EFL (English as a Foreign Language)

This gap-toothed
grinning baboon
runs a chain of schools
and sucks in
two million
dollars
each year
out of which
he seems to be willing
to pay me
2000 bucks a month
(before deductions)
if I meet
his rather
hard-to-fathom
requirements.
Mister Bobby, he says,
but my friends
just call me Bob
(and you can call me Robert).
No, no, Mister Bobby,
nice and fliendly, students like,
I like, his gold teeth
gleam, a wide smile
dazzles but never reaches
his flat
blackcurrant eyes.
We have many girl
so we need handsome boy,
tall, blue eye, you know?
As I said, Mister Sato,
I have a Master's degree
in English, seven years
of experience
teaching EFL
in Spain, Russia
and Saudi Arabia.
Oh -- ho ho ho ho ho !
Very good, very good,
you never date girls, OK?
Excuse me?
You teach, no touch,
no go outside, OK?
You mean my students?
Hai, hai, hai!!
Girl maybe like you, come school,
but you nevah nevah nevah
OK?
For businessmens
we have
blonde American ladies
with big, haha,
(he juggles his chest)
but no touch, no see
outside, same
like you, OK?
I begin
to understand
the intellectual
level
of this business.
You no join union
(a spit and a hiss)
you give me also
your passport
I take care
everything.
No Ploblem.
Big smile.
Sweaty handshake.
I need a job.
I'm broke.
I'm in debt to the guys
who have let me crash
in their tiny Tokyo apartment.
I must get a job,
I must get a job
but hang on ....
wait a second!

Khulan

My father was killed
fighting the Russians
says sloe-eyed
Khulan, and now
I am learning Chinese;

Khulan has a shy
gracious smile, a three-year-old
daughter, an absent
shadowy husband,
and she speaks
impeccable British English;

Khulan grazes my cheek
with her slim
cool fingers, smiles
from the mysterious
dark pools
of her almond eyes;

I am falling in love
with this vision from Mongolia,
but these days, sadly,
I tend to fall in love
with every 30-something girl

sadly, and gladly ....

I smile, I speak,
but only a croak emerges:
God, she is so beautiful!

The River

Brownie, you've done a heck of a job!




The lights shine down
on the sullen dark waters,
turbidly, sluggishly flowing:
Man, you bad ol' river ....

Come down to Kansas City.
Come down with your St. Louis woman.
Let's just see what you can do.
Me and the boys will be waiting.

When I met you back in Tennessee
You lied when you told me he'd left you.
You lied through your pretty little smiles,
You lied. And once again I believed you.

Here he comes and on his sloping shoulders
He carries all the miseries of Missouri:
The failed clothing stores, the sick veterans,
All the too many tired and bust-out hopes.

Down around that bend by the hogspit,
That's where we lost young Clare Louise.
She'da bin fifteen last November --
Not a day goes by when I don't recall.

My great-grandaddy Luther LaBeaune
had a pencil moustache, he smoked cheroots.
He wore a tight-fitting flowery weskit.
He got shot on the riverboat, aces over threes.

Huck and Jim ain't you no never mind.
Hoo, boy, you never done talk to nigras.
No sirree, you never done talk to them.
Back in them days you never done SEE them.

The Cajun boys ain't like you and me.
They live in little towns along the bayou.
They eat strange food, they sing strange songs,
and when you walk up, goddam, they disappear.

The Micks beat up on the wharfside nigras
to get their jobs, they was dyin' in the swamps,
and that's what you never hear about N'Awlins,
how the slaves, black and white, fought each other.

The lights shine down
on the sullen dark waters,
sluggishly, turbidly flowing:
Man, you bad ol' river ....

You must know somethin'
You don't say nuthin'
You just keep
Rolling
along

Toh-Koh (Climbing Upwards)

Before you start: This poem should be considered as a translation. It is certainly not my own original work -- but, at the same time, it is.

There is a great deal more guesswork involved when translating from classical Chinese than, say, from a contemporary European language.

The signposts are the "Kanji" -- the Chinese ideographs. Each of them stands for a separate thing or action or idea. They act as concrete guidelines across the centuries but their juxtaposition and the absence of clues leaves a great deal open for modern interpretation.

What got me started was this: I got talking about this poem with a Japanese teacher at my school who teaches "Classics" (i.e. Chinese and early Japanese literature) and it soon became apparent that the standard English translation -- the one that shows up on dozens of sites on the Internet; every single site, in fact! -- was putting an interpretation on this text that was aesthetically pleasing (Western-style) but in some ways very inaccurate. It didn't respect the deliberate use of repetitive words, for one thing, and introduced the simile of "spray from a waterfall" which simply didn't exist in the original.

For that reason I decided to re-translate the poem. I don't know if I've done any better (and I'd be delighted to hear from anyone who reads Chinese!!) but I went back to the original -- as it was written 1250 years ago -- and took it from there. Here we go:

Climbing Upwards


Shen Zou 'Poet on a Mountain Top' Ming Dynasty ca. 1500

Under a cutting wind from the open sky, the monkeys are sadly keening,
Over clear lake waters, over white sands, the birds are flying home;
The autumn leaves come fluttering, fluttering down,
The never-ending river keeps flowing along, keeps flowing along ....

Ten thousand leagues, the sadness of an autumn traveller,
A hundred years of sorrows attend me, all alone I climb;
Misfortunes press down on me, there is frost upon my brow,
There are floods of weariness. Dust gathers in my wine cup.

Here's the standard translation:

In a sharp gale from the wide sky apes are whimpering,
Birds are flying homeward over the clear lake and white sand,
Leaves are dropping down like the spray of a waterfall,
While I watch the long river always rolling on.

I have come three thousand miles away. Sad now with autumn
And with my hundred years of woe, I climb this height alone.
Ill fortune has laid a bitter frost on my temples,
Heart-ache and weariness are a thick dust in my wine.

It's very similar ... but it's not the same.

You can check out the Chinese original (plus standard translation) at the following website

What is really cool about this site is that if you pass your cursor over any one of the Chinese characters, the English meaning will pop up. When I consider those many long years of 1000-page dictionaries .... !!

If you are still with me, check out the Kanji:

Wind - sharp/cutting/biting - heaven - high - monkey(s) - cry - lament;
Lake - clear/pristine/pure - sand - white -bird(s) - fly - return/revolve ;
Without - boundary - falling - tree - mournful- mournful - down
Not - limit - long - river/waters - roll - roll - come;
10,000 - Ri* - sad - autumn - always - made/constructed - guest;
100 - year(s) - many - illnesses - alone - climb - station;
difficult - disaster - bitter - hate - complicated - frost - temple/brow;
heavy rain - flood - new - stop/pause/settle/ -muddy/dusty - wine -cup

*Ri - a Chinese measure of distance

I have a visual understanding of this poem: I can feel what the guy is saying. Say what you will, but these poems are visual events, not just when printed, but in the controlled explosions of brushed ink on paper. Thank God for print -- they are almost totally illegible otherwise!

Finally, and I've been saving this for last, Tu Fu, or Du Fu -- To-Ho in Japanese -- was one of a pair of near-legendary poets who became famous (celebrities, superstars) within their own lifetimes during the T'ang Dynasty in China, a period which lasted from 618 to 906 AD. The T'ang interval is generally considered by most Chinese to be the introduction to the early-modern period of their long history. They had concluded their "Middle Ages" in about 1000 BC, around the time of the Battle of Troy. The other famous poet was Li Po, or Li Tai-po (Rihaku in Japanese), a wonderfully attractive person who features in an earlier posting on this Blog, entitled Ezra Pound in China

Down the Alley in D-Town

On my way home, down through the alley,
I nearly tripped over him,
stretched out in his trenchcoat:
another bad drunk, thinks I,
until he grips hard on my ankle
and says, Son, do you love Ireland?
This was an unexpected question.
I suppose I do, sir, says I,
now will you let go of me leg, please?
Listen to me, son, I haven't long to live
and ye're a good lad, I can tell.
I've a thing in my pocket, now,
it's a thing I plan to give you ...
are ye with me now, me stout gossoon?
Would you let go of me leg, sir,
says I with the panic rising.
I will, says he, with a rasping sigh,
but his grip had actually tightened.
I have the Naval Plans for the invasion of France
(Oh, right, thinks I, this is all we need.)
You must take these papers direct to the King!
But, sir, says I, we have no king,
we are the free and independent
and poverty-stricken Irish nation!
Ah, so the rumours are true, says he.
Indeed, sir, now would you care for an amberlance,
sorry, an ambeedance, one of them yokes
for to carry you away? I would not,
says he, anything without an honest
upstanding horse in front of it, is entirely
suspect, a matter for the gravest concern.
Oh, to be sure, says I, but why
will we be invading France? Divil blast ye,
son, do you not know a thing about code?
Sorry, says I, rubbing on my leg
(he'd let go by now), but can you tell me,
sir, what has you stretched out in the alley?
Haven't I been shot, says he, annoyed,
have you no idea what it means to be shot?
Well, it would hurt, says I, I suppose. Hurt?
says he, it hurts like the bloody blue blazes!
I'm sorry for your trouble, can I get home now?
Ye cannot! Amn't I just after telling you
that the future of the Empire ......
Tis a Republic we are, says I, now,
Ahhh Republic me arse, says he,
aren't we the same feckin people,
the fishermen, the farmers,
the gombeen men, the hoors?
Well, you have a point, says I.
And isn't it dear old Ireland,
he says to me, that calls to us,
like a lonely stag across the moors?
Like a what, sir?
Like a stag!! One of them lads
with the horns on top of their heads, like,
have ye never read a buik?
Oh, but I have, sir, says I.
Well, then, ye'll know what I'll say to you next:
there's Caitlin, Kathleen ni Houlihan,
the personification of our nation,
the pure young girl, the virgin bride,
the ideal we believe in, as we
count our money and scratch our balls,
ye've heard tell of her? Oh, and I have,
says I, many a time and oft, here and there
among the neighbours. Tis been very nice,
sir, but I've to go now, I'll be late for me tea.
Young man, he roars out of him, I AM Kathleen!!
Drunk and shot, sprawled out in the alley,
here as ye find me, for a moment, perhaps,
there may be some lingering doubt,
some slight scintilla, some shadow of disbelief,
but I AM her, here before you, the eternal
feminine symbol of Ireland!! So you are,
sir, and will I go and call that amberlance?
Listen, ye scut, ye hoor's melt, I AM that pale-cheeked
lass, with raven hair and lips like blood upon the snow,
a knowing child who has sent out men to die!!
Not a bother on you, sir, been a great pleasure,
had a grand time talking, but I'll be off now so ....
Not so fast, me young spalpeen!
You will take my message to the King
as I lie here (gasp) alone and dying.
But we have no King, says I.
Ahh, but we do, says he.
And he whispered a name in my ear.

I carried his message to the man he mentioned.
Our country, since then, has become rich
beyond all dreams of avarice. The alley,
when I went back in the morning, wasn't there,
hadn't been there for a century, they told me.

Foreign Correspondent

Chinga su madre
you filthy foreign
gringo, step away
from my line of sight!!!!!
He spat this out in Spanish
and this was
my introduction
to foreign correspondence
as the bullets
whacked into the walls
over us and around us
but, thankfully,
not quite into us.
Got him, he grunted,
and so I peeped,
quickly, out the window,
and said, No, you missed.
Bad mistake.
He glared at me
with his red-rimmed eyes
and when he pointed the rifle at my head
I could actually see
the split-second decision
in his eyes, the frown,
the little blink,
when he decided
not to shoot me.
It was then, at that moment, that I understood
the first principle
of eyewitness reporting:
report not what you see,
report what people tell you.

Well, that was Nicaragua
(or was it El Salvador?)
back in the Reagan 1980s.
I moved on to Lebanon
where the civil war was
so confusing, even the locals
couldn’t tell me what was going down.
The US Marines got blasted
and everyone looked so damned pleased,
as if they’d done it themselves,
which everyone hastened to inform me
they hadn’t. Big cheesy grins.
Therefore nobody was responsible,
everyone was totally innocent
and it was a total non-event
as the 280 plus bodies
were dug out of the rubble ….

report not what you see,
report what people tell you.

My newspaper wanted bathetic
details, like which poor kid
came from Oklahoma.
Like who cares!!
Maybe people in Oklahoma.
My three previous stories had been spiked
because I had no solid proof
apart from the fact that everybody
local knew exactly
what had gone down:
It was the Iranians.
It was the Iranians.
It was the Iranians.
Got that? Well, it was never printed.
The Americans, wisely, withdrew
(they could still do that then)
after blasting the unoffending coastline
with volleys of 18 inch shells,
murdering a few hundred women and children,
shit happens, from the USS New Jersey.
Makes sense; it’s kinda hard
to swagger away
unless you leave some death behind you.

Now I was beginning to understand
the things I could write
and the other things I couldn’t.
The only people who shot at me
and quite seriously tried to kill me
were the Israelis: they did that
oh, about 15-20 times, for them
it is always a joke, and when
with distress and piss-streaked trousers
I wrote in a white heat
about the last of my narrow escapes,
the newspaper yanked the story,
told me I was too “emotionally involved”
plus the incident had never happened
according to Israeli Army Radio.
Like, right, sure, get your ass over here,
see what these people do, day in day out,
But nope, sorry pal, “We have growing concerns
with regard to your objectivity, and would
wish to remind you that this corporation
expects the highest level of professional conduct”
These are bullets, man,
They blow holes in you.
The BBC guys lost their driver last week
because some bored little jerks in a tank
decided to blow him up, displaying
the local level of professional conduct.

The Girl Who Promised to Come Back, Came Back, Then Disappeared

She arrived in-country
early April, the 7th or 8th,
after six months of telephone calls
from me
to her mobile phone
in Moscow.
Six months before that
we had been
tight together,
here in Japan.
“I can’t wait,”
(she said)
“to see you again!”
Ah, anticipation,
the mother of all delights!

She arrived, wholly
unexpected, so young,
so vibrant, so
scandalously beautiful!!
There at the Gaijin bar
where so often before
we had moaned and groaned
about the difficulties
of our separate
situations, and where,
for brief periods
(usually around 2 AM)
we held hands
and gazed, wonderingly,
uncomprehendingly,
into one another’s
affectionate, large, and smiling
eyes.

Now, against all the odds,
she had come back!!
Saul, who was there, tells me
that she insisted
laughingly, then pleadingly,
that I must be summoned!
Saul demurred,
pointing out the lateness of the hour
(it was, again, 2 AM)
and, with that, the possibility
passed: and in that moment,
that hushed respect for sleep,
I believe I lost her.
Yes, I would have gone,
roused from my tangled bed
I would have been at her side
(push a comb through my hair)
in twenty, say, twenty-five
minutes: how everything then
might have changed.
How everything then
might have changed!

That was three weeks ago.
Since then, she’s been
down in Nagoya, stroking
tired Japanese businessmen
in the hostess bar
she works in now,
making the kind of money
(tips are pocketed)
that university professors
can only dream of
in dear old Mother Russia.

But that was three weeks ago:
six months of
long-distance telephone calls,
six months of
“I can’t wait”
reduces down
to total silence.
Not a word.
Not a peep.
Not a dicky-bird.
She might as well
be wiped off the face of the earth
(has she? … these Russian Mafia guys?)
except I know, I know
she’s still there.



What has happened?
F**ked if I know, pal.
One moment it was
great, the grand reunion,
and the next it was a blank wall
of total, impenetrable silence.
Is she OK? Oh, yeah, sure she is,
Russians are total survivors,
especially the “unprotected” women
who are tough as nails.

But why hasn’t she got in touch?
Twenty-five different reasons,
perhaps, but I don’t know
which one it is …….
This silence, this wall of silence
is doing my head in
(I actually like her a lot)
and I don’t know
what the hell is going on.
What a bitch.
What an angel.
But which what is which?

OK, Russians,
(bear with me)
are not quite like you and me:
they have a peculiar
sense of time, so that
when we respond to messages
after the lapse of a couple of days
we apologize; but for them
ten days, two weeks
is no big deal; so that
you never really know
if they are messing around with you
or just going about their
ho-hum daily business.
And the girls …
Well, the girls add to that.

So you never
really really know
after a month, or two months,
(it’s been just 3 weeks)
whether you are still in the picture
or yesterday’s breakfast.
Things
may not be moving,
necessarily,
(to quote Hirohito, the Japanese Emperor)
in the direction
that we may have wished.
Am I slowly going
frantic? Yes.
Am I rapidly losing
hope? No.
Not at all. Pooh-pooh.
This girl is entirely charming,
so loving, so gentle, and she has
a very sharp eye for bargains;
she knows how not
to spend her money
when other people will do so instead.
She would make
an excellent, economical companion
although cynical about men
(“No, no, not you!!” she tells me)
because of her lucrative,
ameliorative,
but perhaps not chosen trade.

O where O where
is the wee “devochka”
lost now in the wilds
of Central Japan?
Smiling, yes, so dutifully,
and topping up the drinks
(the watered-down whiskey)
of golden-toothed Orientals,
she slips, perhaps, the secret tips
into her little bag,
(the bar wants to take a whacking cut!)
and smiles again. She is paid
for relentless smiling, and she
possibly, no probably,
never never thinks of me.

Yo Mavrone, O Mavrone!!
That such a thing should occur ….

O where O where
Is my blue-eyed girl?
(I sought her behind the stadium)
Ya-da-la, Ya-da-la,
Ya-da, da-laddy –AH!!
(Sing it, Van the Man).
She ain’t there.
She will never be there.
Silence crushes all sweet silent hope;
it flicks its fingers at belief.

Open, now, your books to the lesson:
I know she liked me
(she may, for a fleeting moment, have actually loved me)
but I think she began to think
with a growing sense of awareness
that a young girl has to make her way
in this lonely, dangerous world
by staying away from the impecunious young
and older men with visions
and she has to pay
close attention, carefully and politely,
to checkbook calculations.

But I know,
I just know in my heart,
somehow, I will see her again!




Дружба может закончиться по многим различным причинам. Ссоры и разногласия и предательства - ясные и простые причины. Более трудно понять, почему дружба заканчивается без любой причины....