
10 points
Language "Encryption" by Adrienne Travis
May 29th, 2006 12:05 AM
Here's my original. It's a poem i wrote, one of my favorites.
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wherever poem
morning holds a knife to my throat,
demands my memory or my life.
i've been driving again through a night too dark
for stars. and my forehead itches
from wearing the hat that smells like you,
and i'm listening to the same love song
over and over on cd
with the sour taste of dr. pepper in my mouth.
and i remember driving with you
and counting La Quintas
(i told you it was Spanish for "next to Denny's")
and laughing like no one else in the world.
but it's not Spanish for "next to Denny's",
and i don't know the Spanish for i love you,
because my brain was made
by a company that went out of business
twenty years ago. and dr. pepper, whoever he was,
will never know of his eponymous soda, will never know
i only drink it in remembrance of you.
and the bright knife of dawn
makes me tired and hopeless,
and i was always trying to go home,
but I don't know where i left it.
so ten years or twenty from now
i'll be driving still through the orange night,
over ghosts of highways and railroad traces,
looking for something
i won't know unless it's there.
and until then, it's probably your fault
that i'm driving now in the paling dark,
in the burgeoning light,
bleeding at the throat, offering my life
out into the still morning.
***************************************************
Here's the translation set. (It ended up in English several times due to limitations on Google's translation pairs, but i didn't change anything or even really LOOK at the intervening English sets. Or the French, which i also read.)
English -> Arabic -> English -> German -> French -> English -> Portuguese -> English -> Japanese -> English
***************************************************
And here's the result I ended up with. My lines are just hopelessly gone, so I present it in prose. Interestingly, some of the words never made it out of one language or another; i ended up with Pfeffer and Fotographien from German, and lesquel from French, for example. It has a wonderful lyric quality to me, almost like one gets from a Markov reworking of a poem or prose piece. I'm especially fond of "call the return to the alone person as each one" and "In order my life which continues to give in order to form because it remains in morning."
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The knife which stacks the load in my throat of indifferent place poem and morning to memory of order of my life. That was another time between the stars whose many controls are dark. With me, and desired stop in the same song of love d of that start. Before the thing odor which consumes the hat which inquires about the compact disk of the taste of Pfeffer and Fotographien eats e of lesquel. As for me the world of promise already Los Angeles (I declared this measurement “to pious that of the Spanish „) control for the pool of city and sump and possibility 1 call the return to the alone person as each one. But “pious measurement and i by your of Spanish of the „ago that brain is given to me of the company where the Spanish love, you appeared and, passed, 20 years of business you do not know. Beverage. The pepper or quality in order to drink at commemoration day, phosphate of name do not know name, under any condition, you do not know. But the tire you row me who tried the fact that it turns over always because of the country despair it is bright the measuring instrument and me me being trained you do not have to know. After that if exactly 10 20 years, just the road which those guarantee there, in method and research espíritos of the orange of control, barely between the night. As for me then, perhaps, the forgery, it is I of the thing where order of the fence where AM now growth of the flow of the box of voice is considered becomes black. In order my life which continues to give in order to form because it remains in morning.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
wherever poem
morning holds a knife to my throat,
demands my memory or my life.
i've been driving again through a night too dark
for stars. and my forehead itches
from wearing the hat that smells like you,
and i'm listening to the same love song
over and over on cd
with the sour taste of dr. pepper in my mouth.
and i remember driving with you
and counting La Quintas
(i told you it was Spanish for "next to Denny's")
and laughing like no one else in the world.
but it's not Spanish for "next to Denny's",
and i don't know the Spanish for i love you,
because my brain was made
by a company that went out of business
twenty years ago. and dr. pepper, whoever he was,
will never know of his eponymous soda, will never know
i only drink it in remembrance of you.
and the bright knife of dawn
makes me tired and hopeless,
and i was always trying to go home,
but I don't know where i left it.
so ten years or twenty from now
i'll be driving still through the orange night,
over ghosts of highways and railroad traces,
looking for something
i won't know unless it's there.
and until then, it's probably your fault
that i'm driving now in the paling dark,
in the burgeoning light,
bleeding at the throat, offering my life
out into the still morning.
***************************************************
Here's the translation set. (It ended up in English several times due to limitations on Google's translation pairs, but i didn't change anything or even really LOOK at the intervening English sets. Or the French, which i also read.)
English -> Arabic -> English -> German -> French -> English -> Portuguese -> English -> Japanese -> English
***************************************************
And here's the result I ended up with. My lines are just hopelessly gone, so I present it in prose. Interestingly, some of the words never made it out of one language or another; i ended up with Pfeffer and Fotographien from German, and lesquel from French, for example. It has a wonderful lyric quality to me, almost like one gets from a Markov reworking of a poem or prose piece. I'm especially fond of "call the return to the alone person as each one" and "In order my life which continues to give in order to form because it remains in morning."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The knife which stacks the load in my throat of indifferent place poem and morning to memory of order of my life. That was another time between the stars whose many controls are dark. With me, and desired stop in the same song of love d of that start. Before the thing odor which consumes the hat which inquires about the compact disk of the taste of Pfeffer and Fotographien eats e of lesquel. As for me the world of promise already Los Angeles (I declared this measurement “to pious that of the Spanish „) control for the pool of city and sump and possibility 1 call the return to the alone person as each one. But “pious measurement and i by your of Spanish of the „ago that brain is given to me of the company where the Spanish love, you appeared and, passed, 20 years of business you do not know. Beverage. The pepper or quality in order to drink at commemoration day, phosphate of name do not know name, under any condition, you do not know. But the tire you row me who tried the fact that it turns over always because of the country despair it is bright the measuring instrument and me me being trained you do not have to know. After that if exactly 10 20 years, just the road which those guarantee there, in method and research espíritos of the orange of control, barely between the night. As for me then, perhaps, the forgery, it is I of the thing where order of the fence where AM now growth of the flow of the box of voice is considered becomes black. In order my life which continues to give in order to form because it remains in morning.
This copy just went from English -> Japanese -> English. I may turn this one into another poem, actually; i love the "cut-up" methods pioneered by people like Burroughs, and this seems a particularly interesting one to explore. *Especially* with Asian languages; i love how the word order gets all strange, and the distinction between the personal and the impersonal gets redrawn in very alien ways.
"I by the orange night still drive, if the illusion which the highway and the railroad mark end, thing I who search what that am not there"
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Anywhere poem morning the knife is grasped in my throat, whether my memory my life is required. I've which is driven excessively for the second time with the night darkness for the star. And as for my amount as been able to point itchily you, from the fact that the hat which smell does is learned, and the i'm many times which inquire about the same love song pepper of the teacher of my mouth using the sour taste with CD. And I have remembered that it drives with you and it counts la Quintas, (the I that mean that with the next door “of Denny” is because of Spanish,) everyone of the world compared to laugh. But that with the next door “of Denny” is not because of Spanish, and I have not informed the Spanish for i love, because my brain was made, by the company which is discontinued 20 years ago. And soda I of that name ancestor/founder your memory just that without knowing that you drink, under any condition, there is no teacher he with anyone of pepper, does not know under any condition. But and the despair which becomes tired it made knife me where the dawn is bright, and I always tried the fact that it goes into the house, I do not know I left that somewhere. So 10 years 20 in the future I by the orange night still drive, if the illusion which the highway and the railroad mark end, thing I who search what that am not there, you do not inform. And to that time, that perhaps is your defect and with that i'm rapid increase light/write which now is driven with the darkness which turns pale, in the quiet morning which bleeds with the throat which offers my life.