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Monday, 5 July 2010

Dark Luna (after Vallejo)


.
File:EarthAndMoon.jpg

Earth and Moon, viewed from 50 million kilometers by Deep Impact: photo by NASA, 2005



Bored buzzing of the bottleflies

unproductive

broken joyline thread

parallel iterative steel

at water's edge

silence binomial

cattle & cane

peeping through fog

moon bland

armoured

black

hard

bigger than Ecuador




File:Cayambe-volcano 003.JPG

Volcán Cayembe, Ecuador: photo by Martin Iturbide, 2005


Provoked by César Vallejo: Trilce (XXIX), 1922

18 comments:

Lally said...

Best translation of him I've read Tom. Thank you for it.

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

"fog / moon" here, Goethe's "the nature of brightness" before it -- many thanks for these words and pictures (in an otherwise such grey day). . . . meanwhile, further resonances in our parallel worlds here --

7.5

grey whiteness of fog against invisible
ridge, song sparrow calling from branch
in foreground, sound of wave in channel

compared to pictorial object,
elements in composition

“nothing more than,” picture
word, oscillate in that

silver line of sun reflected in channel,
moon in brightness of blue sky above it

TC said...

Michael and Stephen,

With you in the fog after the war.

parallel iterative steel

Many thanks.

T

TC said...

Other Vallejo "versions" may be found here and here.

Anonymous said...

understanding Vallejo it is sometimes difficult in spanish...your translation is important...thank you!

TC said...

Gracias, lluvia.

I am humbled by Vallejo.

John B-R said...

Tom, sorry for my bibliographic innocence/ignorance, but have you ever collected your translations into one volume? (not that you're done translating, but ...)

AJP Crown said...

Did they ever put up a satellite to orbit the moon? I don't think they can have gps.

Anonymous said...

funny how in the first pic, i thought that i was looking not at earth, rather some fictional, alien planet. but then i started to noticed africa, and, heh, well.

TC said...

Anon,

Yes, a fictional, alien planet.

AJP,

Yes, on the Moon we celebrate GreenCheese Processing Season with GPS fireworks. Dipped in the Mare Imbrium before not exploding.

John,

There is indeed a book of my Trans/Versions.

And in the blog archive (see Contents) you will find more of same, not in the book. Last month I did Reverdy and Ungaretti, the month before that, Brecht, & c.

billymills said...

Splendid version, Tom.

TC said...

Many thanks, Billy. Discerning eye.

John B-R said...

So I open the new SPD catalog, stumble upon something called Trans/Versions, and get my bibliographic query answered ... 4 new books altogether, apparently ... guess I'll have to break the piggy bank ...

TC said...

Earth to Blogger: How very, very tiresome it is to have all the comments on your blog disappear at once. Well, not all, just most. Not that I have anything against forgetting, but... random selective memory loss?

Anyhow, since people took the time and bother to post comments, I'm going to attempt to restore the missing comments on this post. As thousands of comments have disappeared, this is a losing battle. But then, I've never been in any other kind.

Here they are.

____

Lally said...

Best translation of him I've read Tom. Thank you for it.
5 July 2010 06:45

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

"fog / moon" here, Goethe's "the nature of brightness" before it -- many thanks for these words and pictures (in an otherwise such grey day). . . . meanwhile, further resonances in our parallel worlds here --

7.5

grey whiteness of fog against invisible
ridge, song sparrow calling from branch
in foreground, sound of wave in channel

compared to pictorial object,
elements in composition

“nothing more than,” picture
word, oscillate in that

silver line of sun reflected in channel,
moon in brightness of blue sky above it
5 July 2010 07:16

TC said...

Michael and Stephen,

With you in the fog after the war.

parallel iterative steel

Many thanks.

T
5 July 2010 07:27

TC said...

Other Vallejo "versions" may be found here and here.
5 July 2010 08:51

lluvia said...

understanding Vallejo it is sometimes difficult in spanish...your translation is important...thank you!
5 July 2010 09:43

TC said...

Gracias, lluvia.

I am humbled by Vallejo.
5 July 2010 10:00

John B-R said...

Tom, sorry for my bibliographic innocence/ignorance, but have you ever collected your translations into one volume? (not that you're done translating, but ...)
5 July 2010 11:43

TC said...

Thanks, John.

Ah, the means of production, as the term once was.

Books, those vaporize more slowly, it seems.

"But none of these forms is ideal".

TC said...

John,

By the way (just in case this comment doesn't disappear), and I don't mean to be coy, but there are links to those four books (The New World, Trans/Versions/Something in the Air, Feeling for the Ground) on the margin here. Effectively camouflaged, I guess.

(Actually the whole business of self advertisement and "monetization" so annoys me on other blogs that I am loth to turn this weird little free gallery into just another career whorehouse. But I know I'm in the rear of the rear guard on that.)

Martin Iturbide said...

It is nice to see a reference to my picture. Thanks for using it !

TC said...

Many thanks to you for taking it and making it available, Martin, it's a beauty.