Poetry

Clay Pot

Lover, I am but a useless clay pot

you are the fire for my raw clay

Lover, this raw pot only has one purpose

To show Sohni her Mahiwal

I am but a small wedding palaquin

You are my golden* bride

Sohni left this wedding palaquin,

To seek her Mahiwal

She entered this raw clay pot

For her beloved

This raw clay pot also seeks his beloved

in the river, both of them become the

victims of love

What happened to the fire?

Ask Mahiwal, he will know.

*Here, I experiment with an interesting vocabulary game

here, where “sohni” doubles as the name of the bride

and a description of her beauty or “goldenness”

αφωνία

εισαγωγή

οι κόρε ύδρο μου αρέσουν γιατί μου δίνουν έναν λόγο να είμαι περήφανη για τη κέρκυρα.

το γεγονός ότι δε θα τους δω ποτέ λάιβ σημαίνει ότι θα μπορώ για πάντα να ονειρεύομαι. τις συναυλίες τους.

προσωπικό

αυτός ο δρόμος – σημαδεμένος – από εμένα – και τον χρόνο –

άδειασε! για να περάσω

ατάραχος όταν τον διασχίσω για φορά τελευταία

ανάμνηση

τα όνειρά μου είναι τέλεια,

τόσο τέλεια

δε μυρίζουν τα σκατά.

απρόσωπο

μπάλες κρέμονται

κουβάδες φωλιάζουν σε πυροσβεστική

αρωματικά χαρτάκια. όχι

επίλογος

μου αρέσουν τα μακαρόνια με κιμά. δε μου αρέσουν τα αμέρικαν σπίριτ τα μπλε. μπαίνουν πιο πολλοί ελεγκτές στα

λεωφορεία. πρόσεχε. κόβω μόνη τα μαλλιά μου. ποτέ δεν τα αλλάζω. ο σκύλος μου έχει γεράσει. κάποια στιγμή θέλω

να έχω μια γάτα. ή τουλάχιστον ένα ποδήλατο. χτες διάβασα ότι η κατερίνα μπέη δεν είναι φεμινίστρια.

[a sonnet] [an anglicism] 

ngl don’t wanna write a sonnet rn. 

ella baila siempre detras1 pero no hablo espanol pero si puedo escribir, un poco, sin fluidez, no tengo el teclado correcto, pero no me importa mucho si puedes oir mi acento americano. cometi muchos errores, parqueando mi panqueque aqui. ¡no pienses con el cerebro ingles! 

jajaha writing in spanish is—restricted—liberating. limits are a better freedom. less exhaustion. english makes you organize your thoughts in this particular manner, a tiresome track the mind always follows. 

lexicography is not for doctors. i used to be a prescriptivist but then i became a language populist. who is the master: the language or the person? who is a tool, who is supposed to serve? ‘yeet’ made it into the dictionary, or at least i think it did, or at least i think it should: grandma has asked us to define the term. internet slang is the next bastardization of english. stop complaining: a modern shakespeare, a new literary canon composed of curt acronyms and pliant grammar and the lowest case. in this gain is a loss, sure. but the keyboard itself did not kill cursive, did not drag its curlicued body across the last pieces of wide-ruled paper, leaving a dark twist of ink at the site. nor did it knot our fingers, force us to ttyl bby. 

we, our own innovations, we are the culprits here? put your hands up! tralala i can’t hear you. vacant crime scene. i’m not interested in perfection: i want to know all the ways you failed, all the ways you tried to count the native speakers of klingon and came up with one—me—then asked where the literature was. 

i pointed to the estanteria, to my journals and my other spines. i don’t know where this narrative is going, te dije, and i cannot lie, i must tell la verdad a los jovenes but i must make it exciting. los cambios, las computadoras. ¡medico! gotta keep klingon saludable, en linea, saludable. kaixo and agur, we say. oh you thought that was klingon, sorry no. that’s basque, bro: painfully real lenguaje from the north of espana and bits of france. el pais vasco, or euskadi if you care. when these folks vieron catalan on paral·lel signs in barcelona, they asked if it was basque. cuando oyeron portugues en lisboa, preguntaron si era chino. les di una respuesta: english is fine. no pense que me descubririan aqui, hablando sin mi lengua. 

POR UNICA VEZ, TE PIDO QUE ENTIENDAS.2/ ¿XQ PERDISTE TANTO TIEMPO?3 

1lyric from “Oda a la Sin Nombre” by Skay Beilinson 

2lyric from “Pijamas” by Babasónicos 

3 modified lyric from “No Llores Por Mi, Argentina” by Serú Girán

Fais tourner la roue

Moi, je tourne la rue

Une autre voiture

Qui étend la lumière

Fais tourner la roue

Comme si j’étais rien

Voyez les sourcils

Personne me connaît

Je tourne la rue

Je vois des valises

Je vois des familles

Sortir du métro

Pourquoi est-ce qu’ils pleurent?

Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé

Pourquoi est-ce qu’ils courent?

Personne me connaît

Comme une vitrine

Je suis explosé

Fais tourner la roue

Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé? 

Gli alberi del Main Green

Ci hanno visti trionfanti e ubriachi di gioventú

Guardare l’immensità della vita da lontano,

In un nascondiglio di siepi e profumo di pino.

Ma stavolta vorrei ricavare una mappa dal mio cuore

Che mi lanci alle più sfrenate possibilità.

L’Aprile insolente spalanca ogni porta chiusa dentro di me.

Io ignara, in ginocchio

pensai che il tempo non sarebbe mai bastato

Per amare il giorno come avrei dovuto,

Ma visitando mestessa capii

Che le ragnatele del passato diventarono seta,

Che il cimitero della mia anima fu inondato d’acqua,

E con gioiosa sorpresa trovai canali come a Venezia

Che mi sussurravano in un’altra lingua.