a translation of my taste

I like poetry. I had my own poems as it used to be. But I never loved my own poetry. So I decided to translate others'. Here is one that I think may work well.

The original Charles Bukowski piece:

here I am ...
drunk again at 3 a.m. at the end of my 2nd bottle
of wine, I have typed from a dozen to 15 pages of
poesy
an old man
maddened for the flesh of young girls in this
dwindling twilight
liver gone
kidneys going
pancrea pooped
top-floor blood pressure
while all the fear of the wasted years
laughs between my toes
no woman will live with me
no Florence Nightingale to watch the
Johnny Carson show with
if I have a stroke I will lay here for six
days, my three cats hungrily ripping the flesh
from my elbows, wrists, head
the radio playing classical music ...
I promised myself never to write old man poems
but this one's funny, you see, excusable, be-
cause I've long gone past using myself and there's
still more left
here at 3 a.m. I am going to take this sheet from
the typer
pour another glass and
insert
make love to the fresh new whiteness
maybe get lucky
again
first for
me
later
for you.
from "All's Normal Here" - 1985

an here comes my version:

hát itt vagyok…
megint részegen éjjel háromkor a második borosüveg alját nézve
és tizenkét, vagy akár tizenöt oldal is tele versekkel
a vénember
akit a fiatal lányok húsa hoz izgalomba
ebben a félidős félhomályban
a máj oda
a vesék is lassan
hasnyálmirigyek kifingtak
vérnyomás a plafonon

míg az elpazarolt évek rettegése
a lábujjaim között vihog
egy nőnek se kellek
nincs Florence Nightingale akivel jó
egy Johhny Carson show

ha szélütést kapok, hat napig fogok itt feküdni,
a három macska meg éhesen szaggatja majd a húst
a könyökömről, a csuklómról, az arcomról

a rádióban komolyzene…

megfogadtam, hogy soha nem írok vénemberes verset
de ez vicces, értik…megbocsátható, mert
én már rég kizsigereltem magam de
még azért van bennem
így hajnali háromkor, kiveszem majd ezt a papírt
a gépből és
öntök még egy pohárral, aztán
újratölt
és tiszta lappal szeretkezem

talán szerencsével járhatok
megint

először értem

később…
érted is.

Impro/fessional writing

Incredible! How much joy and enthusiasm an early Autumn afternoon can bring. The wine-red leaves of trees prepairing for a long sleep and the red scarves of women walking in the park. These pictures grabbed me and held me tight while I was sitting on a bench in one of the liveliest parks of Pécs. I was enjoying the smell of the Autumn breeze, the laughter of children, the lovers' first kiss and the sweet but ambivalent touch of the wind of change. All of a sudden, harsh yelling broke this harmony. A dog was rushing through the place, surely to his destruction, because he left a man seriusly injured behind.
.
I was sitting on a bench in one of the the parks of Pécs. It was a lovely Autumn afternoon, and quite comforting, I can tell. Bunches of people surrounded me, talking, kissing and laughing. But I felt strange. Suddenly, a dog rushed through the park leaving yelling people and a man seriously injured behind.
.
I am constantly getting acqainted with two books on writing. The first is William Zinsser's On Writing Well, the second one is Bruce Garrison's Professional Feature Writing. What I've found interesting and thought-provoking while reading them was that there were a lot more things to be cautious with about writing than I had ever thought. A colon, a period, a that or a which can easily be factors of failure.
I wrote these two paragraphs above in order to reflect my own understanding of the two viewpoints. The first one was intended to represent some kind of feature writing according to Garrison's ideas, while the second one introduces writing nonfiction. To be honest, I'm for the second type of writing. I find it honest and frank. The thoughts I rank the highest about the differences between nonfiction and feature writing I would like to quote from the book of Zinsser's: "The assumption is that fact and color are two separate ingredients. They're not; color is organic to the fact. Your job is to present the colorful fact".

restart

Well, the blog opens once again to function as a thoughtbook for Joe's lesson. :)