We are back with our first Translation Tuesday of 2018! Today, we showcase two short poems by Burmese writer Maung Day wherein he imagines worlds without mysteries or poets. Enjoy!
Fire Alarms Are Real
All the poets in the world
Will be gone in a day or two
After singing of roses and naked monks.
Then we can start our celebration
With giraffes sitting on top of poles
And people eating curries with green rice
While their souls defecate on their heads.
Since when did our gardens become markets
Teeming with walking wardrobes and skeletal birds
Buying music cds from deaf physicians?
Maybe nothing’s too surprising anymore
Now that our place has become a willow tree,
Our houses the innards of a violent vegan,
And our genitals electronic cigarettes.
Khine Khine Monkfish doesn’t like the deaf physicians.
First reason: they own all the property in this place.
Second reason: they don’t trust women.
But her family forces her to see them.
“Young girl, you are ill,” they say.
She doesn’t go to the deaf physicians
But instead sounds the fire alarms in all the buildings,
Then comes back home and takes an afternoon nap.
Poem for You
Our world is running out of mysteries,
The lotuses under my wooden bridge have withered,
Ashes to ashes and spit to spit,
I am running out of whisky and patience.
And I don’t want to count other people’s money
In the basement of a bank any more.
It’s been a while since the last time I watered my plants.
Trust no one, says a smoker outside the hospital door.
You are not here and I think about you.
I put your shirt on your pillow next to mine.
I reincarnated as the fly, yet the fly’s still alive.
Monkeys rubbing fish paste off their hands
Until they bleed really piss me off.
They run tiger pits and chambers of torn petals.
No one cares about the fact that our world has become
Just a mass of rubber bouncing behind telephone poles.
I’d rather become an indifferent meteor
Wandering aimlessly about town
And crushing everything in its path.
Today I notice the leaves have started losing their hints
Of color. The season for the snakes to shed their skins
Has finally arrived. When you come back home,
Let’s take a walk to the beautiful towns of the north.
Translated from the Burmese by the author
Maung DAY (poet, artist, translator; Myanmar) has published six poetry books in Burmese and one chapbook in English. His poetry has appeared in International Poetry Review, Guernica, The Wolf, The Awl, and elsewhere. He translates widely between English and Burmese; his visual work and poetry are exhibited and curated internationally.
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