Homophonic translation...or, how interpreted a Romanian poem wrongly..

posted twice ...

Today at dversepoets.com we are translating poems from a language we do not know using just the sounds and look of the words instead of meaning....called "homophonic translations".

Don't ask me how I got this...I don't know!  Romanian poem is below - knowing latin is the key I suppose, but this verse took on a life of its own..

dversepoets.com

The name of my last lover was Russian                                                                

 he lay in his bed in a simple lean-to                                                                     

 he lay in his bed wrapped in white sheets 
 peering out at fiery skies of the season             

                 
 Floating from the terrace garden blooms 

 purple and white scented perfume;
 he felt a coolness and breathed in the 
 night air as he slept peacefully                                                       

 Pollen spread over him during the night

 and he began to roam in his pajamas,

 floating above his body;  until finally

 resting near me, moved closer

 The timber of each little bell flower  

 reached my ear and I smelled orchids;

 all my senses gathered in full grandeur,

  as our dreams began cascading together    

 The name of my last love was Russian

  he lay in his bed in a simple lean-to

  he lay in his bed wrapped in white sheets
  peering out at fiery skies of the season  

 Out from the dream we awoke together,

 slowly the aura of the dream disappeared;

 we stood at the altar before us at our feet

 then spoke our matrimonial forever vows

Ne-om aminti cândva târziu

de-aceasta întâmplare simpla,
de-aceasta banca unde stam
tâmpla fierbinte lânga tâmpla.

De pe stamine de alun,
din plopii albi, se cerne jarul.
Orice-nceput se vrea fecund,
risipei se deda Florarul.

Polenul cade peste noi,
în preajma galbene troiene
alcatuieste-n aur fin.
Pe umeri cade-ne si-n gene.

Ne cade-n gura când vorbim,
si-n ochi, când nu gasim cuvântul.
Si nu stim ce pareri de rau
ne tulbura, piezis, avântul.

Ne-om aminti cândva târziu
de-aceasta întâmplare simpla,
de-aceasta banca unde stam
tâmpla fierbinte lânga tâmpla.

Visând, întrezarim prin doruri -
latente-n pulberi aurii –
paduri ce ar putea sa fie
si niciodatã nu vor fi.

              

Pattern of the Osprey..

This week at dversepoets.com  we are writing about pattern.  It can be about anything in art or life, so a broad range of meanings and applications to choose from.  This is my mindset this week.

His wing power and wild spirit,
countenance of a bodyguard,
lead our eyes into the white
He sails the westward breeze
above the sandy shore
Along high cliffs his flight,
where crimson fire-weed waves,
catching same sunlight
He flies over sparkling sea,
wingspan fifty five inches wide,
back home to his residence
of gabled fir, cedar trees, and pine
Having traits of the bald eagle,
as well as owls',
he wears a snowy down suit,
vest, and majestic crown
He flies a straight line then dips
as he surveys the beach below,
between the tides where
kelp and sea urchins drift

Osprey outperform the kingfisher,
when hunting the abundant sea
for dogfish snails, other mollusks
swimming and digging to be free
Cattails in the marshes
gather dragonflies delfin blue,
Ospreys each year launch o'er
the Caribbean's turquoise hazy hue,
take extraordinary trips to
places where they can laze,
and stay a few...
before returning to breed,
in a climate cool,
raise a family
There is every reason for us to abide,
conserve, protect and maintain
the species,  letting nature be our guide
to help them survive...
prolong their  sustainability

If pub walls could talk..

The last Saturday of each month is Open Link night at dversepoets.com ....free to choose
any topic - I was too late putting this together last week for Victoria's prompt about celebrating
pubs and the anniversary of this website, but here it is:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
Warmth seethes from inside the bar,
flowers in a planter tickle noses
pressing against outside window panes
Inside, time worn wood buffed
to gold highlights,
comfy chairs by a fire, tables full,
usually regulars from everywhere arriving,
filling the space with electricity
Open Mike Night is about to begin
Bundled in casual dress,
people order their preferred beverage;
some find the ear of the bartender
Sound of paper shuffling -
some sheets float to the floor
to be picked up
while chairs are moved
to best advantage

Comradery and poetry are served here!
interpreters not needed,
for it's understood we are here
to meet and greet,
absorb nourishment for the soul
Microphone tested, throats clear
as we listen for each voice to read,
enact, intone their recently conceived works,
revealing new ways of saying what we feel
Sonnets, haiku, triolets presented;
maudlin metaphors, steeped alliteration,
thoughts for food -
not unlike food for thought
Here, word groups are given birth,
find their way through the vessel of
hope and reason,
forming a whole poem

Free verse or rhyme,
prose poetry
all to be tasted, savored,
swallowed and digested -
to resonate in minds and hearts,
ears tuned for slightest hint of irony;
eyes take in gestures
unseen on a blog -
Intimacy descends because
he reads what you feel, but could not
find the right words for;
what she writes brings you to tears
Gee, I wish I had written that..
Kinfolk we are,
toasting to the wee hours,
like fresh wisps of air we breathe in deeply,
and release with a sigh
There's sunshine to grab
on a mostly cloudy eve
Listen....
how words are laced into stanzas,
become tonic to cure what ails

A man expresses new-found joy
in a good shepherd dog;
another, his courageous flights of fantasy,
or, science fiction, curiosity,
 sorrow and pain
One spills a secret, not to judge
There is unmatched beauty
in profound emotions described,
pressure released by letting go
of internal woes, or forever love
Discover empathy....
hearing poets read their writing
ripping open the seams of
the human condition
Words echo in a refrain from
a stream of consciousness
Poetry becomes you,
as in easy...and inspiring

Often it can be dripping, bleeding,
seething to a point where the doors expand;
poems can uplift  us
just as delightfully..
or thrust their essence at us
in multiple ways:
a river rages, a tide pools,
an ocean rocks us
Responses begin as baby raindrops that
swell ...
until they must burst into smiles
or tears
We've heard the best..and the worst,
and in serious consternation,
we've faced our fears
We have more questions,
more insight, but our thirst
for words is never sated
Applause, we leave,,,
we write and return again
to share

Home.....Aug. 2014 - for http://dversepoets.com

To help us remember what a good man
he was, we quote his lines in his movies
"All of life is a coming home...
we all are restless hearts trying
to find our way home":  Patch Adams
This dog day of August we recall 
his smile, his courage, 
how he rocked the DMZ
We know our passions for poetry,
music, and art are not passing fancies
from Dead Poets' Society
Like summer winds with scent of sugar pines,
it is what we breathe in, 
and exhale with heartfelt sighs
"What is our verse to write?,"
asked John Keating,
prose, poetry, or songs of revolution 
and human dignity?
In our world, our fight 
is against indifference and ignorance,
misunderstanding
Death is not the enemy
As we remember what sustains us
in our need -
our mantra, our beliefs or creed,
we remember Robin

His humor carried us all,
staved off many a mean season
of stark wars, hunger, loss and hate
He entertained joyfully,
causing laughter till sides ached
He left us abruptly this summer day,
for he had given his all;
the world was now too much for him,
he heard his drummer call
As the heat drenched flower heads wilt, 
in sorrow we mourn his passing
May he find peace from suffering
We could not channel 
his energy for him, 
or know his private pain
For his choice was his choice;
'too soon for us'..we say again
His head now rests in beds of red clover,
his furrowed brow no longer frowns
Forever wrapped in sheets 
of adoration and love, he left 
as low, soft thunder rolled
His despair was unrelenting
yet he's not the first, or the last,
we will be lamenting
But there is something else
in the universe, a harmony 
between all living things, the stars
Finding that balance escaped him,
hence he lost his stride
So, another restless heart 
has found it's way home;
we will remember Robin always 
in the heat - of  summertide

http://dversepoets.com

..small curses

Yesterday, I rounded the hill with ease;
how is it I move so slowly today, again.
after heeding the mountain's keen advice,
why the turn about so quick this time,
for I turned myself inside and out
to get out of the house

I asked the sagacious sky if it's
more frequent because of age,
body's steam runs hot and then suddenly cold
Energy realized one day is again sapped,
like climbing backwardly

It can be difficult to stay on an even keel,
of ebbing and waning the moon must know
I asked the all knowing falling rain why
I'm turned around, lost, going down,
more these days than not.

Today I'm less able to run the race,
circumvent the fact that I'm in the throws
of another fibromyalgia attack,
only I'll be fine and I'll be back,
as the hill diminishes  -
worse things have given me flack
 ...so onward as she finishes
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         -
but what about the inside and out of things

Traveling with doves..

At  dversepoets.com today Brian ask us to use the form Paradells -
this is described thusly:
The paradelle is a 4-stanza poem, where each stanza consists of 6 lines.
For the first 3 stanzas, the 1st and 2nd lines should be the same; the 3rd and 4th lines should also be the same; and the 5th and 6th lines should be composed of all the words from the 1st and 3rd lines and only the words from the 1st and 3rd lines.
The final stanza should be composed of all the words in the 5th and 6th lines of the first three stanzas and only the words from the 5th and 6th lines of the first three stanzas.:  


Traveling with white doves from dawn till dusk 
  - traveling with white doves from dawn till dusk
my sail seeks your sweet kiss on a slight breeze 
My sail  seeks your sweet kiss on a slight breeze
A soft breeze carries my kiss traveling
from dusk till dawn, white doves carry your kiss

Faintly I hear your tender whisper call
 - faintly I hear your tender whisper call
I'm gliding due west searching for my bliss
I'm gliding due west searching for my bliss
Due west,  tenderly gliding, your whisper call
faintly I hear, my bliss due west ..searching


Falling stars spell your name in midnight blue
- falling stars spell your name in midnight blue
I feel your presence with the morning dew
-  I feel your presence with the morning dew
Your name I spell in the falling morn dew
Midnight blue feels your presence in the stars  


Searching in the midnight blue for your kiss
 I feel your spell falling with soft white doves
Due west, a slight breeze carries your presence
blissfully gliding my sails from dawn till dusk
With the soft morning dew I hear your call
I hear your name whispered by the stars

Lady in the blue dress...

Today we are writing poems emphasizing bold metaphors without using words "like" and "as" that would weaken the form  @ dversepoets.com   Thank you, Claudia, for your intro.

                                                                         

From the pitch black night sea,
one can see her shrouded head
She keeps the lamp burning
ever since the last storm,
Sheltered by a spit,
driftwood and waving grass,
she was born in 1883,
then moved to her present location
in 1903, before the war
A wall of layered stones
leads to her high waisted
petticoat form
She waits another day in vain,
dedicated to the search
for brave men
Her white Fresnel eye blinks
remembering the disaster
that happened;
she had withstood the hurricane
Gigantic white waves sprayed against her,
took over her favorite sunny place
Wind howled and blew,
so menacingly
she clung tightly
to her foundation's spiral staircase

She has spent years keeping watch -
focused on the beaches still
and the soft lapping waves,
Often glimpsed moving
between night shadows,
in the tower an apparition
appears - when
old mirrors refract the light
of the moon and stars
and if you listen carefully -
you can hear her cries
in whispers at night

By day,
The Lady in the Blue Dress
looks down on the grassy hill -
where children climb the big Sequoia
tree overlooking
the sparkling aquamarine sea
A stray cat her only company,
the Lady in the Blue Dress -
mistress of Admiralty

Over the years many women have been keepers of lighthouses....some are haunted they say..in this poem there is a symbiotic relationship between the woman and the lighthouse itself a woman.

Finney on time....

dversepoets.com





Jack Finney wrote books about
time travel;
the significance of which leads
us to speculate
My mind is open to the idea,
in any case
Clearly we use only a small
percentage of our brains

It's given there is a subconscious state
If it could change people's lives,
get to the heart of things,
if we could re-unite with ancient
friends and relatives via
chant, rubbing a penny,
or hypnosis -
would it give reason to the universe,
or false hope
that there is more,
other than the short lifetimes
we now seem to have in store?                                                                                            
Shudder to think we chase
the wrong rainbows;
Better to have lifetime after lifetime,
loving and sharing as humans,
I would think,
than spend eons evolving from nature -
from plants to bugs to toads,
mammals and fish//
Or to be squished
- and then nothing more

We ought cling to the betterment
of life on earth, while we have it,
as we know it to be true,
to the interconnected web we weave
complicated or surprisingly simple -
It's about time -

Finney's stories take us into the past,
romantically and historically speaking
His books suggest one could go back -
by only clicking heels
together
However you opine,
it's all about time
and how we use it,
never boring,
never enough
time

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Your carriage awaits...

We are celebrating at  dVerse poets' pub this week.  The grass roots of the group began 3 years ago with a small band of people, and we are having a "ball."  It's a virtual garden party and I'm taking the ice....treat yourselves to some good poetry today.

Fountains spray champagne wishes
for the minions,
chiseled ice is kept cool;
Marvel the artisanship
of the centerpiece-

images of us
Carved statuesque sculptures,
frozen in time
Elegant pieces of art,
statues in ice.
surrounded by gourmet                                                                
hors 'doeuvres -
a scene fit for a king
No jagged edges,
only clear portals to the soul
Dormant yet alive -

breathing, yet not,
intimate words escaping
in cool breathes,
warming -
Potent, poignant philosophy
embedded within
Flamenco dancers in ice
flow with the music,
lull us into la-la land -
revealing within themselves
numerous colorful party lights,
each one a poem reflected
in the melting stream circulating,
Their pondering creates
unique interior shine
For poets, writers, of all types
and nationalities-
cool waves fuel their thoughts,
preserves them temporarily,
for us to savor their offerings

until the last birthed
 stanza or word

Looking through the glassy bodies,
or the vitreous book,
we see many slants on life,
candles burning bright
At the ball, masque it is to be,

there are no prize for gain,

no contests and no fame
 implied

Join us in the celebration
of light -
There is a party tonight!
Stay while waterfalls
of verses run
to the rivers, and the rivers
run to the sea -

we simply celebrate with joy
reading and writing poetry

Ode to the piano man and poetry..

We are celebrating 3 years of success of our favorite poetry website,f the  dVerse Poets Pub     Feel free to read others' posts on this awesome occasion.  I"m so glad to be a small part of it.

"Love wants to stay" sings the piano man;

notes flutter around the room with such ease
He takes us back to where it all began

knowingly fingering old ivories

Piano man's hands magically transcend
all time, underscore scenes kept in our hearts
Soundtracks of our lives airily  suspend
how autumn leaves fall, how love falls apart

Sheet music that maps comedy and pain
Lyrics we know, oh so well, as lovers
who never wanted the love to wane
memories of being left for another

He plays keys that once sparked love and still do
he sits in the dim corner on his stool

Music's a vessel for written poetry
The story 'bout "My Baby", you on a train
Of love always wanting, fighting to be
The night you left me naked in the rain

Applause for the piano man's talent
new lyrics don't erase old melodies
whether smooth jazz, hip hop or classical
it''s how you touch those fine black and white keys

I still believe that love does want to stay
that it never really wants to leave pain
pianissimo and allegro play 

Yes, love instead always wants to remain

Piano man sounds mellow, calm and cool
gold stars on a carpet deep midnight blue

Sunday Swirl....Jackie O..

Above are the 12 word for the prompt called Sunday Swirl ....this is what automatically came to my mind.  Do visit the website to see what others did with the words.


She entered the lackluster interior
of Air Force One;
there was little room for the press
One photographer captured
the moment, nevertheless
an iconic image of one of
America's most tragic events
Shots rang out in Dallas that day
that eclipsed the world;
Millions watched as she stood in shock,
in her blood-stained suit (in black and white)
Words must have stuck in her throat
that for years she silently kept

The hospital had declared John dead
at 1:49pm when few knew the details
To put the pieces of the puzzle together,
The Warren Report was manufactured 
to support the theory that
there was no conspiracy afoot;
detectives were cheekily told to take a hike
Some interviews of witnesses
never became testimony
As John Jr. stood saluting
at his mother's side
while the horse led caisson paraded by
I often wonder what might have been
if his father had not died
Mourners filed to a resting place,
as only bagpipes
and muffled drums played
An eternal flame was lit at the grave,
a lamp to forever honor him
and remember how brave

For the sake of little noses...thoughts

For all the little noses,
and the poses they make,
for all the rings 'round the rosy;
For crayons and paints galore,
books in the mind bank to store
shrieks of discovery and more -
I'm afraid for lack of education,
a firm foundation,
more starvation
How can we as a nation
allow the exploitation,
the humiliation
of children in harms way?
No amount of coinage can replace
the smile on a child's face -
When I think of the dangers
of the world today,
I find no solace when I try to sleep,
knowing how now, as I speak,
there is torture at the hands of strangers
And for all the delightful good in each day,
for everything beautiful in this world,
why must children anywhere,
face hardship in any case,
loss of rights or morals hurled,
have freedom from fear,
 - why can't we make it all go away?
I don't want to hear
it's under investigation;
show me instead our children's
salvation

Whales of Summer..

                                                           

                                                                                                                by klr


No feeling of ground 
beneath their feet,
streamlined for swimming -
they float in sapphire straits
Each summer they return to greet
one another, 
to raise offspring 
as on salmon and shrimp
they feed 
They pass on lessons of birthing,
knowledge for surviving 
the Salish Sea

We honor Orca whales,
but they do not know;

raising a candelabra 
to them does not rid 
garbage from waterways- 

or prevent toxic spills
Threatened with extinction,
for loss of Chinook in estuaries,
we rescue them, 
treat their sonar ills
We make their voyages safer,
for fewer injuries 

They entertain with playful
splashy  breaches,                                                                                 
have the power to heal
Their phonic squeals communicate
what they think and feel -
so much they teach us,
We are allies,
entrusted with their care, 
24/7 vigilance
Youngsters know their names, 
beginning with pods J, K, or L,
such as J2, Luna, and Chance

With their natural talent
they could illustrate-
with the ocean as their canvas
on which art to paint; 
with Earth's colors as their palette,
fins as fine brushes- 
to create
fine cetacean giclees
They could fly kites in the air
with all their abilities,
trade whimsical tales with crusty 
pelicans, crabs, and sand fleas

Instinctively good-natured,
intelligent,
they deserve our dedication
For future millenniums,
it's important to help them
 multiply
Last night I heard their 
calls from Lime Kiln;

their cries we must answer -
like floating lanterns
 illuminating their return
And with a big blink of the eye,
 they will make the journey again -
and we will exchange goodbyes,
but for now, it's only July