Transelating "The Waste Land"
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Devin Tasker
Primitives are lured like the foolish moth,
Weedy lies, no doubt lacking panic from the bed.
Men are organs of ire and contempt, blurred.
Their vandal’s boots whisper “tempest”.
They are warmest in the winter; suspended.
Earth shivers.
A light knife does for it.
Serpents’ tongues slither over, like a lake,
Of dead fruit. We jump like Lenin’s aid,
Drink sickness, and walk among the dead of tomorrow.
Kind gestures rooted in a sketch of lithium design.
The children finish their stay with the arch-duke.
Coups are sly sins. The book stated the first at the garden’s edge.
His head merrily held high.
Warily scolded fights renounce leaving.
Bound in the water of the eels.
Once too much light is consumed, tears become gold.
The branches fall under weight as the roots drink everything
From this arid stone, surrounded by forest. Adam’s children,
You tangle words and guess at their meaning, for you only know
The material world. You fear what might be behind the burning sun,
And bury yourself in snow – and debt. Crickets know more freedom,
And listen to the driest sound of water.
Careful, greed runs through this bloody stone.
(You can smell it to the core of the rock),
But I still smell something worse:
Your shadow at sunrise, which is no different,
Than that at sunset. You can see both.
Life turns to dust in you hands.
You tried to drown the wind,
And that’s when he met you.
Just the luck you needed.
He knew of the shadow,
And you gave him promises to rid it, didn’t you?
But no action came, no results.
And when we came back, he too lived in shadows,
Mouth full, hair slick, unable to speak.
His eyes gorged on everything.
He was of your living, knowing nothing
But hunger. The light of his heart silenced.
Let him eat in solitude.
The omnipotent, notorious, Sorceress,
Known for her deviousness, nevertheless
Is still aptly named the wisest woman alive,
Aided by her wicked deck of cards. She pulled some,
And told me my future.
The first: A soldier’s watery grave,
Unblemished jewels lying by decayed remains.
The Second: A deadly siren,
A lady who signs beautiful lies,
The third: A man with danger on all sides,
The fourth: A wheel of inevitable revolution,
The fifth: A ragged, one-eyed merchant,
The sixth she will not show me, for I don’t have the sight.
She tells me its nature: the same burden which cripples the merchant.
I fear not death by the law, but rather from the sea.
The final card: crowds of people, circling.
I thank the witch, and tell her to warn Fate,
That I hold the knowledge of my future,
And I will outwit even her.
A solitary ridge with nothing but winter rain;
Little signs of life beneath snow. This is no picturesque winter.
Off duty soldiers trudge through these passages.
The foolish pay a cab to bring him to Romania.
The children stay inside while the men play their games.
But yesterday, this seminary of rage overcame him:
His hair slick, he yelled something about death
And rebirth.
We’re killing on peaceful snow! Get out of your fantasized world!
His screams fell in the snow.
Perfection was never the goal.
Dismantled hair like falling verse.
A riddle in the making.
Although no road
Seems to reveal the source of consistency,
You can find old habits come second best.
There you can buy what’s not sold.
But she decided to hide under the blanket,
Refusing to sleep for fear of the darkness that the blanket caged in.
Her eyes grimy faucets. Her cracked marble irises
A perfect match for the littered, dry
Encrusted nightgown. Shadows follow her,
Chasing her, turning sinks to showers. Her clothes
Resting in the mud, dry.
She tried purging herself,
Wanting for the first time
To want to be cleansed. It ran down her ears.
For once she heard words.
The hollow woods began growing roots.
A mother mourns for the loss of soul as much as life.
A soulless world could fit inside her hands.
But her touch woes the heart.
The boys came with lightning from the town.
They played like hounds, holding themselves above others.
They too became deaf to the voices,
As echoes only multiplied.
They used bones for dreidels.
Ignoring any stares from below.
They spun their own webs, expecting to catch
Each other like flies. They’re on the point
Of breaking. It’s a matter of time.
They collected their prey in their chests.
Stealing the gazes of others.
Once caught, the others were left
Unwanted. Identically uninteresting.
A mother grieves most from this.
Her boy is always her boy.
But they feel they must become men.
Conflict breeds men, she knows it as truth.
But these blows fall on the living.
Her warning: don’t let power blind you.
The kids nod in understanding, stopping their game.
When she turns, they wink at each other.
Eye dyed, she let the man pass. There’s no nobility to impress she lectured.
She sat watching, ridiculing the lives around her.
“He lacks all fashion.” See her, sparkling, with silk weaves of buds.
“Who would say an angel’s beauty is on the inside?”
“Solomon used his herds to dress himself in his finest wool. Such prized gaiety.”
Countless curses flew through the plaza.
One in particular: Her vision blocked until she could escape her mold.
Wings beat overhead, veins pulsed with dust. Then
Nothing. Sound ceased. The train disembarked. Leaving only holes.
Only boards were left to make a sort game. Check-mate had come a long time ago.
The white flag she wove was useless. When God is speaking to, you listen.
The patchwork of the neighbors creates a blanket. Sewing beauty together.
There’s no reason that the starving child was buried unseen in garbage.
The blanket was given another patch to expand its size.
She saved it for us.
He’s the one who let if fall.
She weeded the hills, calming the soil.
He guarded the truth from himself.
(That used to be okay).
Why don’t you go sell the weeds amid the day?
You think you walk the sky.
We sold ourselves sweets, each sour. Our hearts were caked with mud.
We spelled words by tearing the ground.
We wrote nonsense.
He knew the truth and knew better. She spilled her ink
And watched it bleed on the paper.
With the night came purchasable spies,
Crickets to stir song and dance.
Innocence surprised us. We were told only of war.
We saw them in hand.
The earth would fissure, if ever they changed.
Then the blizzard covered our story.
We scrambled through it, searching.
Time to quit? – A voice eerily rising in pitch.
Why do you give in so quickly? Give us a bit!
Another gasped, hid the writ, and pointed at nothing.
We moved to the weedy hills and continued the search.
He and she left to the mountain. She returned only to redirect our search.
She kept her thoughts from wandering.
She moved amongst the weeds as we pulled them.
We dreamed of pulling her dress of its weeds.
Upon waking, the dreams became real.
She shrunk then grew, in composure and age. At last she sat.
We left. The snow melted, baring the earth.
She’s the one who had frowned only to repent.
He’s the one who would never relent.
She once told us to sell our hearts.
There we hung them, withering
To add another story to a book of war.
The sirens shriek in the suddenly high sea,
Looting the minds of splintering bodies, storing them in sunken caves.
Not sirens exactly – perhaps nymphs.
They pile our plights behind fortifications. The Gods are with them, not us.
Me must have been sailing too fast. Now we bet on time.
The ship which continues sailing hears no wail. The danger is unseen.
We throw pebbles into the sea,
For the calmest seas invoke the greatest anxiety.
The sound of the boat in water causes fear on the quietest of days.
We give to our wings, forgetting we lack them.
But something rises from the sea and the boat, like myths.
There’s been too many young men who fell off, turning to water.
We look down at hands gripping the rail. Below, light ripples off the sea.
The almost setting sun paints the sky:
A horizon perfectly painted. The sea picturesque. All of it contrived.
We have forgotten where we are going.
But the sea makes us thirsty,
And so we drown our ears with the hum of the engine.
Dilapidated walls tilt, confined to layers of peeling paint.
The grout between the tiles can be blown out after centuries of plight.
The single pristine dot marks the spot of victory. The victory that blinds us.
The dull fan hums as salty winds continue to erode. The sea grows at night.
Fire ravaged through here before – the smell still lingers.
Properly dressed, we walked by in perfect white. Our eyes never met.
The trees watched us avoid the error.
“Did you see the sailor set out in mourning?” Impassioned by his latest voyage.
“And afraid?” The romance of storms and life’s fickleness draws them to the sea.
He paid his homage before leaving.
As he drifted from the dock, he bid his final farewell.
Tears trickled down, but you couldn’t tell from what from where you were.
“The plants are growing fast.” Stars stare down overhead.
You can’t find the route by searching, it comes to you.
A firefly circled in front of the still stars, drawing eyes to the mountains.
You won’t find anything built there.
“Do you think our hearts were tied to that mast?” There eyes finally met.
Looking inside the window would show the same level of erosion.
“It was a fine day for sailing.”
The sun glinted through a crack in the wall.
But nothing else gets through the border.
It did a much better job then any number of armed guards.
Whispers of the unimaginable fled with the wind.
Be part of the earth, ride its wake.
Explain how to have a pocket with no pants.
The stone den, like a clasp, locks you in. Wraps up the storm.
A goat, a tale, music being played.
But deafness flickers through, wires vibrating uselessly.
People stopped to look. The more they looked, the less they heard.
More and more people gorging themselves.
Gluttony only increases.
Plants grew about, but the roots were torn away.
The wing blew, but metal knives stayed firmly in place.
(Wind belongs to the wind)
The cakes, most all red, fully dressed in white.
Someone hums something – no need for horrible diction.
Someone told him to try again – maybe use less fiction.
But the lies slipped across the sound.
The chiefs warred against familiar foes. The meat was tough.
Fields of grapes have grown over the “sickness”.
Wild grasses drowned in wine.
Free them from the store.
Where can I find the maize?
The birds spy from the trees, but it does no good.
If the honey combs want to be eaten, they are eaten!
A dove crashes into the metal tower.
The window is replaced, the bird tossed.
It’s a game we all play. We can’t lose – But the winner loses.
Like the writer who finishes every chapter and is done.
(That was his only mistake).
After he went to outside sources.
He longed to hold the bottle, but instead consulted names,
All the while fighting against his own.
He wondered what it might be like to grow up,
He found out the next day. In the mirror he saw:
My freedom is gone.
So much is held in history. Racks of knowledge.
Like how delicious thin mints are. And to be weary of too many.
He reads it all, but will he speak of it? Dust gathers.
Most tomes sit untouched. Baking trout is dust free though.
Pulse racing, fizzing with the knowledge that hasn’t been learned.
A few cups of tea to remain awake in this library.
So that some food can be stacked atop the racks.
Brainless work – bypass the mind.
She carries plum. He knows her face, her fingerprints.
Always studying that.
She swayed rhythmically – a beast stalking the stalker.
He lost all focus; nothing new.
It could have been you.
Light from inside bled out onto the pretty faces.
The smiling faces shadowed to look enraged.
A plate crashes to the ground, reverberating.
Thoughts turn to freedom, not into dead-end mountains.
Those who give rarely receive.
Those who leave are only hiding.
Paper-thin armor is all it takes
To battle against fear.
But time is something that cannot be battled.
Love is said to attack the eyes,
To pry open the mouth in search for incriminating confessions,
Balloons of secrets waiting to pop.
Then the sinking begins.
Laden with corruption, one cannot but sink.
Blinding thighs deflected, battle becomes murderous
Thoughts, turn to water, to deep, surface-less lakes.
Death’s shadow follows us as a reminder of imprisoning escape.
We cannot wait in the sun any longer – we must kill the shadow.
Slice through the bars.
And then remake them.
There’s no need for a roof – rain isn’t coming.
We could rest permanently, to fight the clock.
But nothing can stop it.
Not some spiraling fool.
We are the dogs of desire,
Sickened by its drought.
Brass wings only help us sink.
Drags down into the hot Earth.
But one must take cover under earth,
To withstand the cold.
An abandoned nightgown gives false vulnerability to ice.
The eyes are blinded, but the ears work well enough.
Outside the downpour continues to not exist.
What creatures stalk me?
Each glance I catch one more black shadow,
But when I look ahead down these white streets,
Nothing surreptitious – only normality; simplicity.
I do not know, should I simply look ahead?
But what’s behind me walks these same snow-laced streets.
More mental lamentation never hurt – overtly.
They were there. A horde of warning.
Endless gilded paths ahead – behind the naked Earth.
A flat horizon rings around me.
The city is built above the mountains.
The reformed sky is cracked, violet bursting through.
Always flying higher - beyond reach.
Unless -
A womb drawn from long black strokes,
Whispering music while fiddling with each brush.
Above dangle bats with baby faces in violent light
Whistling concertos, their wings beating the orchestra.
They crawl down the blackened canvas,
Crawling down castles like stalactites,
Trumpeting the second movement
The grass signs to the dim moon: Lacrimosa.
The grass covers forgotten graves in front of the chapel,
The empty chapel, abandoned, left only for nature to engulf it.
There is only a single entrance, but even fewer ways to escape.
Forgotten dreams can harm no soul.
Death called from outside
Go go go go go go go go go go go here.
Lightning struck. Then a drowning gust,
Bringing relief.
I yearned to embody a deity,
Skipping stones across a sun-blistered sea.
In the beginning there was only a single goddess.
Her breath brought life to the world.
Men were created, and they sought to uncover
The mystery of the past.
They don’t know that the gods take the greatest pleasure from their stories.
We make a breakthrough by discovering gravity.
They sit above, silently counting down,
Their skin melding into the sky,
Like the horizon above the sea.
They call water a solvent, but it won’t dissolve me.
We have much to discover, maybe it all.
But look how we’ve all relaxed.
Does a bird which flies overhead fly too high to care about?
This boat will sink if we sit idle for too long.
A single piece of paper bleeds ink into the water.
But in the wind, it spreads like wings.
We created our own strait,
Calling it a geographical evolution.
We all love whirlpools for their destructive mystery;
Will I be one of the drowned, or one of those washed ashore?
The latter: warm sand atop cold.
Any great thinker would ask what’s in a surface.
But the sea glitters when the sun touches it,
Its brilliance is found in every ancient myth.
Other languages leave no question of uniformity on such beginnings.
The sand has been shattered by the gods’ fists
Into granularity. I am on this holy ground.
Now the heat dries my tongue, but can’t quell my speech.
I know too well what the sand will say back.
I have no need for hearing.
Sand and paper.
They separate me from my deity.