Forrest Gander 
Translator

on Lyrikline: 6 poems translated

from: البيلوروسية, الأسبانية to: الانجليزية

Original

Translation

[калі ты дрэва]

البيلوروسية | Volha Hapeyeva

калі ты дрэва
             а вецер сышоў ад цябе
стаяць нерухома можна стагодзьдзямі

і што табе птушкі зь іх звонкімі песьнямі лета

калі ты
дрэва
ад якога сышоў вецер

© Логвінаў
from: Няголены ранак
Мінск: Логвінаў, 2008
Audio production: European radio for Belarus (http://euroradio.fm/) / Belarusian PEN-Centre

[when you are a tree]

الانجليزية

when you are a tree
               and the wind has abandoned you,

you can stand still for centuries

and why care about birds with their piercing summer songs

when you are
a tree
the wind abandons

Translated by Forrest Gander

[дарогаю быць цяжка]

البيلوروسية | Volha Hapeyeva

дарогаю быць цяжка
асабліва ў тым месцы
дзе намаляваная зебра
там
         гАрызанТАль  
і

ВЭртыкаль

зводзяць людзей і машыны
часам жывёл
сабакаў і галубоў
і ровары – новыя за некалькі сотняў баксаў
і тыя што засталіся ў спадчыну ад кагосьці з 1930-х гадоў нараджэньня

як малая была
часта блытала гарызанталь і вэртыкаль
і кожны раз прамаўляючы словы гэтыя
ўяўляла сабе гарызонт

гарызонт гэта такая рыса на даляглядзе
за якой вось-вось мусіць узьнікнуць мора
і зьнікнуць я
дарога

ненадрукаваны,
Audio production: European radio for Belarus (http://euroradio.fm/) / Belarusian PEN-Centre

[hard to be a road]

الانجليزية

hard to be a road
especially at the painted zebra
crossing
there
            the hOriZOntal
and
the VErticAl
rush together people and cars
animals sometimes
dogs and pigeons
and bicycles – new ones and the ones inherited from those born in the 1930’s

as a child
I often confused the horizontal with the vertical
and each time I uttered those words,
I imagined a horizon

the horizon, such a long narrow line
in the distance
behind which just now just now the sea
is about to appear
as I, the road,
disappear

Translated by Forrest Gander

[Vigilaba la serenidad adherida a las sombras...]

الأسبانية | Antonio Gamoneda

Vigilaba la serenidad adherida a las sombras, los círculos donde se depositan flores abrasadas, la inclinación de los sarmientos.


Algunas tardes, su mano incomprensible nos conducía al lugar sin nombre, a la melancolía de las herramientas abandonadas.

© Antonio Gamoneda & Ediciones Siruela
from: Libro del Frío
Madrid: Ediciones Siruela, 2003
Audio production: 2005 M. Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

[He noticed the calm clinging to shadows ...]

الانجليزية


He noticed the calm clinging to shadows, the circles where burnt flowers fell, the inclination of vines.  

Some evenings, his incomprehensible hand pointed us to a nameless place, to the melancholy of abandoned tools.

Translated by Forrest Gander

[Un animal oculto...]

الأسبانية | Antonio Gamoneda

Un animal oculto en el crepúsculo me vigila y se apiada demí. Pesan las frutas corrompidas, hierven las cámaras corporales. Cansa atravesar esta enfermedad llena de espejos. Alguien silba en mi corazón. No sé quién es pero entiendo su sílaba interminable.


Hay sangre en mi pensamiento, escribo solo lápidas negras. Yo mismo soy el animal extraño. Me reconozco: lame los párpados que ama, lleva en su lengua las sustancias paternales. Soy yo, no hay duda: canta sin voz y se ha sentado a contemplar la muerte, pero no ve más que lámparas y moscas y las leyendas de las cintas fúnebres. A veces, grita en tardes inmóviles.


Lo invisible está dentro de la luz, pero, ¿arde algo dentro de lo invisible? La imposibilidad es nuestra iglesia. En todo caso, el animal se niega a fatigarse en la agonía.


Es el que está despierto en mí cuando yo duermo. No ha nacido y, sin embargo, ha de morir.


Así las cosas, ¿de qué perdida claridad venimos? ¿Quién puede recordar la inexistencia? Podría ser más dulce regresar, pero


entramos indecisos en un bosque de espinos. No hay nada más allá de la última profecía. Hemos soñado que un dios lamía nuestras manos: nadie verá su máscara divina.


Así las cosas,


la locura es perfecta.


© Antonio Gamoneda & Tusquets Editores
from: Arden las Pérdidas
Barcelona: Tusquets Editores, 2004
Audio production: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

[A animal hidden...]

الانجليزية


An animal hidden in twilight watches me and half pities itself. The bad fruit weighs heavily, the body’s chambers boil. It’s exhausting to pass through this illness full of mirrors.  Someone whistles in my heart. I don’t know who, but I understand the endless syllable.

Blood streaks my thoughts, I write on black tombstones. I am the strange animal.  I recognize myself: licking the eyelids he loves, bearing on his tongue patrilineal substances.  I am myself, no doubt: he sings voicelessly and sits himself down to contemplate death, but he sees only lamps and flies and the legends of funeral tapes. Sometimes he shouts into still afternoons.

The invisible is inside the light, but does something burn in the invisible? Our church is impossibility. In any case, the animal refuses to frazzle in agony.

It goes awake in me when I sleep. It was never born and, nevertheless, it’s just died.

So things go, from what lost clarity do we come?  Who can remember nonexistence? It might be sweeter, even, to return, but

we wander indecisively through a forest of thorns. There’s nothing beyond the last prophecy. We dreamed a god licked our hands: no one will see the divine mask.

So things go,

madness is perfect.

Translated by Forrest Gander

[En la ebriedad le rodeaban mujeres...]

الأسبانية | Antonio Gamoneda

En la ebriedad le rodeaban mujeres, sombra, policía, viento.


Ponía venas en las urces cárdenas, vértigo en la pureza; la flor furiosa de la escarcha era azul en su oído.


Rosas, serpientes y cucharas eran bellas mientras permanecían en sus manos.

© Antonio Gamoneda & Ediciones Siruela
from: Libro del Frío
Madrid: Ediciones Siruela, 2003
Audio production: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

[Inebriated, he was surrounded by women ...]

الانجليزية


Inebriated, he was surrounded by women, shadow, police, wind.

He strung veins on the heather row, put vertigo in virtue, frost’s furious flower went blue in his ear.

Roses, snakes and spoons were beautiful so long as he held them in his hands.

Translated by Forrest Gander

[Busco tu piel inconfesable...]

الأسبانية | Antonio Gamoneda

Busco tu piel inconfesable, tu piel ungida por la tristeza de las serpientes; distingo tus asuntos invisibles, el rastro frío del corazón.


Hubiera visto tu cinta ensangrentada, tu llanto entre cristales y no tu llaga amarilla,


pero mi sueño vive debajo de tus párpados.

© Antonio Gamoneda & Ediciones Siruela
from: Libro del Frío
Madrid: Ediciones Siruela, 2003
Audio production: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

[Feeling for your unconfessable skin]

الانجليزية


Feeling for your unconfessable skin, your skin anointed by the sadness of snakes; I can make out your invisible concerns, your heart’s cold trail.

I would have noticed your bloody sash, your weeping between window panes, and not the yellow of your wound,

but my dream lives under your eyelids.

Translated by Forrest Gander