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Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Poem by Leon de Greiff: Canzonette- Translated from the Spanish by A Z Foreman Poems Found in Translation

Poems Found In Translation: “Leon de Greiff: Canzonette (From Spanish)”

Link to Poems Found in Translation

Posted: 20 Sep 2015 08:10 PM PDT
Canzonette
By Leon de Greiff
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

It rains outside the windows (verlainesque
Rain, if not in in my heart:
My heart ran somewhere else one day in search
Of other songs to start)

It rains outside the windows (melancholic
Rain which in certain ways is quite poetic
-But nonetheless prosaic, or symbolic...)
It rains and rains no more....Rain is splenetic.

I never figured how to watch such rain
Tracing the pane - tranced in philosophy-
More often than not it fell upon my (blonde
till they left) locks...- a trance of atrophy-

It rains outside the windows. I smoke. I write.
The windows wall me off from the urbane
Traffickings....And I’m a lascivious
Bird clamped inside my cage. Always in vain.

It rains outside the windows (verlainesque
Rain, if not in in my heart)
My heart ran off- capricious thing!-
After a silly canzonette
Not rhyming and not reasoning,
With neither whole nor part.


The Original:

Cancionilla

Llueve tras de los vidrios (verleniana
lluvia, si no en mi corazón:
mi corazón se fugó una mañana
detrás de otra canción).

Llueve tras de los vidrios (melancólica
lluvia, en manera alguna tan poética
– pero, menos, prosaica, – o tan simbólica . )
Llueve, llueve no más . . . Lluvia esplinética.

Yo no sabía de mirar la lluvia
tras de los vidrios – trance filosófico –
las más veces cayó sobre (fue rubia
cuando fue) mi melena . . . – trance atrófico –.

Llueve tras de los vidrios. Fumo. Escribo.
Aíslanme los vidrios del urbano
tráfago . . . , y en mi jaula soy lascivo
pájaro sitibundo siempre en vano.

Llueve tras de los vidrios (verleniana
lluvia, si no en mi corazón)
Mi corazón se fugó – tarambana –
tras una cancioncilla casquivana
sin ritmo ni razón,
sin ton ni son.

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