a tigress with her cubs surrounded.

 

“Orthodox Christians, my corpse

You can burn on a bridge, have your way;

Watch ashes blow off in the wind . . .

Poor waif of an orphan at bay!

 

“Holy Rus is awash in malaise, 

Muzhiks just like me vast in numbers  

March in jubilant tramping these days,

Rousing philistines from slumbers.”

 

 


 

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Translation of poem by Fyodor Tyutchev, Федор Тютчев, "Тихо в озере струится," "Softly o’er mere-waters’ ripples"

 


Федор Тютчев

(1803-1873)

 

Тихо в озере струится
Отблеск кровель золотых,
Много в озеро глядится
Достославностей былых
Жизнь играет, солнце греет,
Но под нею и под ним
Здесь былое чудно веет
Обаянием своим.

Солнце светит золотое,
Блещут озера струи
Здесь великое былое
Словно дышит в забытьи;

Дремлет сладко, беззаботно,
Не смущая дивных снов
И тревогой мимолетной
Лебединых голосов

 

1866

d

Literal Translation

Quietly in the lake streams

The reflection of golden rooftops,

Many are the glorious achievements of past times

That gaze into the lake.

Life is playing, sun is warming,

But beneath the play and the warmth

Past times here are marvelously wafting

Their charm.

 

The golden sun is shining,

The streaming lake is shimmering . . .

Here the grand past times

Seem to breathe on oblivious;

It drowses sweetly, carefree,

Not disturbing the marvelous dreams

And the fleeting disquiet

Of the swans’ voices . . .

 

d


Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

Softly o’er mere-waters’ ripples stream on

Reflections of golden rooftops,

Glories of past times muse in dream-song,

Gazing at gleams of sundrops.

Life playacts living, the sun spreads bright warming,

But beneath gamboling balm

Marvelous past times are wafting and swarming,

Exuding wellbeing and calm.

 

Glimmer the sunrays, goldenly gleaming,

Billowing swells scintillate.

Here the grand past times, silently streaming,

Breath on, forgetful, opaque.

Life drowses sweetly, tranquil and carefree,

Lulling the marvelous dreams,

In which the swans’ cries, softly and airily,

Sound midst unease of sunbeams.