for Uljana Wolf
44
T, pinkie. R, ring. A, middle. N, index. S, thumb.
L, thumb. A, index. T, middle. O, ring. R, pinkie.
O translator’s hand, your nature is subdued to what you works in.
You are some dude or maybe some dudette. Your immersion is dire, like that of an au pair.
Philosophy begins in wonder but literature begins in ambivalence.
Where is your ambivalence, O translator? Here it is.
It is on the fence between words and words. They do not touch, being padded with felt.
It is at the crossing between words and words. They correspond by letters.
Knock, knock. Who’s there? The translator. Translator, are you going postal?
They who say you do not mean what you say do not mean what they say.
How do we come to mean what we say, say we. Really.
You have to hand it to the translator. The translator is two-handed.
O translator, artist of separation, carrier of correspondence. You play a tender hand.
In the temple of nature your hand is a living hand but it is also a dyer’s hand.
45
The letter
killeth.
It killeth
later.
It killeth
by translator.
The translator killeth.
Klutz!
Culleth.
But the letter lives
And lets to a subletter.
See you later,
translator!
See you, letter.
46
If a poet stands outside the subway entrance long enough, a translator is bound to emerge.
The poet was rising from the subway by escalator. Was there a translator behind the poet.
The poet and the translator are one. The publisher omitted the source text.
Stationary, the poet transferred from one train of thought to another. The translator ran for the shuttle, weaving among the people and also unweaving.
The translator lies in a trance. Does the poet possess the translator, does the translator possess the poet.
The apparition of these men and women in the subway: Is there no publisher among them.
The poet took the A, B, C at West 4th. The translator took the 1, 2, 3 at Borough Hall.
One searched for a subway station called Ithaca and found three Subways in Ithaca, while the other proceeded to Utica Avenue in search of integrity.
The poet and the translator were riding the escalator which was scaly like Geryon’s back. They weighed each other with scales.
The poet found the translator wanting. The translator found the poet wanting.
To be more specific, the poet found the translator wanting the publisher, while the translator found the poet wanting the publisher.
If a poet stands outside the subway entrance long enough, the translator is bound to emerge from another entrance. Or exit.
The poet was rising to the surface and already saw natural light at the entrance, which is also the exit. The translator stood one step below on the escalator, holding the publisher’s hand.
The poet turned around on the escalator. The translator said, I am going home. There is no correspondence between the words of our languages.
49
Some say poetry is already translation.
Thought worded, bordered and ordered. Incorrect.
The word is its own reward in poetry. It reigns over itself.
It is sovereign. The word is weird. It is foreign.
Poetry is when you don’t understand the language.
When you don’t understand, you stand under. You listen.
What you don’t understand is poetry.
What you understand is translation.
Is that true. Or is it just poetry.
If it were true, would it be just translation.
“The doubt that is not doubted is not the ever-fixed doubt.”
I am reading a study of Laozi, which positions his lines as propositions.
Is there a poetry of propositions.
Is there a poetry where words don’t contradict each other.
50
The poet is entranced. The translator is enchanted.
The poet makes an entrance. What does the translator make.
Does the translator make a relation. Is it a chance relation.
Is the poet relatable. Does the translator make a difference.
The translator makes it to the beach. And the poet.
Is this what truth is. Is truth what can be related in language.
Lying at the beach can’t be related in language.
Language is a sea which laps about the littoral of the world.
Does the poet enter the translator. Do they make it.
The translator enters the sea. The translator enters the sea to make pee.
The translator makes to make pee or not pee in the sea but sees seals. Are they carved seals.
They are sea seals. The translator chances upon them as they are chanting about change in the sea.
It is small change, worth not a p. It makes or takes no impression.
There is no poet on one side and there is no translator on the other. Between them there is no sea.
56
Translator, transactor, transposer, go-between, in-between, matchless Pandar.
Make some funk in your Funkturm. Say it with me, Есть такая передача1!
They report you transport meanings from here to there like transport.
But you ache them new. So says an old saw. Zaum is my national literature.
They wrinkle their foreheads, straining to recollect their past lives but with mixed results. “They” meaning meanings.
All they know is the moment of nonrecognition, O poor ones.
My language is not my language. This is why it is called my language.
My country is not my country. This is why it is called my country. Such is the meaning of their lament.
How do they deport themselves. They deport themselves nicely yet it cannot be said that they do not weep very much, meanings.
As you lead them on in a hermetic Stetson, O smug smuggler! This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Gamboling gambler, unguarded gardener in the bower of mondegreenery—when there’s no mistakes there’s no takes at all.
But what would Nimrod say? And what would Wittgenstein say about what Nimrod would say?
Nimrod doesn’t say anything as they file past because he is too traumatized by Wittgenstein’s witticisms about private language: “If Nimrod could speak, no one would understand him, bwahahaha!”
So he blows that high horn, and the sound of it tells everybody exactly what he is feeling. Or does it.
__________________
1 “There does exist such a broadcast,” from the Soviet children’s program Radio Nanny.
