And another from Spinelli...
Roundup
By Santino Spinelli
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
A bang on the door in the long dead of night,
disciplined hounds with long fierce teeth,
assault rifles raised in a face half-asleep
sleep smashed dream gashed night-terrors awake;
black uniforms cool cruel eyes
hatred revulsion and heinous slander
punishing windstorm innocent eyes...
the door banged shut a dream pulled apart
tears on the ground...gutted hearts.
The Original:
R�dm
Ni d�b ki vudd�r andr� i bar� r�t
d�nd bar� di giuk�l mard�,
ni putin� a kat�r pru muj sovadd�
sun� dukkadd� sun� tra�ian�;
kal� jurvibb� ki� giungal�
naf�l bi mi�tip� do� bar�,
bar brav�l ki� lacc�...
a vudd�r pandind� ni sun� ningadd�
rovibb� pri p�... jil� cind�.
Notes on the Romani:
baro: the adjective occurs three times, in different senses � the first in bar� r�t (one of a handful of multi-word idioms in Romani which actually can be traced to India) meaning idiomatically"the dead of night, the middle of the night" (literally, the long/big night), and again in d�nd bar� "big teeth" referring to the hounds' terrifying teeth. And then in do� bar� where its meaning is more abstract.
Sun�: this word which, in common Romani can mean either "dream" or "sleep", appears three times each with a different spin. The dream one was living in, the nightmare one wakes up to, the sleep of unawareness reft away....it is all of these things.
ki�: metathesized form of common Romani jakha.
Naf�l bi mi�tip�: perhaps a subversion of a sugary mi�tip� binaf�l?
Do� bar�: a very polyvalent phrase. I suppose "great injury" might be another way to translate it. Do� can mean a number of things including injury, misconduct, misdeed, flaw, sin. But it seems like the sense of falsification is to the point � and Spinelli clearly thought so in his self-translation.
Roundup
By Santino Spinelli
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
A bang on the door in the long dead of night,
disciplined hounds with long fierce teeth,
assault rifles raised in a face half-asleep
sleep smashed dream gashed night-terrors awake;
black uniforms cool cruel eyes
hatred revulsion and heinous slander
punishing windstorm innocent eyes...
the door banged shut a dream pulled apart
tears on the ground...gutted hearts.
The Original:
R�dm
Ni d�b ki vudd�r andr� i bar� r�t
d�nd bar� di giuk�l mard�,
ni putin� a kat�r pru muj sovadd�
sun� dukkadd� sun� tra�ian�;
kal� jurvibb� ki� giungal�
naf�l bi mi�tip� do� bar�,
bar brav�l ki� lacc�...
a vudd�r pandind� ni sun� ningadd�
rovibb� pri p�... jil� cind�.
Notes on the Romani:
baro: the adjective occurs three times, in different senses � the first in bar� r�t (one of a handful of multi-word idioms in Romani which actually can be traced to India) meaning idiomatically"the dead of night, the middle of the night" (literally, the long/big night), and again in d�nd bar� "big teeth" referring to the hounds' terrifying teeth. And then in do� bar� where its meaning is more abstract.
Sun�: this word which, in common Romani can mean either "dream" or "sleep", appears three times each with a different spin. The dream one was living in, the nightmare one wakes up to, the sleep of unawareness reft away....it is all of these things.
ki�: metathesized form of common Romani jakha.
Naf�l bi mi�tip�: perhaps a subversion of a sugary mi�tip� binaf�l?
Do� bar�: a very polyvalent phrase. I suppose "great injury" might be another way to translate it. Do� can mean a number of things including injury, misconduct, misdeed, flaw, sin. But it seems like the sense of falsification is to the point � and Spinelli clearly thought so in his self-translation.
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