Russ&Suzie

Trip Log
2009-11-05 09:11:54 (UTC)

Airplane poetrey work (for which I'd waited)

I get distracted easily by things ongoing that then conspire
to keep me from things that take prolonged concentration.
Sometimes settings help (library, a nice wide table) and I'd
been looking forward to this long airplane trip (and another
going home) as then I get to attend to some efforts that in
themselves carry pleasure and productivity but from which I
get so easily distracted. Two efforts: translating the
Moabit Sonnets of Albrecht Haushofer and serial summary
sonnets of Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut. So the following are
working documents, drafts of what I work on. I had only a
small German dictionary without the wonders of Google for
translation so that's extremely crude and not yet
improvement over the M.D. Herter Norton (HN) translation
(which is very helpful on many words).

II. Nightly Message

Still another message loomed through my night again--
layerings in scarce conscious parts of my nature,
tones and hues now with the facial features
of those who died but who had lasting insight from then.

This clears my feelings of terrible failing
when they tell me, these dead, their wisdom--
down come their sounds from starry kingdoms
so that I know one morning-light thing:

So little of universal matter can we reach.
since creations evolved from the light of sun,
if a tiny speck of dust can end, be done,

just so, can a tiny breath of soul softly beseech?
So sore it hurts, it says, and so must fly away.
The question shuns he who understands no boundary.

(This one I worked on most; hangups seemed to melt away this
morning a day later -- the old incubator idea; strongly
worked on notions gain perspective with sleep and the
brain-mind working on them; still the last line requires
some google work I'll not attempt here in the Amerian Hotel)

Since I'm here and curious, I'll put in the HN version too:

Another message trickles from the night
into my being's hardly conscious layers,
the flowing wave of tones and faces brings me
from the dead some ultimate significance.

Explaining what we feel remains denied.
The dead call to us in their own way
with echoes as from a journey among the stars--
Only one thing I know when morning dawns:

Little as in regions bound by matter,
since creativity began in the sun's sphere,
can any tiny grain of dust be lost.

So little my a soul's breath slip away.
Whether it wafts when it escapes the body--
that question's shunned by those who see no boundary.

The Sonnet I is too crude still so I'll work on it some more
before this entry.

Serial Summary Sonnets (SSS) means that I took a line per
page from the Vonnegut manuscript for three initial draft
sonnets

Cat's Cradle 1/10

I was a Christian then, named Jonah page 1
I am a Bokonist now, part of a karass page 2
A karass is free form, unbound by class page 3
Bokonon told a doghouse parable page 4

All true things are shameless lies: page 5
A tentative tangling of tendrils. toc page 1
An ungrateful man; a modern major general. toc page 2
McCabe's soul grew coarse: the whys. toc page 3

Bokonists say what when doing suicide? toc page 4
Mona thanks me. I am slow to answer. toc page 5
My karass surely includes the children of Honikker. p.6a

I wrote the youngest with a reporter's pride. p.6b
The father, Felix Honikker, created the bomb. p.7
The day it dropped on Hiroshima, they lived in Ilium. p.8

Cat's Cradle 2/10

Felix played with a loop of string when it dropped. p.9
It came from 'round a novel by Marvin Holderness. p.10
And resulted in a cat's cradle, a stringy mess. p.11
He played with Newt and frightened him; up Newt hopped. p.12

Two girls jumped (and died) in a gorge at Cornell p.13
Felix's son Frank caught beetles on bomb-day p.14
And daughter Angela then 22 years old found the play. p.15
After the bomb, Felix did no more bombs, played turtle. p.16

Newt believes in love for all, will marry a little girl p17
Named Zinka, a midget, as indeed he is too, p18
But twice his age, he 23 though she is 42. p19

In Ilium plenty knew the father, sons and girl. p20
I visited a Dr. Breed to learn more of family Honikker-- p21
met high school classmates of Frank including a bartender p22

Hurried now (breakfast) so will stop here. Some explanation
in order of toc (table of contents) and there's another
sonnet there too.




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