司空圖二十四詩品《精神》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 13 - "Spiritual Essence"

Poem #13's title, 精神 jingshen, means spirit, consciousness, or thought in modern Chinese. Sikong Tu appears to be using it more along those lines as well, hence my translation. But in reading about Daoist practices like 內丹 neidan, or internal alchemy, you come across a lot of references to 精 jing and 神 shen, along with the associated concept of 氣 qi, which I talked a little bit about in my last post. Roughly speaking, jing is one's physical essence, qi the energy or life force, and shen the spirit or higher self. (The Wikipedia page on the Three Treasures gives you an idea of how these ideas are used in a Daoist context.) My favorite meaning of 精 jing, however, has to be "mythical goblin spirit."

Enjoy, folks.

微臣

史大偉

-----

精神

司空圖

欲返不盡

相期與來

明漪絕底

奇花初胎

青春鸚鵡

楊柳樓臺
碧山人來

清酒深杯

生氣遠出

不著死灰

妙造自然

伊誰與裁

-----

"Spiritual Essence"

Sikong Tu

Were the Endless to

join with us at some point—

bright ripples, on and on

rare flowers at first bloom

Spring-green parrots

willows, pavilions, terraces—

people come from the blue-green hills

clear wine in overflowing cups

The breath of life reaches out further,

no sign of death's ashen grey

the magnificent fabric of the in-and-of-itself—

ah, who could make it conform to a pattern?

司空圖二十四詩品《豪放》 / Sikong Tu'sTwenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 12 - "Bold and Unrestrained"

豪放 "Bold and Unrestrained" marks the halfway point of Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry. I think the standout feature of this poem is that it has more Chinese words that I left in the original than any poem thus far, though I'd be reluctant to make much out of that, save maybe in the instance of 氣 qi.

The first such word is 氣 qi, which pretty much everyone's heard of in one context or another. It can mean breath, life force, vital energy, the mystical shit that infuses everything, the thing you're supposed to load your punches with in martial arts class; it's pretty flexible. I've translated it in various ways before and since, but left it as is here because the construction of the line intrigued me. When texts refer to returning to the Dao, it's usually an end, not the means (and, of course, it's not a linear, static progression, but an ever-evolving process, like the interaction of 陰 yin and 陽 yang), and various qi-related practices are among the tools used to achieve that end, or rather help one along the path. Sikong Tu's reversal is interesting, because he's saying to seek the Dao in order to reach qi; what he means is cryptic, but my initial interpretation is that the reader—perhaps like the poet himself—might gain intellectual knowledge of the Dao first, say by talking to someone or reading the 道德經 Daodejing, and then seek out expressions and practices of Daoism in order to gain a deeper, experiential understanding. As a Westerner who read about Daoism long before practicing it in any way, this resonates pretty strongly.

I rendered 狂 as "wildly," but I think the poet is using it as shorthand for spontaneity or 無爲 wu-wei, "acting without acting."

The 鳳凰 fenghuang is a mythical bird that makes frequent appearances in Chinese art; the link in this sentence shows one on the corner of a temple roof. It's often translated as "phoenix," but it's not the same. 扶桑 Fusang is a mythical island east of China, said to be where the sun rises; therefore it's no surprise that it is sometimes associated with 日本 Japan. The turtles Sikong Tu uses to draw his chariot are "mythological sea turtles," not, apparently, the giant turtles that support countless Chinese stelae upon their backs.

As a parting remark, I like that admiring flowers is presented as a universal right, and that in exercising it, you're partaking of the totality of existence. Sikong Tu is completely right about this.

Stay safe, wear your mask, and enjoy the poem, y'all.


微臣
史大偉

-----

豪放

司空圖

觀花匪禁

吞吐大荒

由道反氣

處得以狂

天風浪浪

海山蒼蒼
真力彌滿

萬象在旁

前招三辰

後引鳳凰

曉策六鰲

濯足扶桑

-----

"Bold and Unreserved"

Sikong Tu

Admiring flowers is open to everyone—

breathe in vastness, breathe it out

the Dao leads back to the qi

give up seeking, act wildly

Heaven's wind rushing like a river

seas and mountains grey-green

true strength is abundant

in the myriad things all around

Before me, the beckoning sun, moon, stars

behind, the fenghuang bird leads the sun

at dawn, I whip forward six legendary turtles—

off to bathe my feet in Fusang

司空圖二十四詩品《含蓄》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 11 - "Reservation"

Almost halfway through the Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry. I've got all the poems translated, but I'm taking my time posting them. You'd think that since I have nothing better to do, and I'm more or less housebound during the pandemic (which way too fuckin' many of my neighbors and countrymen seem to think isn't worth worrying about), I'd be more productive, but nope.

Anyway, I don't have much to say about this poem. Once more Sikong Tu advocates 無爲 wuwei, "doing not-doing," and not letting excess (or any) words get in the way of understanding. Sounds good to me.

Later, dudes.

微臣

史大偉

-----

含蓄

司空圖

不著一字

盡得風流

語不涉己

若不堪憂

是有真宰

與之沈浮
如綠滿酒

花時反秋

悠悠空塵

忽忽海漚

淺深聚散

萬取一收

-----

"Reservation"

Sikong Tu

Without writing a single word,

a thorough grasp of effortless style;

speaking without involving oneself

is like being indifferent to worry

This is the heart of true mastery;

with it, one sinks and floats

As the strainer overflows with wine,

the season of flowers reverts to autumn

The sky slowly grows dim with dust,

bubbles form suddenly in the sea;

shallow and deep, gathering and dispersing

seeking the myriad, grasping only one

司空圖二十四詩品《自然》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 10 - "The Self-Determined"

The tenth poem of Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry is titled 自然, which often gets translated as "nature." While that's a generally useful translation, there's more to it than that. 自 is a reflexive, and 然 can mean "thusly" or "in this way," or, as Kroll puts it in his dictionary, "to be like something is expected to be," so you can read 自然 as "that which is what it is in and of itself." Since that's a decidedly inelegant phrase, I've gone with "self-determined."

This poem reads as very Daoist, or very Chan Buddhist, though there aren't any overt symbols of either tradition present (unless you count the hermit, but given the ubiquity of hermits in Chinese poetry, this one could be a Daoist or a Buddhist). While this ambiguity—or maybe syncretism is a more useful way of thinking about it—isn't particular to Sikong Tu, I've found that it runs through a lot of these poems, reflecting the poet's engagement with both schools, which in turn reflects the depth of Daoism and Chan Buddhism's influence on Chinese poetics and aesthetics. David Hinton talks about this at length in his book Awakened Cosmos: The Mind of Chinese Poetry. Hinton deals specifically with 杜甫 Du Fu's work, but you can extrapolate a lot of his ideas to other poets.

著手成春 is a neat phrase that I translated pretty much literally, but since it's still a little obtuse, it's meant to imply that once you get going, everything will be all right. I don't necessarily share that optimism (though in the context of this poem, I certainly do), but I can't argue with the necessity of actually getting around to doing something. 

See y'all soon. Enjoy the poem!

微臣

史大偉

-----

自然

俯拾即是

不取諸鄰

俱道適往

著手成春

如逢花開

如瞻歲新
真與不奪

強得易貧

幽人空山

過雨采萍

薄言情悟

悠悠天鈞

-----

"The Self-Determined"

Sikong Tu

Look down and pick up what's there

don't go looking all around for it

all paths lead to it

set out, and it's spring before you know it

Like coming across flowers in bloom

or seeing the arrival of the new year

it can't be compelled

if taken by force, it is worthless

The hermit in the empty hills

collecting duckweed in the rain

fewer words, genuine realization

Heaven shapes things in its own time

司空圖二十四詩品《綺麗》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 9 - "Rare Beauty"

Here is "綺麗"/"Rare Beauty" by Sikong Tu, poem #9 of 24. At some point I'll actually write something about how each poem fits into what I think Sikong Tu is trying to do, but that'll require marshalling more mental resources than I have at the moment.

 A quick note about the 琴 qin, or 古琴 guqin: it sometimes gets called a zither, and while it's in the same category, not calling it by its actual name is like replacing "harpsichord" with "piano" because they're similar. 

The red apricots in the second stanza may or may not be a nod to the idiom 紅杏出牆 "the red apricot leans over the garden wall," which is a poetic way of describing a wife with a secret lover. I can see Sikong Tu going either way here. That second stanza as a whole is really gorgeous, I think.

Enjoy.

微臣
史大偉

-----
 
綺麗

司空圖

神存富貴

始輕黃金

濃盡必枯

淡者屢深

霧余水畔

紅杏在林
月明華屋

畫橋碧陰

金尊酒滿

伴客彈琴

取之自足

良殫美襟

-----

"Rare Beauty"

Sikong Tu

Those rich and noble in spirit

from the outset think little of gold;

intensity surely withers away in the end,

simple things often take on deeper meaning

Fog lingering on the riverbank

red apricots in the grove

moonlight on a stately house

a bridge outlined in blue shadow

A golden vessel brimming with wine,

a companionable guest playing the qin;

seek your contentment in these things

and surely your heart will be full

司空圖二十四詩品《勁健》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 8 - "Potency"

Poem #8 of the Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry. I feel my skills as a translator fall particularly short here. There are a number of concepts (e.g., 真, 素, 神) throughout these poems that I render in fairly traditional ways, but in doing so I also fall prey to the weaknesses of those interpretations. Mind you, I don't have any fresh insight into these concepts or their translations; I'm merely remarking on the sort of redundant effect that comes from limited English expressions of Chinese ideas. Someone out there has undoubtedly done a better job than me.

微臣

史大偉

勁健

司空圖

行神如空

行氣如虹

巫峽千尋

走雲連風

飲真茹強

蓄素守中
喻彼行健

是謂存雄

天地與立

神化攸同

期之以實

禦之以終

-----

"Potency"

Sikong Tu

Spirit like the empty sky

life force like a rainbow—

amidst the towering mountains of Wu Gorge

scudding clouds run on the wind

Drinking of the Real and eating of the strong

gathering up the unblemished, storing it within

embodying this practice of building strength—

this is called a steadfast existence

Stand as one with heaven and earth

render the spirit harmonious—

set yourself to this fully

see it through until the end

司空圖二十四詩品《洗煉》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 7 - "Washed and Purified"

Poem #7 from 二十四詩品. Not a whole lot to say about it, other than that I like the moon imagery, which in the first case is Daoist in its similarity to 列子 Liezi's riding the wind, and Buddhist in the second, where past lives are as transient as the moon. Sikong Tu was known to be influenced by both schools of thought.

Enjoy, dear reader.

微臣

史大偉

-----

洗煉

司空圖

如礦出金

如鉛出銀

超心煉冶

絕愛緇磷

空潭瀉春

古鏡照神

體素儲潔

乘月返真

載瞻星辰

載歌幽人

流水今日

明月前身

-----

"Washed and Purified"

Sikong Tu

Like gold comes from ore

Like silver comes from lead

overcome the mind, purify and smelt it

renounce attachment to light and dark

Water flows from deep pools in spring

the ancient mirror reflects the spirit

unblemished form conserves its purity

ride the moonlight to return to the Real

Set your gaze on the stars

turn your ear to the hermit's song

today is like flowing water;

the bright moon, our former lives.

司空圖二十四詩品《高古》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 6 - "Refinement"

Given all the shit that's going down right now in response to years of systematic racist abuse and murder, and watching the system's violent response to it, posting this feels frivolous. Most things do, really. Still, in the hopes that it might bring a little light into a darkening world, here's the sixth of Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry. I don't have much to say about , other than that I like that this poem is so straightforward that it could be read as a parody of genteel Chinese aristocratic leisure.

I'll catch y'all later. Stay healthy, fight hard. Solidarity forever.

微臣

史大偉

-----

典雅

司空圖

玉壺買春

賞雨茅屋

坐中佳士

左右修竹

白雲初晴

幽鳥相逐

眠琴綠陰

上有飛瀑

落花無言

人淡如菊

書之歲華

其曰可讀

-----

"Refinement"

Sikong Tu

Drinking wine from a jade jug

enjoying rain on a thatched roof

sitting among men of repute

amidst tall, graceful bamboo

First sight of white clouds

reclusive birds chase one another

zither resting in green shade

overhead, a towering waterfall

Blossoms fall wordlessly

a man as tranquil as chrysanthemums

records the year's passing splendors—

an account worth reading

司空圖二十四詩品《高古》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 5 - "Lofty and Ancient"

Since poem #4 of the Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry was posted a while back, here's #5. It's relatively straightforward, though I'm glad I had the Giles translation available to explain a couple points. The first is the reference to 東斗 the "Eastern Dipper," which Giles says is Ursa Major, but that doesn't seem right; the Chinese call that 北斗 the Northern Dipper. The only references I've found to an Eastern Dipper involve Daoist deities associated with various stars. Since I don't know what Sikong Tu was specifically referring to, I've left the phrase as is.

The other thing that Giles' translation helped with was the reference to 黃唐 Huang and Yao. The former is the mythical Yellow Emperor, which I figured out on my own. The second character is "Tang," which at first I thought was a reference to the Tang dynasty, so Giles' reading confused me. As it turns out, another mythical emperor, 堯 Yao, is also known as 唐堯 Tang Yao, so that explains that.

太華 Taihua is 華山 Huashan, one of China's most sacred mountains, located in Shaanxi province.

See y'all next time.

微臣
史大偉

-----

高古

司空圖

畸人乘真

手把芙蓉

泛彼浩劫

窅然空蹤

月出東斗

好風相從

太華夜碧

人聞清鐘

虛佇神素

脫然畦封

黃唐在獨

落落玄宗

-----

"Lofty and Ancient"

Sikong Tu

The uncommon man pursues the Real,

lotus in hand

floating across these endless kalpas

following the trail deeper into the skies

Moon rises over the Eastern Dipper,

following the strong wind

From Mount Taihua, blue in the night,

people hear the clear bell

Emptiness awaits the pure soul

that goes beyond earthly boundaries

Huang and Yao stand alone,

ever distant, yet profound examples

Plague Poems, XI: "Memorial Day"

"Memorial Day"

At first,
peripherally,
a junebug carcass,
doomed earlier than usual—
looked at properly,
after being kicked
across the porch,
a trefoil snapdragon pod,
brown, brittle,
perhaps dead from neglect
before it ever got
to grace the world
with pink.


5.25.20

司空圖二十四詩品《纖穠》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 3 - "Slender and Sturdy"

Poem #3 of 24, like many of its companions, has a somewhat cryptic title. Most classical Chinese poems have simple titles denoting the subject matter, or the circumstances under which they were written, but Sikong Tu's titles point to loftier concepts, discussed (with varying levels of obliqueness) in the poem's contents. I'm unsure as to exactly what the poet's getting at with this particular title, but maybe I'll understand it better after some more reflection and research.

Enjoy.

微臣

史大衛

-----

纖穠

司空圖

采采流水

蓬蓬遠春

窈窕深谷

時見美人

碧桃滿樹

風日水濱

柳陰路曲

流鶯比鄰

乘之愈往

識之愈真

如將不盡

與古為新

-----

"Slender and Sturdy"

Sikong Tu

Shimmer of flowing water

distant spring carried on the wind

secluded in a deep valley

when I see a beautiful woman

Peach trees bursting with green

a breeze along the riverbanks

willows shade the winding path

graceful orioles gather nearby

Pushing further, ever onward

ever closer to the real

that which is endless

renders the old new

司空圖二十四詩品第二《沖淡》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 2 - "Unassuming Tranquility"

Here's poem #2 from 二十四詩品 Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry by Tang dynasty poet 司空圖 Sikong Tu. I find that each poem calls for its own sort of punctuation in English; this one needs a little something extra, but I haven't gone back yet to really figure out what.

Assuming anyone's reading these, I'd be curious to know if they thought there was any connecting theme or approach across the poems. Obviously it's hard to discern such a thing when I've only posted three poems, but give it some thought, dear reader.

 

Enjoy, and stay safe during the pandemic. If you have to go out, keep your distance from folks, wear a mask, and wash your hands. Things aren't getting better anytime soon, and we've gotta adapt.

微臣

史大偉

-----

沖淡

司空圖

素處以默

妙機其微

飲之太和

獨鶴與飛

猶之惠風

荏苒在衣
閱音修篁

美曰載歸

遇之匪深

即之愈希

脫有形似

握手已違

-----

"Unassuming Tranquility"

Sikong Tu

Dwelling in silence, untouched, unadorned

subtle and imperceptible in its workings

drinking of the supreme harmony

flying alongside the solitary crane

Like a gentle breeze

that barely rustles one's robe

heard through tall bamboo—

beauty that calls out to be carried home

It is not difficult to come across

approaching it, it grows ever more scarce

free of form and appearance,

when grasped, it disappears

司空圖二十四詩品第一《雄渾》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poems, 1 - "Undivided Strength"

So here's the first of the twenty-four poems that comprise 司空圖 Sikong Tu's 二十四詩品 Twenty-Four Classes of Poems. Like the other one I posted (#4, 沈著 "Deep in Thought"), this is just a draft. I don't like the working title, and I'm not terribly pleased with how a lot of these have been coming out—though as I work my way through them and get a sense of what the poet is going for, it's getting a bit easier. (Rendering them in to Portuguese is a whole 'nother set of problems. Nossa.)

The title of this collection is misleading, I think, at least in English. This isn't a series of examples of different styles of poetry, as they're all written according to an old four-character pattern (as opposed to the more common, at least when Sikong was writing, five- or seven-character patterns); instead, it's more like an exhibition of poetic themes. But of course it's not that simple; these aren't simply poems about the seasons, landscapes, parting, exile, or whatever. Paulo and I have talked about this, and we think what Sikong is doing, among other things, is providing examples of the motives for writing poetry, and the effects those motives and the act of writing itself has on the poet. The result is a lot of typical Chinese imagery interwoven with philosophical and cosmological ideas, but often without the grounding you find in other poets, which gives each poem, and the project as a whole, an unusual quality. Anyway, these ideas of ours, like the translations themselves, are pretty embryonic, so they'll probably change with time.

Before I forget, I've been reading David Hinton's Awakened Cosmos: The Mind of Chinese Poetry, which has provided a lot of food for thought. I'll talk more about that book at a later date, since I haven't finished it and I need to get my thoughts in order, but suffice to say that coming across it when I did has proven to be a textbook case of happy synchronicity.

微臣

史大偉

-----

雄渾

司空圖

大用外腓

真體內充

反虛入渾

積健為雄

具備萬物

橫絕太空

荒荒油雲

寥寥長風

超以象外

得其環中

持之非強

來之無窮

-----

"Undivided Strength"

Sikong Tu

Great effort, outer weakness—

the true form of inner completion.

Returning to emptiness, one enters the All;

gather strength and become powerful.

Possessing the myriad things,

cutting across the empty sky—

billowing clouds as far as the eye can see,

the wind rises in the undisturbed silence.

Going beyond appearances,

one attains the center of the All—

grasping without force,

one reaches the Endless.

Plague Poems, X: "porch beers w/ Scott"

"porch beers w/ Scott"


driveway beers, actually,
getting warm as quickly
as the days—
spring giving in to summer,
isolation giving in to connection.

precautioned connection,
of course—
masks on, fifteen-twenty feet
apart, nobody downwind,
hands sanitized, coconut-scented.

we jaw, bitch, see what's up
in our respective shrunken worlds,
worry, smoke—
pretty much like it was before,
but also not at all.

and then he's on his way,
hopefully as remoralized as me—
 because who knows
when we can do this again,
or even if.


5.13.20

Happy birthday, Tom.

Happy 83rd birthday to Thomas Pynchon, whose novels have meant a great deal to me for over twenty years. There are a handful of writers whose stuff makes me want to stop reading right then and there and go write, and Pynchon may be foremost among them (Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, and William S. Burroughs also come to mind). Fortunately—mainly for any would-be readers, not so much for me with my now long-dormant delusions of literary grandeur—I figured out early on that I lack the talent, the eye, the humor, and the depth of thought required to successfully emulate, or at least take useful cues, from Pynchon, so it's been a long while since I tried my hand at writing that sort of detailed, intensely aware shit. Still, the idea is always there, and I'm not likely to give up on it entirely, seeing as how I have a permanent reminder of Pynchon's influence in the form of a W.A.S.T.E. tattoo.

I can't remember if I first read about Thomas Pynchon in Steamshovel Press, which published a good review of Mason & Dixon in 1998 or '99, or in this interview with William Gibson, which I read in 1998 or so and the actual existence of which I was unsure of until recently (hence my being stoked at finding that link, and seeing that the "reading Gravity's Rainbow in jail" memory I've had all these years wasn't just some neat misremembering or implanted memory). Whatever the case, it feels like fate, or at least in line with the idea that you find something when you're meant to. What I do know is that I started Gravity's Rainbow in the spring of '99 and was utterly overwhelmed, so returning it (in that blown-out orangey hardcover edition from, I think, the '70s) to the SHSU library for the summer break wasn't so bad. Over the next year and change, before I graduated, I finished it and read V., The Crying of Lot 49 (which I still re-read on a regular basis; it's a great way to spend a day otherwise blown off), Slow Learner, Vineland, and Mason & Dixon. Then came the latter-day books—Against the Day, Inherent Vice, and Bleeding Edge, plus the cinematic version of Inherent Vice, which I saw as soon as I could, and while properly high. I got all the books the day they came out, much like I've done with Gibson's novels since All Tomorrow's Parties.

My take on almost everything has been shaped by Pynchon's work. His ongoing themes of entropy and paranoia have influenced my thinking, but don't define it; as Sortilege mentions in Inherent Vice (the book, not the film), shikantaza, the Zen practice of just sitting, plays the part of a corrective to all the bummer vibes of life in this sad-ass crumbling empire we call America. The relationship between the titular characters of Mason & Dixon remains my favorite depiction of friendship, and continues to buttress my belief that choosing to care about certain people because we want to, because we have a mutually-chosen bond, is more meaningful than caring about someone because they're simply related by blood. I don't fully share Zoyd Wheeler's status as a burnout holdover from days of revolution and hope, but I think I have an idea of what it feels like. My take on what little time I've spent in California (including San Narciso's probable inspiration/doppelgänger) has been influenced by the adventures of Oedipa Maas, Doc Sportello, and the rest. Etc. etc.

Anyway, Thomas Pynchon rules, and I wanted to say a little something as to why I think so. I hope he's enjoying his birthday with beer, tacos, and a joint of Acapulco Gold. I won't even do that thing where I hope for another novel, because writers don't owe us anything, and even if they did, he paid that debt decades ago.

DAS
5.8.20

“Fate does not speak. She carries a Mauser and from time to time indicates our proper path.” — Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day

Plague Poems, IX: "Intersection"

"Intersection"


The intersection's always licking
its worn grey lips, waiting for disaster.
People blow through the stop signs
all the time, usually to a wild fanfare of
horns, screeching tires, me swearing
from the porch. But sometimes
cars and people get fucked up—
like ruined in the ditch fucked up—
and the intersection gets it way.

Stay-at-home orders and school closures
haven't changed shit.
Last week I watched a southbound
car and a UPS truck taking a way too
wide right unsuccessfully conspire
to turn a mom and her two kids on bikes
into the gory red paste
American statistics are made of.
The intersection nearly got its way.

It'll get its way again soon enough:
blood for the blood god.


5.6.20

"Vida" de Camilo Pessanha

Happy May Day, folks. I hope everyone's honoring picket lines both physical and digital, such as those at Amazon, Target, Whole Foods, Instacart, and Shipt. Don't be a fuckin' scab! Your convenience can wait; worker health, safety, and dignity can't. And while you're not buying shit online, you can celebrate Beltane in proper pagan fashion (within the limits of public safety, of course, since COVID-19 ain't going anywhere anytime soon).

Speaking of work, I've been translating like a motherfucker during the quarantine. I've got nine more 司空圖 Sikong Tu poems to put up, and I'm almost done with the first (very, very) rough draft of Virgílio de Lemos' Para Fazer um Mar. I also have another Camilo Pessanha poem for y'all. Once again, I owe this translation to Tashiro Kaoru, as I'm pretty sure I hadn't even read this poem before she wrote asking me about it.

Enjoy, caros leitores. Peace, land, bread, and roses for everyone. Solidarity forever.

-----

"Vida"
Camilo Pessanha


Choveu! E logo da terra humosa
Irrompe o campo das liliáceas.
Foi bem fecunda, a estação pluviosa!
Que vigor no campo das liliáceas!

Calquem, recalquem, não o afogam.
Deixem. Não calquem. Que tudo invadam.
Não as extinguem, porque as degradam?
Para que as calcam? Não as afogam.

Olhem o fogo que anda na serra.
É a queimada... Que lumaréu!
Podem calcá-lo, deitar-lhe terra,
Que não apagam o lumaréu.

Deixem! Não calquem! Deixem arder.
Se aqui o pisam, rebenta além.
— E se arde tudo? — Isso que tem!
Deitam-lhe fogo, é para arder...


-----

"Life"
Camilo Pessanha

It rained! And then, from the damp earth,
the field of lilies erupted.
It was quite fruitful, the rainy season!
Such vigor in the field of lilies!

Trample, trample again, don't smother it.
Leave it be. Don't trample it. You invade everything.
Don't extinguish them, why do you degrade them?
Why do you trample them? Don't crush them.

Look at the fire moving across the mountain.
It's wildfire... what a blaze!
You can stomp it out, toss earth on it,
but it doesn't put out the blaze.

Stop! Don't stomp it out! Let it burn.
If you step on it here, it springs up elsewhere.
— And if everything burns? — So what?
Leave the fire alone, it's meant to burn...

Plague Poems, VIII: "First Thing"

"First Thing"


When the virus rolled in,
I developed the habit of checking,
upon my grudging return
to consciousness each morning,
to see if I was dying.

Fever? Nope.
Sore throat? Maybe, since I
haven't kicked cigarettes.
Shortness of breath?
No, but if yes, see above.

I'm no longer checking my
AM vital signs first thing;
the heartbeat's horizon,
the imminence of non-return,
is everywhere now.



4.25.20

Plague Poems, VII: "Limited"

"Limited"

Quarantine and its attendant attempts
to put pen to paper, to say something
about anything,
reveals, repeatedly,
a smallness of soul, the tightness
of the heart's fibers.

There is no shame or
self-pity in this;
man is a limited creature.
Words fail, concepts decohere,
emotion is quickly and
thoroughly spent.

So let meaning be evasive and
feelings half-formed, clumsily voiced.
See being for what it is,
or seems to be in this sealed-off world:
contingent, halting, interlaced,
somehow endless.

4.18.20

Plague Poems, VI: "Condensation"

"Condensation"

streetlamps bore holes
into my eyes

neighbor's voice loud
but hardly clear

Hamish the cat
perambulates

the night: condensed

Plague Poems/Poemas da peste, V: "Na rua"

Segue abaixo um poema meu escrito em português neste tempo de peste. Peço desculpa pela minha falta de domínio dessa língua, mas espero que você, caro/a leitor/a, possa tirar alguma coisa significativa do poema.


"Na rua"


Sempre ouvi dizer que
em tempos de peste
não há ninguém na rua,
que a vida cotidiana
dos peões acaba subitamente,
como caísse um véu de luto
em todas as casas
e os seus habitantes
teria ficar dentro,
chorando e rezando
para o mundo como era
antes da peste
ou o mundo vindouro.

Mas parece-me que
não ouvi bem,
visto que vejo na rua
as multidões, armadas
com cães, bebês,
bicicletas, telemóveis,
sacos de comida, cervejas,
com máscara, sem máscara,
os rostos coloridos
com preocupação,
alegria, resignação,
falta de atenção,
medo meio disfarçado.

Não se engane, pá,
sou parte, pelo menos
às vezes, dessas multidões,
de bicicleta ou a pé,
fazendo compras semanais,
a vigiar o comportamento
dos vizinhos,
de saco cheio com as paredes
que estão a
aproximar-se de mim,
desejoso de viver,
apesar dos riscos,
na rua.


8 de abril 2020

Plague Poems, IV: "Big Questions"

"Big Questions"


The latest sci-fi book club
movie pick was Coherence. It
more than met the minimum requirement
of giving us something to talk about
while we're locked away in
our houses and apartments,
peering into one screen to discuss
what we saw on another
(or maybe the same one).

We like big sci-fi questions, philosophical
what-ifs. We got plenty:
Schrödinger's cat. Comet hysteria.
The multiverse.
How to deal with an alternate-reality you.

Watching other universes multiply
and collide gave us the chance to
flex atrophied social muscles,
talk to someone other than ourselves
or our cats or significant others.

The big questions remained satisfyingly
unanswered when we said goodbye,
took off headphones, closed laptops.

Now we get to figure out how sci-fi
those questions are
when fictional universes collapse
and we're left with concrete,
minimal-dimensional quarantine space,
inhabited by just one version of
each of us.


4.7.20

Plague Poems, III: "Sprouting"

"Sprouting"

undisturbed weeks
indirect sunlight
ambient moisture
force of vegetal will:

sweet potato
may soon become
plural.


4.3.20

Plague Poems, II: "Timekeeping"

"Timekeeping"


The 6:10 alarm on my phone held out
longer than expected, and only got
turned off last week.

I haven't been wearing my watch regularly
for a while; no reason for that
to change. Keep on ticking on your own, Timex.

Schedules are toast. Being somewhere
when the hour and minute hands say so
is over. Time is dead—

until you realize that well, shit,
you can't point out its absence
without being in its presence.

Might as well keep an eye on the clock
a little longer, I guess. After all,
there's another Zoom call coming up.


4.3.20

Plague Poems, I: "Two Guests"

Since society is slowly reconfiguring itself in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, I figured I'd write some poems about life under (quasi-)quarantine. I hope everyone is staying safe, being smart, and keeping their distance from other people. Now's a good time to catch up on your reading.


"Two Guests"

Two guests recently arrived
in the wake of a
halfhearted winter:

The plague feasts upon the
banquet laid out for it
in human lungs,
ignoring its terrified hosts'
screams of panic or denial.

The Cooper's hawk perches in the
live oak, picking off doves and
starlings, laughing its
staccato, taunting laugh,
boasting to its future mate.



3.31.20

"Rufando apressando" por Camilo Pessanha

Boa tarde, leitores. As societies and economies begin to unravel in the wake of the pandemic sweeping the globe, I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the enormity of the situation. I don't think I can, really, as it seems pretty clear that the effects of COVID-19 will be felt for years, and in the three months that it's been spreading things have already changed greatly, so who knows what things will be like a year from now.

Like a lot of folks, adjusting to a considerably circumscribed existence is proving to be more difficult than I imagined, but so far it's not too bad. It's hard to get motivated to work on translating projects, knowing that most of them will probably languish, unpublished, in the years to come, but it beats doing nothing. Among the writers I'm translating is (as always) Camilo Pessanha, as the title of this post should make clear. I did the first draft of this in 2018, I think, and polished it up a little earlier today.

I was inspired to do so by Tashiro Kaoru, a Japanese pianist based in Belgium, who first wrote me in late 2018 due to our shared interest in Pessanha's work. We've been corresponding ever since, and she's working on translating Clepsidra into Japanese. Now and then she asks for suggestions regarding the poems, and I help as best I can. Today was one of those days, and when I remembered I'd already translated this, I decided to post it here.

Enjoy, stay home if you can and away from other people if you can't, and remember: we'll only get through this together.

D.A.S.

-----

Rufando apressado,
E bamboleado,
Boné posto ao lado,

Garboso, o tambor
Avança em redor
Do campo de amor...

Com força, soldado!
A passo dobrado!
Bem bamboleado!

Amores te bafejem.
Que as moças te beijem.
Que os moços te invejem.

Mas ai, ó soldado!
Ó triste alienado!
Por mais exaltado

Que o toque reclame,
Ninguém que te chame...
Ninguém que te ame...


-----



Beating rapidly,
And swaying,
Cap to the side,

Dashing, the drum
Advances all around
The field of love...

Strength, soldier!
Double-time!
More swagger!

Lovers will smile upon you.
Girls will kiss you.
Boys will envy you.

But woe, oh soldier!
Oh sad, alienated one!
No matter how ardently

The bell makes its claim,
Nobody calls to you...
Nobody loves you...

司空圖的"沈著" / Sikong Tu's "Deep in Thought"

I've started working with a friend in Brazil, who's also into Chinese poetry, on translating the 二十四詩品 Twenty-Four Kinds of Poetry, a work attributed to 司空圖 Sikong Tu, into Portuguese. I don't know much about Sikong Tu, and it seems like there's not a lot known about him in the first place, even among Chinese sources. He does have one of the few two-character surnames in China, which is cool.

The only English translation of his work that I've found is by Herbert Giles—yeah, that Giles—and while it's a product of its time, it's nice having it for comparison. Anyway, I figured I'd share my rough English version of the fourth poem in the series. In the future I'll add more, though I'll probably hold off on the Portuguese versions until Paulo and I figure out what the hell we're gonna do with them.

Enjoy!

微臣
史大偉

-----

沈著
司空圖

綠杉野屋，落日氣清
脫巾獨步，時聞鳥聲
鴻雁不來，之子遠行
所思不遠，若為平生
海風碧雲，夜渚月明
如有佳語，大河前橫


-----

"Deep in Thought"
Sikong Tu

In the space between green firs, sunset and clear weather
Head bare, walking alone, when I heard the sound of birds
The geese have not arrived, and she is far away
My thoughts bring her closer, as they have all my life
Blue-green clouds on the sea breeze, bright moon on nighttime islets
You speak fine words, the Yellow River before you running west to east

News from the Southern Front

Sorry for the long absence, folks. The holidays were pretty relaxed, but 2020 is shaping up to be a busy year. I'm talking to a couple publishers about my translation of Súria, Vimala Devi's first book of poems. I'd like to get it into print ASAP, since Vimala is 88 and Súria has been out of print for ages. (I won't publish it without the original Portuguese text.) The book about 18th-century nuns in Goa I've been working on with a colleague since 2017 is about to get turned in, and Routledge should be putting it out later this year. More info on that when I have it. I'll be doing some editing work for a colleague in Portugal, and I'll be translating a book of poetry from Mozambican writer Virgílio de Lemos, too.

But wait, there's more! An old friend and I aim to work together on a comic book, something we've wanted to do since we were ten years old and drawing/writing weird shit that he still has, safe in sound in that same fifth grade Trapper Keeper. I've got another writing project—actual writing, not just translating—that I've been tapping away at now and then, and with any luck I'll make the time to bang out the rest of it and see if any publishers bite. Oh, and I'm working with a friend in Brazil on translating Tang dynasty poet 司空圖 Sikong Tu's 二十四詩品 Twenty-Four Kinds of Poetry into Portuguese.

Add to this all the DSA and related political shit I've been and will be doing for the foreseeable future, and you're looking at a corpse with his hands full. It's cool, though. I've got the new Yuri Gagarin album, The Outskirts of Reality, to provide a soundtrack, the mind-blowingly excellent game Disco Elysium to play when I need a break, and plenty of books to read. I'll survive.

Take it easy, dudes. I'll be back soon with, well, I don't know. Something!