Day Five
On April 5, 2018
A very merry fifth day of Na/GloPoWriMo to everyone!
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like the work in Translucence, reacts both to photography and to words in a language not your own. Begin with a photograph. Now find a poem in a language you don’t know (here’s a good place to look!) Ignore any accompanying English translation (maybe cover it up, or cut-and-paste the original into a new document). Now start translating the poem into English, with the idea that the poem is actually “about” your photograph. Use the look and feel of the words in the original to guide you along as you write, while trying to describe your photograph. It will be a bit of a balancing act, but hopefully it will lead to new and beautiful (and possibly very weird) places.
Mystery lamp at nightfall
tames darkness of not knowing
spider silent unperturbed
spins slow artful web
ornament of beauty
veil too thin to hide its sense
prickles alive on naked skin
threads of undecipherable words
spun of orange peels and rose quartz
unshielded tumble down
vertical slide above as below
liquid silver nutmeg-perfumed
tender reeds for birds to nest
weave songs beyond language
silken to the furtive touch
leaves from a tome unknown
tapestry of glass beads
scintillates dew drops of meaning
Living Lives 