Faith

Faith has hands which reach up and out
even when no one takes them.
Faith dances for the rain under sunny skies
and believes when hope,
like rain-fed rivers,
runs dry.
Faith puts lights on window sills
and sets an extra place at the dinner table.
Faith has roots
which reach to the centre of the world
and draw up life.
Faith is the heart of the heart
and the core of the core.
Faith listens
and loves
and knows.

Sonnet 27: Valley-Style

I am just so tired from working all day that I, like, go straight to bed with my clothes still on,
and I, like, sink into that mattress, my arms and legs so exhausted from running all over the show;
But, of course, I can’t fall asleep because, like, my mind is racing all over the place
So my body, like, stops, but my stupid brain, like, just keeps going:
I can’t stop thinking about that cute boy in the second row of bio class
and, like, how he has such an amazing smile,
And even though I am, like, so incredibly tired, my eyes won’t close,
and now I am, like, imagining him there in the room with me for a while
and thinking about what I will say to him tomorrow when I see him in second period,
and I am so, like, wrapped up in thinking about him
that even though I am, like, so tired, the night seems brighter
and I am, like, so filled with inner energy.
….So I wear myself out physically in the day
….and then keep myself up all night thinking of him.

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I “rewrote” Sonnet 27 on the 27th of May from a different perspective.  And so I thought I would do the same again and rewrite it this time in “Valley Girl Teen” lingo.

2 May:  He Do the Police in Voices: Dialect & Idiolect: Translate or compose a poem or other work into a different dialect or idiolect, your own or other. Dialect can include subculture lingo, slang, text messaging shothand, etc. For example, Steve McCaffery’s translation of the Communist Manifesto in West Riding of Yorkshire dialect.

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:
For then my thoughts–from far where I abide–
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

Integer, earth

Sling across slopes
fastening on sky. A lot of which
the pulmonary organs won’t receive.

Then everything is rotating fireworks, I am
the centre.  The young lady
on her backside

throwing a fit
on the ground of the pharmacy
up to the point where her mom rises and departs.

The red beetle’s blue-grey
lower limbs pumping automatedly
till they quieten

and crease.  The frame
is a sleeve.
The atmosphere dark

gems and inert fas
I am much too distant
to mourn.

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I’m a bit sad that NaPoWriMo has come to an end, so I found some online prompts that I will try to follow in May, just to keep the writing going.
Why not write along!?  🙂

Today I am writing a homolinguistic translation.  The prompt is below in red, the poem which I “translated” is Figure, ground by Melissa Stein.  This was quite fun!
(Thank you and apologies to Melissa Stein. She is an American poet who holds an MA in creative writing from the University of California at Davis and is a freelance editor and writer in San Francisco.  I adore her poem Figure, ground!)

1 May:    Homolinguistic translation: Take a poem (someone else’s, then your own) and translate it “English to English” by substituting word for word, phrase for phrase, line for line, or “free” translation as response to each phrase or sentence. 

Figure, ground

by Melissa Stein

Catapult through hills
locking on air. So much of it
the lungs won’t take it in.

Then all’s a pinwheel, I’m
the pin. The girl
on her back

having a tantrum
on the drugstore floor
until her mother stands up and leaves.

The ladybug’s gunmetal
legs pedaling machinely
until they still

and fold. The body
is an envelope.
The air black

diamonds and helium
I’m far too far
to grieve.