Saturday, July 18, 2009

New: Boîte sans rien dedans by Alex Dickow

Sonnet morphologique (d'après les symbolards)

Que vous ayez, pleins d'étés et d'ises,
Até les oirs vers l'itié et l'aison,
En illant très haut les élés et les ises
Et m'itant l'ure à l'euse d'une aison;

Ou que l'ation endit d'ules itiques
Où s'iole, telle une ollue itamment
Ilise un or de ses èvres otiques,
L'aisance arrée qui m'isite ablement.

Quel inage ote une aliste aux iesses
En cette icieuse auté d'une aintive esse?
Nul ose utile à l'isateur de l'ain:

Ainsi est tive aux alités l'escence,
Oyant telle qu'aux iliaires l'ain
Quand l'euil d'onna la seule désinence.

8 comments:

standish said...

Can someone post a translation in the comments?

Jonathan Wonham said...

Quand l'euil d'onna la seule désinence

which could be:

Quand le deuil de madonna est la seule désinence.

which means:

When the mourning of madonna is the only ending.

which could become:

When the urning of onna the only ending.

Alexander Dickow said...

Actually, it mostly doesn't mean anything at all. It's a sonnet constructed only out of the endings of words, which provide syntactic structure. There are some words suggested more or less, but as a whole it's a "box with nothing in it" (which is the translation of the title). The final words "la seule desinence" might translate to "only the suffix", if you like. No content: but it sounds just like a bad Symbolist sonnet to me (think Swinburne at his most syrupy).

standish said...

Then I request a translation only of the words which aren't just the endings. The just-endings words can be left as they are, unless there's a common morphological substitute in Anglais.

Alexander Dickow said...

You asked for it. It's not as effective in English, which is considerably less dense in homophones. And I did this in about four minutes. But I bet you can do much better!....

Box With Nothing In It
Morphological sonnet (after those silly Victorians)

Whether you had, full of ities and ices,
Ated the aires toward itiate and eason,
While ining up high the illies and ices
And ating my nure to the tress of eason;

Or whether ation ishes with itical ules
Where, just as an uted maiden ightly ines,
A gold ilizes with its otic ips
The orried acency that isits me ably.

What onage akes an alist with ives
In this icious icacy of an aintive ive?
Not one ares iful to the iser of the ain:

Thus is the ight to alities an escence,
Erring like the ain to iliaries
When the ears erred the inflexion alone.

George Vance said...

Great nonsense!

Jonathan said...

magnifique
Khlebnikov n'aurait pas démentie une telle invention

Unknown said...

Something about ryme and this post just made me laugh, and think this is so you. Loved it.