Best Translator Poems
mi Musa uses
a translator to
express her
words to
me
typing what she
wants to say
rapido makes
for the words
of inspiration
as i write this
she has boarded
an airplane to take
her cake and eat it too
birthday vacation
so she wrote and
who more poetic than
a true Musa would breathe
inspiring me with her words
"I'm already mounted on the yummy"
The equivalent of a cosmic flat tire, the star collector overheated again.
Should've topped off the subzero heat transmogger back at Stuckey's.
Yep we have 'em too.., who doesn't need a Pecan Log Roll, now and then.
Two Roadway startruckers snapped up the last Elmer's paste pies., the luckys.
Right between filling stations to boot, no triple A for a gojillion miles..
and one of my best pint sized, non-binary service robots on the blink.
Not my best idea, feeding her moonshrooms, peaked all his cortial dials,
eventually caused them to puke it up, all over my excremental sink.
Frazusoosh it! not even a UPB (Universal Phone Booth) to make a collect call,
to my mother (planet), which, by the way, is also useful for transmitting matter.
That's assuming you can find someone to accept the charges, of course, LOL.
Had to wash dishes for an eternity, last time, including dried on crupecake batter.
Drack's balls! stuck on this puny planet with obnoxious fumes corroding my chromium tail.
No wonder they call it air; the sixth least favorite word in the Corpadian lingo, P.U.!
Those creatures keep staring, I've tried to reason with them, even tried telepthy to no avail.
When I type in their reply to my trans-googling translator, all it comes back as is 'Moo'.
Oh thank goodness! A family of grubbers in a U Haul pulling over., whew!
Though probably have to sit on a lap, luckily they each have two.
252 words, including these
The stories flowed but were not heard.
The language strange from foreign word.
You keep working through day and night.
You spread that which is out of sight.
Chapters released for hungry minds.
Chapters' tales this reader finds.
Translated and rewrote each word,
so story's meaning is transferred.
Sometimes friends can't figure you out,
no matter how hard they try,
they're like a bad translator,
constantly getting words wrong,
ultimately destroying a conversation,
one that you've been persevering to complete,
they just can't get it right,
they get offended when you tell them they're wrong,
and they say you're being mean,
how foolish do you get, you think
when they walk away angry with you
(and probably themselves on the inside)
with their nose in the air
and the knowlege that you're right and they're wrong,
hanging on their shoulders.
“Mom, they called my name I won.”
“Mijo, estoy tan orgullosa de ti, qué bendición.”
Her voice lifts when I tell her.
Like music in a language they don’t teach in school.
At the store, at school, at the doctor’s front desk
I become her mouth. I become her ears.
They ask her questions she can't answer.
I step in, twelve years old, speaking like a grown-up.
They see her silence,
but her voice resonates
a melody in a language unspoken.
Sometimes I wish they could hear
the wisdom she holds
in every word.
Well, this is my life.
And I’m happy.
But it’s a struggle too
being the voice for someone
who gave up hers for you.
But now
she orders at restaurants,
chats with my teachers,
says “thank you” without looking down.
She found her voice.
And I helped her build it.
Now we speak
side by side.
I opened the box with joy in my heart.
The label said in quaint old English lettering:
"Universal Instant Translator"
I pulled back the lid and there it was—
A tiny lapel pin, like a badge, or a nameplate.
And a tiny earplug.
I fitted both without delay.
The simple instructions said:
Ask your guest: "How are you?" or some such phrase.
When they reply—even a few small words will do,
Whether they've understood you or not—
I just need their voice to begin.
Now I have all I need,
to instantly translate for both of you.
Next time you speak, whisper softly;
You'll hear me shape the words aloud
in the listeners native language—
Instantly, and with no delay—
while your lips are still forming the sounds.
likewise, when they speak,
in their own language,
you'll instantly hear what they say
flow into your ears, in your native tongue.
The longer the conversation goes,
the better my translation becomes,
for both the speaker and the listener alike—
An instant “speak-easy,” if you please!
Stand by for the next update!
A full into the brain transplant!
Coming to Heads - In Real Time Soon!
So speak away, hear away—
the talking is so easy now,
Every border has begun to fade
We all speak and everyone understands, instantly!
We hear whatever they want to say.
Language, dialects and accents
become irrelevant, as perhaps they should be—
for all of us can now join in
the universal conversation,
that brings the whole world near.
The wind attempts to interpret the world~
its grammar fractured mid-gust,
its syntax strewn across the plains
like torn pages from a prayer
still learning how to speak.
It carries voices
but never the meanings.
A whisper becomes a warning,
a sigh becomes a secret,
a promise becomes nothing
but a shift in temperature.
The wind moves through yucca spines
as if reading braille
it cannot quite decipher.
It stumbles over the ridges,
mispronounces the shadows,
confuses longing
with the simple act of passing by.
Sometimes it brings me fragments~
half a sentence from a distant ridge,
the ghost of a name
I once tried to forget,
the echo of a question
no one meant to ask.
I hold these mistranslations
like artifacts,
wondering what the original message
might have been
before the wind
broke it open.
But perhaps failure
is the wind’s only fluency.
Perhaps it mistranslates
because accuracy
would be too heavy to carry,
too sharp to deliver,
too honest to survive
the journey across the desert’s
wide and listening silence.
So I let the wind speak
in its flawed dialect~
its stutters,
its erasures,
its shimmering approximations.
And in those errors,
I hear something truer
than any perfect translation:
the world trying,
again and again,
to reach me
in whatever language
it can.