The Louche Mirror of Kittens and the Translation of the Present

William Keckler maintains a remarkable blog entitled Joe Brainard's Pyjamas. It's the kind of place where logical kittens leap endlessly into the verbal mirror of themselves.

And speaking of being a verbal mirror of one's self, yesterday he wrote a lovely post about this blog. Thanks, William. And no frames of reference were harmed in the naming of (t)his blog, though there is an increased number of washed backs.

Elsewhere on his blog, Keckler creates a 'louche' translation of a poem of Rene Char. He discusses the notion of anachronistic translation. To quote:

Anachronistic translation can be translating a poem into a future idiom, which did not exist in the poem's lifetime, or it can the reverse of that, translation of modernity or postmodernity into archaic idioms.

And then he presents a translation of the Char poem into 'online vernacular.' (Which is why the brilliant cartoon is posted above.) I've been working on a series of homophonic Rilke translations and, thinking about Keckler's translation, I thought that I'd try that with the Char poem. Thing is, while I understand little German, I do understand a fair bit of French (though I'd be unable to say, "Please, firefighter, help me, I am on fire. I would suggest that water sprayed at me at high pressure might be effective in extinguishing the conflagration that is, currently, me.) This made the notion of 'homophonic' translation interesting. I could choose to translate the meaning of the words or just their sound. I could choose to deliberately misunderstand the meaning or  allow some of my understanding to affect how I heard a word. The original French poem, a quite literal translation, along with Keckler's 'louche' translation is here.

Commingling with the Present

Writing, you depress me 

you are really slow 

and as with life 

out of order 

and then there’s the inevitable 

procession of your sources

I hate you

I hate how you transmit

in equal parts 

the rebellion of the marvelous 

the malfeasance of the affective

you are really slow 

and as with life, inexpressive

I mean the kind of life that doesn’t appear in a primer

you say 

in the end

the only way to account for everything

is to accept it as one

refuse to separate each day from other days

each from others

Writing you say

don’t obtain, what--

thoughts, a penis, punishment?

you only give me these fragments. 

maybe its charming, maybe charnel, maybe channeled

from the boats of these belles 

combatants-sans-merci

I have hours or owls of you saying:

‘all isn’t agony’

or surmising when the big end will come

‘remember how long death is

how long your labour will be’

and ‘recognize something in the hidden 

sister you have found in nukes

in the handkerchief, 

in the inclination to laugh like 

you were old on the way up the roller-coaster ride’

Writing, I offer you my submission

I am armless

I have no weapons, no limbs

you created this belief in the small commingling of the moment

I modify you so that I disappear without regret

though I agree with your suave rigor

section by section

we will survive the liquidation of the pursuing world

without interruption

eagles, agreements, or equality

I have tried the quick fish

of light or of love 

but, Writing, there is nothing except 

deceleration in our union