صفحه اصلی :   صفحه اشعار:  

Parabolic  Ballad

A. Voznesensky:

حماسه سهمي
مسعود راجي

Translated from Russian:  Auden

Along a parabola life like a rocket flies,

Mainly in darkness, now and then on a rainbow.

Redheaded bohemian Gauguin, the painter,

Started out life as a prosperous stockbroker:

In order to get to the Louvre from Montmartre,

He made a detour all through Java , Sumatra,

Tahiti, the Isles of Marquesas…

                                With levity

He took off in flight from the madness of money,

The cackle of  women , the frowst of academies,

Overpowered the force of terrestrial gravity.

The high priests drank their porter and kept up their jabbering:

“Straight lines are shorter, less steep than parabolas.

It’s more proper to copy the heavenly mansions.”

He rose like a howling rocket, insulting them

With a gale that tore off the rails of their frock coats,

So he didn’t steal into the Louvre by the front door,

But on a parabola smashed through the celling.

In finding their truth lives vary in daring:

Worms come through holes, bold men on parabolas.

There was once a girl who lived in my neighbourhood:

We went to one school, took exams simultaneously.

But I took off with a bang,

                                I went whizzing

Through the prosperous double- faced stars of Tiflis.

Forgive me for this idiotic parabola.

Cold shoulders in a pitch-dark vestibule…

Rigid , erect, as a radio antenna rod,

Sending its call sign out through the freezing

Dark of the universe, how you rang out to me,

An undoubtable signal, an earthly standby,

From whom I might get my flight bearings to land by.

The parabola doesn’t come to us easily.

Laughing at law with its warnings and paragraphs,

Art, love and history race along recklessly

Over a parabolic trajectory.

He is leaving tonight for Siberia.

                                                                Perhaps

A straight line after all is the shorter one actually.

 شتابان مي پرد تقدير،

 چون موشك، 

 مسيرش منحني، سهمي،  

 به تاريكي  و گهگاهي به تيراژه

 نِمادِ روشنش گوگن -  همان نقاشِ وحشيخويِ  افشان موي.    

 رو گرداند از دلالي بازار و ره پيمود  سوي لوور 

            (از جاوه،  سوماترا،  ماركزاس آيلند و تاهيتي).

 سبك،  آزاد شد از حرصِ مال و قدقدِ  زنها،  هواي بويناك و گرمِ دانشگاه.

 سر پيچيد از فرمانِ ميدانِ گرانش،     ثقلِ كيهاني.

     و ملاهاي والاجاه،  جامي بر لب و لبخند بر پوزه،  چنين گفتند:

          ”راه راست كوتاهست و سهمي سخت و سربالاست 

           آيا نيست بهتر   اين صراطِ مستقيمِ ما به سويِ جنتِ موعود؟“

  او  برخاست

  چون يك موشكِ توفنده،

  كز   بادِ   وزانش  نظمِ  دستار و عبا  آشفت،  

 ره بگشود بر تالارهاي لوور،   ني  از در، 

 كه بر بامش فرودآمد

 و سقف كاخ را بشكافت. خوش بنشست و جا افتاد.

 جانداران حقجو،  در جسارت جورواجورند :

 خاك و خس  نصيبِ مور و سهمي سهمِ انسان است.

 نه چندي پيش،  زيبا دختر همسايه و همدرس با من امتحان مي داد . . .   

 چون شد وصل ما؟  

 گمراه گشتم واله يِ  بت هايِ زينتبارِ تفليسي.  

 پشيمانم و پوزشخواه  زين كجراهِ سهمي گونِ  ابليسي.

 زمستان است.

 او يك لا قبا  در راه و قامت راست، 

 همچون ديركِ كشتي،

 فرستد اين پيامِ از جان به كيهان و سپهرِ سرد و ظلماني:

                “بگو   انسانِ  همزادم  كجا بايد فرود آيم؟“    

 كه پايان سوي ما آسان نمي آيد. 

 و مي خندند بر قانون و بند و فصل و الحاقاتِ  اجباريش                      

                    هنر، عشق و خطِ تاريخ     

                    مي تازند در سهمي مسيرِ خويش .

 به  اردوگاه   اجباري   رود   امشب

 و شايد راست، كوته تر   ز   هر   راهِ دگر   باشد.

Andrey Andreyevich Voznesensky  (1933-) is a Russian poet and writer who has been referred to by Robert Lowell as "one of the greatest living poets in any language." He lives and works in Moscow.

BALLAD  OF  THE   PARABOLA

Anselm Hollo

Fate flies

    Like a rocket, on a parabolic curve-

Mostly in darkness, but sometimes-

    it’s a rainbow.

Consider the fiery-haired painter Gauguin:

Bohemian, yes, used to be a stockbroker….

 To get from Montmartre to the Louvre he flew

 A detour:

   Java, Sumatra!

The madness of money

          he left behind, and the cackle of women,

The hot sticky air of Academies,

               he defied                      

               gravity.                    

The high priests sneered  by their tankards:

      “The straight line is shorter, the parabola steep-

     is not better to copy the groves

                                              of Paradise?”

But he, a roaring rocket flew

Through the wind that was cutting off coats’ tails and ears

Not making the Louvre                                                                                                              through the big portals-

But on a furious parabola, crashing through

                                                            the ceiling!

Lives move into truth

                            so variously brave:

For the worm-it’s a crack, for a man-a parabola.

There was a girl next door, we studied, passed exams

     together.

But where did it get me! The devil lured me away

To stare at the ornate, ambiguous stars of Tiflis!

Forgive me

               this useless parabola.

Cold, thin shoulders under your black Sunday dress… God,

What a sound you made in the darkness

                                                         up there:

Straight and firm like the aerial whip of a radio transmitter

While I am still flying , flying,

                                        then landing on earth

There comes a terrestrial, frozen signal from you!

How hard it is to remember this journey.

Sweeping aside all canons, all prognostications, paragraphs

Art, love and history follow the parabolic

Trajectory.

                His rubber boots, drowning

                  in Siberian spring…

Maybe the straight line

Is shorter?

Parabolical Ballad

Dorian Rottenberg

Fortunes like rockets fly routes parabolical

Rainbows less widespread than gloom diabolical.       

For instance, the fiery-red painter Gaugin,

Bohemian, though sales-agent until then:

To get to the Louvre from nearby Montmartre

He looped through Tahiti, just missing Sumatra.

Sped skyward, forgetting of money-born madness

Of cackling wives and of stifling academies.

And so        he surmounted     terrestrial gravity.

The priests of the fine arts were eager to have

                                                                       At him:

“A parabola’s fine, but a straight line’s far shorter.

Better copy old Eden,” they scoffed over porter.

But Gaugin zoomed away like today’s rocketeers

In a wind that went tearing at coat-tails and ears

And entered the Louvre not through the front door,

But crashed his parabola through ceiling and floor!

Each reaches his truth with his own share

                                                               of nerve:

A worm through a chink

                                     and a man by a curve.  

There once lived a girl-just a few blocks away.

We took college together until one fine day.

Why on earth did I fly

                                    like a blinking old ass                   

‏To mix with Tbilisi’s ambiguous stars?

Don’t blame me too hard for that barmy parabola,

Poor shoulders left out in the cold by a rambler!

How clear you rang out through the gloom of the

universe,

My slender antenna, in gales truly furious.

On and on I keep flying,

                                      to land by your call,

My earthly antenna, left out in the cold.

It’s difficult business to fly a parabola.

Yet when art, love or history is the,traveller,

Then, paragraphs, canons, prognoses defying,

Parabolical trajectories they go flying….

Siberian spring drowns galoshes in water

……………………………………….

Perhaps, after all, though, a straight line

                                                              Is shorter?