The positivity of migration

UKIP and others who whine about migrants are tiresome - here's the first draft of a piece about my own, more positive, observations about Polish people ('Polacy') in Southampton

Polacy w Southampton

I

Big man, crew-cut blonde,
baby in a biceps cradle,
gentle gorilla-father;
a second child plants conkers
in a newly tilled municipal flower-bed.

II

Zesty girl on the school bus,
alpha of her Year 8 peers,
climbing rails like they are monkey-bars,
open-mouthed surprise when I ask
‘excuse me please’ –
proszę, przepraszam
in English-accent Polish.

III

One of so many languages
spoken here and mingling in mid-air –
by workmen crowded onto lunchtime public benches,
discussing football, cars, sandwich fillings,
by gaggles of much-preened teens
gossiping between texts,
by students, shop-assistants,
phone-box users sharing news,
by friends and poets,
by people of the city –
multicultural and working,
the opportunity for something new.

Cheerleaders of the world unite

On day 29 of NaPoWriMo, I posted the first 6 verses of this multilingual piece - here it is in its now-complete entirety - undoubtedly a few slightly skewed pronunciation-rhymes and scans in there, but I prefer to see those as poetic licence, marks of a handmade product if you will...

Cheerleaders of the world unite

Two, four, six eight,
Do our words depreciate?
Three, five, seven, nine,
Not if we perform on time,
Speak the minute, second, hour,
Verses blossom, passion-flowered,
Cold black bile or sticky-sweet,
Angsty trick or tasty treat.

Deux quatre six huit,
Does Baudelaire have Shakespeare beat?
Trois cinq sept neuf,
No chance ami, not on my turf,
The Bard’s just bought his ivory tower,
And skips stiff-ruffed ‘neath rush-lit bowers,
Soliloquys in Stratford’s streets,
Where airs and sonnets maidens meet.

Due quattro sei otto,
Pay the piper, that’s my motto,
Tre cinque sette nove,
Never mess with Kaiser Soze,
The Mafia have nowt on him,
Concrete-booted one-way swim,
Grist for King’s Pet Semetary,
Reanimated zombie - scary.

Zwei vier sechs acht,
Get your busking butt well-parked,
Drei fünf sieben neun,
Into the hat old pfennig coins,
Profits meagre, pickings slim,
Beholden to the punter‘s whim,
Though still enough to get mead-merry,
Ferment the hops, the grain, the berry.

Dau pedwar chwech wyth,
Stuff my face with bara brith,
Tri pump saith naw,
Off to eisteddfod, man of straw,
Poet-battles, kennings slam,
Metheglin drunk by the dram,
Flaunt your metaphor prowess,
Poetry, words‘ party-dress.

Tvö fjögurra sex átta,
Viking skalds and saga-chatter,
þrjú fimm sjö níu,
Sing ho and raise a longship crew,
Strike the oar upon the fjord,
Tie your bride‘s bright hand-fast cord,
Live your life by Havarmal,
Brief pre-Valhalla interval.

Două patru șase opt,
Troubadour starts, the gossip stops,
Trei cinci șapte nouă,
Roma, take pride in who you are,
Dance round the campfire, dance in the streets,
Dance with the next stranger that you meet,
Listen to the fiddle, hear its tune,
Music is a measure of life‘s fortune.

Kettő négy hat nyolc,
Kiss me Beltane, Samhain, Imbolc,
Három öt kilenc hét
Danube-summer’s beach-hot sweat,
See Saint Stephen on his mount,
Steppe-men’s ancient victory-shout,
Stow away your spurs, your bows,
Watch the river as it flows.

Dva chetyre shest' vosem'
Black-earth fertile chernozem,
Tri pyat' sem' devyat',
Abandonment of Pripyat,
Orthodoxy dome-tattooed,
The Great, The Terrible, the shrewd,
From Rurik to the oligarchs,
Red Square, Kremlin, Gorky Park.

Iki dört altı sekiz,
Drowsing ‘neath old olive trees,
Üç beş yedi dokuz,
Gemlik, colour of a bruise,
Çatal Hüyük, ancient town,
Neolithic city found,
Before Stonehenge or Newgrange maze,
Old when the walls of Troy were raised.

Dua empat enam delapan,
Chew on fiery-hot rendang,
Tiga lima tujuh sembilan,
Orang pendek, myst’ry forest man,
Bathe in Kerinci’s sulphured springs,
Yogyakarta’s house of kings,
Komodo dragons fiercely slither,
Rafflesia bloom vast then whither.

Dō cāra chaha āṭha
Off to the east by followed star,
Tīna pān̄ca sāta nau,
Give way unto the Holy Cow,
Tiny shrines, bright pigment-smeared,
Mela-masses feast and cheer,
From mangroved deltas’ humid steam,
To mountain-tops of cloud-decked dreams.

Mbili nne sita nane,
Githeri beans and hot ugali,
Tatu tano saba tisa,
Naivasha lake, an evening breeze,
Hike through dusty-hot Hell’s Gate,
Mara river in full spate,
Maasai-village welcome-feast,
Watched by baboon and hartebeest.

Twee vier zes acht,
Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht,
Drie vijf zeven negen,
Anarcho-syndicalist pagan,
Cycle ‘long the polder-dykes,
Amsterdam a field of bikes,
Sunflower, iris, cypressed land
Witness Vincent’s star-night hand.

[For those who list factual lists (I do), the languages are - English, French, Italian, German, Welsh, Icelandic, Romanian, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish, Indonesian, Hindi, Swahili, Dutch]

NaPoWriMo day 29

Oooo, it's NaPoWriMo day 29 - just one more to go - and the penultimate prompt is to write a poem including at least five words from other languages. I’ve gone for numbers as I’ve learned these and various other fragments of a fair few languages over the years. Here are the first six verses of what will be expanded into a rather longer piece…

Cheerleaders of the world unite

Two, four, six eight,
Do our words depreciate?
Three, five, seven, nine,
Not if we perform on time,
Speak the minute, second, hour,
Verses blossom, passion-flowered,
Cold black bile or sticky-sweet,
Angsty trick or tasty treat.

Deux quatre six huit
Does Baudelaire have Shakespeare beat ?
Trois cinq sept neuf
No chance ami, not on my turf,
The Bard’s just bought his ivory tower,
And skips stiff-ruffed ‘neath rush-lit bowers,
Soliloquys in Stratford’s streets,
Where airs and sonnets maidens meet.

Due quattro sei e otto,
Pay the piper, that’s my motto,
Tre e cinque sette nove,
Never mess with Kaiser Soze,
The Mafia have nowt on him,
Concrete-booted one-way swim,
Grist for King’s Pet Semetary,
Reanimated zombie - scary.

Zwei vier sechs acht,
Get your busking butt well-parked,
Drei fünf sieben neun,
Into the hat old pfennig coins,
Profits meagre, pickings slim,
Beholden to the punter‘s whim,
Though still enough to get mead-merry,
Ferment the hops, the grain, the berry.

Dau pedwar chwech wyth,
Stuff my face with bara brith,
Tri pump saith naw,
Off to eisteddfod, man of straw,
Poet-battles, kennings slam,
Metheglin drunk by the dram,
Flaunt your metaphor prowess,
Poetry, words‘ party-dress.

Tvö fjögurra sex átta,
Viking skalds and saga-chatter,
þrjú fimm sjö níu,
Sing ho and raise a longship crew,
Strike the oar upon the fjord,
Tie your bride‘s bright hand-fast cord,
Live your life by Havarmal,
Brief pre-Valhalla interval.

[to be continued...]

NaPoWriMo day 16

NaPoWriMo day 16 and time for some silliness - a fake ‘translation’ of a poem written in an unfamiliar language… given my Viking tendencies, I’ve gone for the Icelandic-language Skagafjörður by Gerður Kristný. Here's the original (published in 2007 by Mál og menning, Reykjavik and found in the collection Höggstaður):

Ég reyni að vera
alúðleg við börnin
svo þau hirði um leiðið mitt
þegar þar að kemur
mylji köku ofan í grasið
á afmælinu mínu
og fari með ljóðið um
fingruðu kýrnar
þá sjálf orðin gömul og grá

Samt á ég eftir að
þekkja þau aftur
á himneskri húsalyktinni

alltaf skulu þau ilma eins og Jesúbarnið

Now for my faux-translated version, with all due apologies to the original author…

Eggs rain down on Vera,
All addled with burning,
So they hurt without a leather mitt,
They go over there in the corner,
Thousands cooked in the oven, it’s greasy,
An unappealing menu,
This fare I’m loathing, I am,
Fingering the corner,
That shall forthwith go mouldy and grey.

Something with egg after all,
Thicker though after
A heinous creep has licked the tin.

All tough-skulled, though ill from one egg, yes you’re barmy.

Bilingualism

Swahili & English - so far the only time I've tried a bilingual poem...

Utafiti                                                Research

Watoto                                              Children
Na nguo kabichi ya skuli                    In green school uniforms
Wanafaraha                                       Are Happy
Na wanasema wengi,                        And talk much,
Wanataka mimi kupiga picha             Wanting me to take a photo
- Nakweya gari yangu                      - I climb onto my car
Kuona wote.                                     To see them all.