"Fatiga" Translations
JUDSON ELLIS
[pdf]
The original poem, by Vicente Huidobro
Fatiga
Marcho día y noche
como un parque desolado.
Marcho día y noche entre esfinges caídas de mis ojos;
miro el cielo y su hierba que aprende a cantar;
miro el campo herido a grandes gritos,
y el sol en medio del viento.
Acaricio mi sombrero lleno de luz especial;
paso la mano sobre el lomo del viento;
los vientos, que pasan como las semanas;
los vientos y las luces con gestos de fruta y sed de sangre;
las luces, que pasan como los meses;
cuando la noche se apoya sobre las casas,
y el perfume de los claveles gira en torno de su eje.
Tomo asiento, como el canto de los pájaros;
es la fatiga lejana y la neblina;
caigo como el viento sobre la luz.
Caigo sobre mi alma.
He ahí el pájaro de los milagros;
he ahí los tatuajes de mi castillo;
he ahí mis plumas sobre el mar, que grita adiós.
Caigo de mi alma.
Y me rompo en pedazos de alma sobre el invierno;
caigo del viento sobre la luz;
caigo de la paloma sobre el viento.
The literal translation of the meaning of the piece, as interpreted by Judson Ellis
Fatigue
I march day and night
like an empty park.
I march day and night between sphinxes fallen from my eyes;
I see the sky and its grass that learns to sing;
I see the countryside damaged by great shouts,
and the sun between the wind.
I caress my hat full of special light;
I run my hand along the back of the wind;
winds, which pass like weeks;
winds and lights with visions of fruit and thirst of blood;
lights, which pass like months;
when night hangs over houses,
and the scent of carnations spirals around its axis.
I take a seat, like the bird song;
it’s the far-off fatigue and the fog;
I fall like the wind upon light.
I fall upon my soul.
Behold the miracle bird;
behold the tattoos of my castle;
behold my feathers over the sea, roaring its goodbye.
I fall from my soul.
And I break into pieces of soul upon winter;
I fall from the wind upon light;
I fall from the dove upon wind.
The poem written through the lens of Creacionismo, analyzing the thoughts of the creator from an outside viewpoint
Huidobro is Tired of Creating
Huidobro writes poems all day all night.
He is made desolate by this walking.
He writes poems all day all night all questions for the world questions he has invented questions that come from within him in worlds that have come from within him.
He looks up he is looking up where God is. He sees heaven’s greenery blooming. He hears it learning to sing. He sees things he hears things that do not exist in our world and he wants to show them to us.
He sees the countryside the fields leveled by the noise of what he hears that we cannot hear.
Inside his head is special light is beauty is wonder he takes from this world and he gives to the next.
He is attuned. He is attuned to the movement of the world. He places that movement before us. He can feel it. Stop it.
He can stop time. He can move time how he likes.
He can make nature do what he likes. He can make it thirst for blood. He can thirst for blood from nature.
He can create time. He can move time how he likes.
There is darkness, a void supported above, and he thinks about it falling. He thinks what will happen if it falls and he is no longer creating.
He smells the lovely floral scents. They are always moving. They go nowhere.
He sits. He is tired now, like the song of a bird that wilts at its climax.
He sees the future. He cannot see it clearly. He sees himself tire of his creation. He cannot see it clearly, but he knows.
It is time to fall, to rest, to fall like the wind. To fall like time. To fall into his creation.
To fall into his creation.
Look at this world he is creating. Look at the image of God he is. Look at the bird he has sent us to show us things grow here, in this new world where sin is void.
Look at the images he has etched into the old world.
He has flown too close to the sun. He will fall now into the sea. The sea will greet him, then. The sea he created will greet him in its arms. The sea celebrates.
To fall out of his creation.
Huidobro breaks himself up in the twilight of life in the twilight of creation in the winter of his world when the trees have lost their leaves.
He falls asleep. Tired of creation. He falls from movement to radiance.
He falls from peace into change. Change perhaps to start again in a dream. The wind wipes away his world.
The poem written through the lens of modernism, as a work constructed by its contemporary moment and by the translator in his own era
Fatigue Tiredness Energy Moving Forward Forward-Moving Where Do We Go From Here
I am marching not driving not in the car moving forward I am walking I do this day and night like a machine I am not a plant I am not a tree I am not a vine growing up a tree I do not depend on the sun.
The sun turns the parks green so I am a park free of grass I am covered in metal spines instead of dirt.
The sun is coming down here coming coming down between the rapid winds the winds turning like cars like planes sonically bursting forward with metal reflecting like the sun like the sun in the middle of bursting wind.
This light between winds coming down to us coming to me filling my hat
I feel the spine of the wind the meat of the wind infused with sunlight the back of the wind rising the wind rises the sun rises the city rises.
The sound of the alarm clock every morning we will hear in a week’s time where the wind takes it put your hand out the window and feel the wind blowing you back as you move forward, West as you move East.
The winds the lights they are vines pushing fruit into my open mouth they want to sip my blood like I want to sip the sun like I want to feel the wind in my mouth;
light shoots out further than the wind rippling months and months from now. Don’t think I’ve forgotten; it takes minutes for light from the sun to reach us it took years for them to understand Mallarmé, they did not see the words falling in freedom until after the shadow was dismissed; it takes a month for the sunlight to wrap fully around the moon;
The night is held up over the houses flimsily by darkness; can we keep it above us forever?
Like the light around the moon the smell of carnations turns around its axis carried by a wind going nowhere. How sweet it is, that smell, that feeling of standing in place.
I take a seat like the bird songs below the loud winds of airplanes below the screams that flatten the grasses that flatten too your feathers you can see them rise up beside the airplane;
You can hear instead the sound of my beleaguered breathing come in from the wind so I know in seven days’ time I will be exhausted the vapor in my breath resting against the earth;
I will fall like the wind of my breath like the wind falls over the sun like the fog falls over the streetlamps.
I fall over my soul my soul is here too and I fall over it like the wind falls over the sun.
There is the miracle bird the one that showed us the land the one that came down from the sun the one that held an olive branch in its mouth to show us what grew in the sun.
There are devilfish in the water the sea yells to God the sea says God be with you goodbye is it that shout that flattens my feathers or the moisture.
Where is the soul is it in the sun or the wind or the light or the dovetail.
I fall from all of these things.
I break apart in this place so many snowflakes strewn there to reflect light or be dragged along by blizzards you will see me covering your homes like nighttime I am going into the snow piles I am passing this way like missiles you will not stop me from going this way whether you are blowing wind or you are peace or you are God. There is no going back.
The pieces of the last translation have been taken directly out of the context of the original work in order to create something new, using only the translator’s words
Forward
walking like a
machine
free of grass
between the rapid winds the
planes bursting forward reflect
the sun
I feel
The sound
the lights the vines in my
blood sip the sun
wrap around the moon
darkness i s
light
going nowhere
screams
flatten feathers
vapor in my breath
fog falls over the
streetlamps
my soul is here too
olive branch in its mouth
Where is the soul
apart in this place
you will see me in
s o m a n y t h
i n G s
This piece has been coalesced, and contains different physical layouts of words.
Forward
walking like a machine
free of grass.
between the rapid winds the
planes bursting forward,
metal reflects the sun.
I feel the sound.
the lights the vines in my blood
sip the sun
wrap around the moon.
darkness is
light going nowhere
screams flatten feathers.
vapor in my breath,
fog falls over the streetlamps
my soul is here too,
olive branch in its mouth.
where is the soul?
apart in this place
you will see me
in so many things.
The homophonic translation
Faith in God
March die and notch.
Common on par with desolate.
March die and notch. Enter these fingers scald dead messages,
mirror ill slow Jesus. You’re back: a friend I can’t harm.
Mirror ill champion, herald of grand gripes
yell. Also inmates dull bent on
incarceration. Me, somber air or yellow dells, whose special
past laments of brail-loaded veins, too
lost veins to keep asunder comet’s last symbols,
lost veins to see lost losers, cons, his toes, deaf route, a desiccated anger.
Last loose ends: keep a song, comb lost messes.
Can those lain notches and piles, over else cast us
yelpers, fuming? Devil’s clave, hear eternal desolation.
Turmoil ascends common will. Can’t tell us. Pair of lost
isles: laughing, free. Hand me lost nebuli,
charged comet, bent umbrella use.
Cargo sombers me. All my
air I breathe. Will pages, roads lose me? Luck rose
here and there to tutor demi-castes. It goes
here I have mixed plums and sober elms or cake written in dice.
Cars go, deem my alms
admirable and per the ghosts of alms some bring all in. Burning
car encoded ill. Burnt house bred love loose.
Guide, God, lapels en masse: all were Hell-bent.