After a much needed break from the pace of the 100 Days 100 Poems project, we return with something new and, to steal a phrase from the Pythons, with something completely different. Thank you for joining us.
Code Switching #13
In English we have the humble
to fart, the simple fart, the straightforward fart
a short sharp sound that, when silent,
is deadly
and that four-letter, one-syllable word
doesn’t do much more than that,
though sometimes we fart around
which, luckily for bystanders,
isn’t often accompanied by the
burst of intestinal gas that can be
quite noxious, and sometimes
we talk about the old farts,
geriatric friends and not noxious fumes
aged like a sulfuric wine.
But in French,
oh the French,
you can péter or you can
faire un pet--imagine doing or making a fart
like a special project,
and in accomplishing it
you can be so full of yourself
that you’ll fart higher than your own ass
péter plus haut que son cul
and should that project,
in the greatest Franco-American GI liberation collaboration,
create a capitalist’s dream
you could péter dans la soie,
roll in money while you fart in silk
and péter, too, can mean
to blow up or to break
like we break wind
or blow it out our asses
and if our project above falls through
then notre projet de faire un pet pète dans nos mains
falls, no wafts, straight through our hands.
And should we get enraged
at the failed fart project
or the police farting around with people’s lives
then it’s a perfect time to
péter la gueule à eux, tu vois
smash their faces in, you see,
which means we’ve probably
pété des flammes, turned nasty they say,
which farting flames might do
and in so doing
we would péter les plombs
or péter un boulon
losing it like
nous avons pété un câble
gone off the rails because farting wire rope,
well, you know, a cable,
is the opposite of bursting with health
you know, péter la sante
and with all this farting around it’s hard to imagine we don’t end here
not trying to smash someone’s face in
but here, instead,
où on se pète la gueule
where we do smash our own faces--
with bottles of Bordeaux and cognac
and armagnac and champagne
because here at least we find the switch,
where getting smashed means the same thing:
a hearty Baudelairean call
to get drunk.
One of the joys of this country is its diversity. Except for a few, we are all immigrants, whether newly arrived, or in families long established. We have countless languages and cultures, cuisines and customs, that come together in what should be glorious harmony. Sadly, some among us choose to divide and exclude. In honor of our diversity, today’s poem, by María José Zubieta, appears in English translation, followed by its Spanish original. All our voices, in whatever language, will be heard in these #100Days100Poems.
The AngelI walked down Fifth Avenuein this raucous cityfull of tourists that incessantly come and go.Street lamps were on.Holiday decorations became more noticeableas night fell.I was surrounded by people walking in the same directionabsorbed, amazed at so much luxury.The light around us made their faces look ghostly.These people surely believed -and still believe- in this land's hospitality.They know nothing.I'm not a tourist here and I know wellhow cruel the Big Apple can be.This apple is a trianglelike the Bermuda Triangle wherewe inadvertently lose our identity.Then I saw her smiling peacefully as I imagine angels smile.Completely alone in her determination.Her sign a powerful instrument.I was struck by an arrow of joystartled out of my stupor.I read her sign out loud:"Not My President"and started to chant with her.We looked at each other and smiledunited in the chantunited in the condemnationof the dirty trick of which we are victimsof this fallacy they call democracy.
El ángelCaminaba por la Quinta Avenidade esta ciudad estrepitosallena de turistas que vienen y van incesantemente.Las farolas prendidaslas decoraciones navideñas se hacían más notoriasal caer la noche.Estaba rodeada de personas que caminaban en la misma direcciónensimismadas, asombradas con tanto lujo.La luz que nos rodeaba hacía que sus rotros se vieran fantasmagóricos.Esta gente seguro creía –y sigue creyendo-en la hospitalidad de estas tierras.Nada saben.Yo no soy turista y sé biencuán cruel puede ser la Gran Manzana.Esta manzana es un triángulocomo el Triángulo de las Bermudas dondeperdemos nuestra identidad involuntariamente.Entonces la vi sonriendo, pacíficacomo imagino a los ángeles.Completamente sola en su determinación.Su cartel un instrumento poderoso.Una flecha de alegría me atravesóme despertó del estupor.Leí su cartel en voz alta:“Not My President”Y comencé a cantar con ella.Nos miramos y sonreímosunidas en el cantounidas en el repudiode la artimaña de la que somos víctimasde esta falacia que llaman democracia.
For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!
Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.
Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !
After a much too lengthy hiatus from the Waxy&Poetic blog, I’m back to continue with regular posts. Since I was AWOL during National Poetry Month, feast your eyes on the collected haiku that were daily posted on Twitter during April.
Until next week, enjoy!
*****
After one drink, I’m honest with others. After
a few, with myself.
*
my original:
Au bord de la Seine: bouteilles de rouge vides,
trop de lumières.
and my own translation:
On the banks of the Seine: empty bottles of red
and too many lights.
*
I know for whom the Bell tolls: Zack, Kelly, Jessie,
Screech, Slater, Belding.
Lisa discovers her Twitter snub. She reaches
for the bathtub gin.
*
Absence of haikus does not denote haikus of
absence, but silence.
*
in the pine box: one hand-scribbled obit, Miles on
vinyl, one corkscrew.
*
Alone in bed and smelling your pillow. My hand
feels nothing like you.
*
rope hanging above the desk: dusty. noosed. strong. still.
long stretch, deed long done.
*
a tanka:
Elevation: six- teen hundred nine meters. The
air’s thin and cool, but
not the reason I cannot
breathe. Denver. Pop. minus one.
*
Billets doux, sonnets— stuffed to closet-box-bottom
for want of a match.
*
This is a test of the emergency haiku
system. Don’t panic!
In event of real poetic emergency:
Sound the Bard aloud.
In event of real poetic emergency:
Eat that violin.
In event of real poetic emergency:
Seek out Big Mamma.
In event of real poetic emergency:
Mimic Whitman’s breath.
In event of real poetic emergency:
Get hysterical.
In event of real poetic emergency:
Starving minds should feed.
In event of real
poetic emergency:
yawp naked, tromp clothed.
In event of real poetic emergency:
Risk absurdity.
In event of real poetic emergency:
Address the reader.
In event of real theatrical emergency:
Shatter the fourth wall.
In event of real artistic emergency:
Collage with newsprint.
In event of real poetic emergency:
Read Ferlinghetti.
*
[this is not my time]
America, present day
[this is not my place]
*
Mountains echo the wailing; beached sands dry the tears.
Earth is unhappied.
*
I’ve cultivated a discerning palate,
but no taste for your loss.
*
Democracy speaks: Receive your voice when you make
fat contributions.
*
I’m not an object of desire, just an object
not for collecting.
*
Hello. Hello. What do you do for a living? Read novels & dreams.
& you? What do you do? Nothing so noble. I
rouse disappointment.
*
a final tanka:
sitting on bus bench my eyes alert, Canon in
hand. Kid next to me asks
“What’s with the camera?”
“I write poems the hard way.”
We all know about the ineffable quality of art—we can’t always explain why New Edition’s “Can You Stand the Rain” makes us feel better after a break-up, why CarlyRae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” makes us want to film parody videos, or why we stand immersed, overwhelmed by Monet’s “Water Lilies.” But the artists, they know what they’re doing—Jean-Paul Rappeneau is fully aware that pulling the camera up and away, through the trees, as “Cyrano de Bergerac” dies, will leave us with a pit in our stomach; Mel Brooks recognizes that his “Blazing Saddles” campfire scene will leave you laughing no matter how often you see it.
Every creator, from the painter to the director to the composer, wants to evoke something. Through pop stars and film noir cinéastes and the Surrealists, art has the power to provoke joy, fear, anger. Even action.
Yes, protest music. Everyone should have their favorite artist or genre, and few genres protest better than hip hop. It has made the likes of Public Enemy and Paris icons for their peers. And in France, the engagement of hip hop has moved to a completely different level. IAM, Kéry James, Assassin, Saïan Supa Crew, Disiz la Peste. They all have something to tell you.
Today’s translation comes from France’s Le Monde newspaper, a short blog post from about two weeks ago. The subject: an employee in a soon-to-be closed automobile plant not far from Paris. It just so happens that this assembly line worker is also an emcee in the group Tango & Kash, who have one album to their name. The power of art can voice your anger, and in this case, hip hop is that voice, the way for the plant workers at Aulnay to speak in their own defense.
Please, read the translation of the blog, then watch the music video. Even if you don’t understand all the lyrics, the images are powerful in themselves. At the very end, for those who speak French, you’ll find a short documentary-style clip where the emcee Kash is interviewed, then gives us a little a cappella excerpt of the song.
Here is the link to the original post at Le Monde.
Please enjoy.
*****
“Of course there’s anger when they talk about restructuring, Smoke screen as dangerous as exhaust gas. False hopes reduced to nothing, in the rhythm of their pretty, feel-guilty speeches.”
Putting faces and words on the anger felt by 3000 employees at the Aulnay-sous-Bois plant run by PSA PeugeotCitroën. That was the object of Franck Jautee, stage name Kash. When he’s not running a team of six workers on the assembly line of the plant, Franck Jautee runs raps with his group, Tango and Kash. On July 12, when PSA announced the closing of the plant at Aulnay, his colleagues asked him to write a song, so tells us the blog Aulnay Stories, of France Télévisions, which chronicles the daily struggle of the workers of the plant. “I said, ‘Okay, I’ll make the music, but at the end of the summer, you all have to be in the video.” A few months later, on January 30, with the help of two other hip hop and video devotees, Sébastien and Régis, the clip was posted on the Internet. The buzz built quickly: in a few days, the video “ Ça peut plus durer ” was seen by close to 20,000 viewers.
“Verbal hold-up, a liar since the beginning, our boss has more vices than the dealers in our streets.”
The rap mixes the crafted texts of Franck Jautee with news reports on the announced closing of the plant. You can hear in them the voice of David Pujadas, the newscaster of France 2’s evening broadcast. You can also hear one of his questions: “How far are you willing to go? — We’ll stop at nothing, go all the way to the end.” The camera shifts between the assembly lines, showing workers at their jobs, and at their picket lines. “Sadness, anger, worry, sacrifice, depression, discontent, it can’t go on any longer…” The 35-year-old rapper has a good feel for a turn-of-phrase. Under his pen, PSA becomes “Politics in the Service of the Shareholder” [“Politiques au Service d’Actionnaires”] and “Bosses Sabotaging the Future” [“Patrons Saboteurs d’Avenir”].
Fifty-five employees let themselves be filmed for the needs of the video, according to Aulnay Stories. “I had to show who the people of PSA are, those who are going to find themselves either on the streets or part of some iffy layoff schemes, hidden behind smoke screens,” Franck Jautee explains to the journalists of France Télévisions, “They are the ones who will suffer all of that, they’re the ones who hurt.” The musician, a worker on strike, envisions his video as a tool in the hands of the workers of Aulnay. On the Youtube page of the clip, a union rep from Créteil asks permission to download the video to share. “Be my guest, enjoy yourself” Kash tells him.
Here is some documentary-style footage from Francine Raymond & Ludovic Fossard, authors of the blog Aulnay Stories :
Waxy & Poetic 