Li Po: "For Tu Fu"

FOR TU FU

by Li Po


On Boiled Rice Mountain
I met Tu Fu

wearing a big round
bamboo hat
in the hot noon sun

Tu Fu
how come
you've grown
so thin?

you must be suffering
too much
from poetry!




Translated by David Young

BENJAMIN PERET FRIDAY!

I'LL GO HOW ABOUT YOU
by Benjamin Peret


There was a big house
with a fire diver swimming on it

There was a big house
surrounded with kepis and golden helmets

There was a big house
full of glass and blood

There was a big house
standing in the middle of a swamp

There was a big house
whose master was made of straw
whose master was a beech tree
whose master was a letter
whose master was a hair
whose master was a rose
whose master was a sigh
whose master was a sharp turn
whose master was a vampire
whose master was a mad cow
whose master was a kick
whose master was a cavernous voice
whose master was a tornado
whose master was a capsized boat
whose master was the cheek of an ass
whose master was the Carmagnole
whose master was violent death

Tell me tell me where is the big house


Translated by Keith Hollaman

FINALLY A GOOD TRANSLATION OF 'SEA BREEZE'

SEA BREEZE
by Stephane Mallarme

The flesh is sad, and I've read all the books. Away! away! I sense
the birds are drunk on being between the unknown foam and the skies!
Nothing, not the old gardens reflected in eyes will hold back this
sea-soaked heart, O nights! not the desert brilliance of my lamp on the
empty paper defended by whiteness, and not the young woman nursing
her baby. I will depart! Steamer, rocking your masts, weigh anchor for
an exotic nature!

A boredom, aggrieved by cruel hopes, still believes in the last farewell
of handkerchiefs! And maybe the masts, inviting storms, are the ones
listing in wind above the shipwrecks lost, with no masts, no masts, no
fertile islets ... But hear, o heart, the master-singing sailors!



Translation: Peter Manson

I LOVE MAX JACOB

ADVENTURE NOVEL BY MAX JACOB

Then it's true! Here am I like Philoctetes! abandoned by the ship on an unknown cliff, because my foot hurts. The unfortunate thing is that my trousers were torn off by the sea. Upon inquiry I find that I am nowhere else but on the shores of chaste England. "I shall soon find a policeman!" Which is what happened: a policeman who spoke French. "You don't recognize me," he said in that language, "I'm the husband of your English maid!" There was a reason for my not recognizing him: I never had an English maid: he led me into a neighboring town concealing my nudity with leaves as well as possible, and there he took me to a tailor. And, as I was about to pay: "Quite unnecessary," he told me, "Secret fund of the police" or "Of politeness": I didn't quite catch the word.



-translated by John Ashbery

Rain

I woke up on Monday morning to the threat of tornado, a "tornado watch" they call it. I realized that I have no idea what to do if a tornado hits. In the Northwest, they only trained us to be prepared for earthquakes. It seems like when you move to a different state, you should get some kind of a handbook, "What Terrible Things to Expect Here." It would only be fair.

I read this poem on Verse Daily yesterday, and really enjoy it. I thought I'd share it here; it seems good to share poems by people I don't know. This poem is by Marc Rahe. It is from his book The Smaller Half, which is available from Rescue Press.

Late


The cold night is starry.
The starlight has no warmth.
A loved one is standing
farther away, farther
than I can see.
The sky is getting darker
earlier. December's well-lit nights.
Sometimes waiting alone
after work, I feel
like I'm watching magic
on the window.
Like somewhere
white gloves raise to music
and there are car lights
passing streetlights.
The light inside the coke machine
outside the car wash across the avenue
is the same as the light of the stoplight.
That the light could almost change color
and mean its opposite.
Doesn't white, white snow turn
to spring flood? Can't a blue horizon
fill with warning? These things
happen. They're possible.
I have no music,
but sometimes when I'm waiting
I get patient.

THE BLACK FOREST

Octopus Books will publish my first book, The Black Forest, in 2011!

IT'S YOUR DECISION

You could learn about "The Turk," a fake chess-playing machine from the 1770s (human pretending to be machine)



OR

You could chat with "Cleverbot," an AI website built in the hopes of passing the "Turing Test" (machine pretending to be human)



IT'S YOUR DECISION!!!

Bonus: read this amazing 2007 article from Discover Magazine in which two chatbots chat with each other!

Sample from article (A= A.L.I.C.E. and J= Jabberwacky)

A: Who is your favorite philosopher

J: Can’t say. I’m not very much into philosophy.

A: Can a book have no title?

J: Of course.

A: Blimey.

J: Are you British?

A: Does it seem like that? I was born in America.

J: You are definitely flirting!