Long Loin Poems

Translation of the Elegy: On Marceline Desbordes-Valmore - À L'amour - Poem by Marcel Moreau Translated by T. Wignesan

Reprends de ce bouquet les trompeuses couleurs,      (Take back the dubious colours...

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The Dance of Salome
Herod bellowed out the night's festive orders..
"Bring the torches, bring the tables..
more wine, that we may rejoice,  
for tonight we revel in kindred friendship."
Herod strolled onto the terrace, nearly stumbled in...

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Translation of « On est les oubliés » (They/We are the neglected and forgotten lot)
by the songster-poet Gauvin SERS
(For the last two years, this young unassuming Frenchman, full of verve and disarming airs has been...

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Summer Memories
Summer Realities

This, the first day of summer, two thousand and two, finds me,
slipping back into what once was my desire, my need, my reality.
This step back into, and into times passed, has allowed me...

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foisted upon her was the merry go round crystal chandelier

it stuck in her beautiful mind like a beacon of flaming desire

of clouds fried by a cuckoo with an indestructible socket

her eyes wide upon pupils dilated...

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Stricken with turbulence at about seventy two inches

Yours truly issuing a deafening rebel yell
bursting forth with such might
courtesy cooking under pressure
analogous to volcanic upswell,
forcing me quickly to flap vestigial wings
(at the speed of sound)
while simultaneously...

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Smelly Stuff Absorbed 

There are many words for those excrements that appear on the fabric in
incremental solid and deliquescent motions because ingestion fulfils that
autonomous need to shed ablutions but here I declare ‘Waste not Want...

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Tim was a poet but lost for words as he pondered the meaning of the cross

Sat by the road side of his inner world and wondered which way to proceed

His bones were weary his skin...

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still the climbing green lianoid lass


her tender tendrils torn  


massive metal lying like a cutlass


in her lap forlorn


                ...

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She wades in until the water reaches her waist,
looks out and continues into the endless sea.
Her imagined long gown floats behind her.

Her little girl shoulder blades 
become hidden beneath the water.
Each time she raises her...

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              The Night Soil Man

			I

		Nothing sticks to-get-her like turds
             ...

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Ton nom - New English Translation of Amel Bent's song "Your Name" by T. Wignesan

Je me raccroche aux détails du passé
Details of our past I cannot unclasp 
?Nos souvenirs le sourire aux lèvres
A smile steals...

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NDIDI (PATIENCE IS GOLDEN)

Patience said:
"Whatever my old man says."
So,
I saw the wise, bald, old man
In his thatched mud hut
Loin cloth knotted 
Around his shoulders 
The whiff of utaba (snuff)
Saturating the atmosphere

He googled me
Between the rims...

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It’s evolution and for sure we’ve come some automatic way since
		
               Darwin marvelled at volcanoes in Galapagos and still
		
  ...

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This house belonged to grandfather Rudolph,
though its history goes much further back,
all the way to the eighteen seventies,
when to this vast land Herbert Blake did trek.

It had once been a grand ranch homestead,
centerpiece of sixteen...

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the cause of spreading over of the fragrance
from our secret myrobalan to every side of the pillows
is not only such that in the morning 
an empty ink-pot says to the rain-water 
you are beautiful 

it...

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French Version -

Demain, dès l'aube by Victor Hugo

Demain, dès l’aube, à l’heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Vois-tu, je sais que tu m’attends.
J’irai par la forêt, j’irai par la montagne.
Je ne puis demeurer loin de...

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I touched her hand and the warmth of her soul
rushed my veins like a mad river,
obliterating all doubts.
Would that I survive the tumult, the undying desire
to touch her skin again, even for a moment, to...

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pandemoniac incredulity sweeps the fat globe

illusion in disguise and sweet dreams of equality 

the grim reaper measures invincible destruction

finally attempts to be fair at least once in a life time

‘fear not for I am a...

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Alas morning has come, 
the treacherous storm has passed
Anticipation heightens my senses as the wind swirls past, 
The essence of musk engulfs me;
Replacing the aroma of sea salt that once filled the misty air
I am...

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You’ll never be an Olympic champion, Cecile,
After your accident on the ice,
Just walk, only,
There are so many beautiful things to do,
While walking, only, doubly,
Walking makes happy, calms the heart,
Walking inspires the brain, frees it,
You’ll never...

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Tears would well her eyes, if there were any left.
Pray there’s none as one drop would flood the world. 
One, two, three, four and many more, she lost them all.
There remained is her loin no...

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The mirtangist may never willingly hear
may not want to hear
the multaiyam announcing his cue
nor the melodist aware of the flautist's right
to the change in the raga
the plucking of the yal strings
to the goatskin drummed bleats
and...

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III

Kept out
   kept out he was: muzzled and shut out
from mothering social approval
    and the usual conning courtesies

Kept shut
  Involuting in the hippo-lipped paranoïa
from the darling eyes of his...

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No, my friend Paul, it’s not about saying everything,
And we do not lack time,
But the point is to say what you love, to love what you say,
Like a saxophone solo in a New York club,

To...

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