Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Persian version of "Oscillation"

I am very pleased to have another poem translated by Iranian poet Rahi (Mohamad Mostaghimi). The English text is below, and you can view the Persian at Rahi's blog at http://dish-sepid.blogfa.com/post-106.aspx. I wish I knew how to say "thank you" in Farsi.


Oscillation

Cellular grandfather, pity me: once it was understood

how things were done, how the boiling ferns invited the

glaciers to come, how the dinosaurs asked to die. Os-

cillation: The world was born in swing and sway, and I,

fasting slowly, am not random nor mad, but large, and

more precise than you. My blood makes air and cells; my

moon subtends the sky; my tides squeeze life out of rock.

All my night journeys find a sun; I leave orchards and o-

lives behind

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Aging (Fibonacci Sequence: 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89)

Dear Reader: If Fn is the term of the sequence, then F=0 if n=O, F=1 if n=1, and F=Fn-1 + Fn-2 if N is greater than 0. Now age.

none

1(one)

1(ego)

two (I)

I 2 threeeeeeeeee

5 school, ruled 2 three

hate math 8/5 parents split divisor 3 & me

bad teen luck black eight-in-hole no triskaidekaphobe call five ringtones call.

now lucky legal drink I’m old-gold-rolled ready-to-hold I stick on 13 so play vingt-et-un tonight with me.

still 13 in the soul getting old with a balding working luck. 34 is dirty floor & still behind, & the legal drink now a double, hit me hit me & no! not prime.

Fivefive, now fivefive, finally loving the mother/other/the 21-still-angry child & forgiving the serious careerist, so knowing, so sure, so 34. Take our bald inner luck as it comes, let’s leave the dirty floor alone (why are these aches okay ,why are these losses, these losses, so possible to endure?) Five years plus ½ century, decoding while eroding, ofivefive.

89 am I 8 or 9? The young ones are 34, my children 55. There are 13 pills in the morning, 13 pills at night. But what, exactly what might happen next? A working soul and another season’s turn, what else did I ever have? This word is greater than my numbers, the poésie of my self. I take the garbage out and set it on the street with joy. Tell me your secrets: I am the one who truly wants to know. Lemniscate, I move toward ∞ today.

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