literature

A Drunk Man...

Deviation Actions

ikazon's avatar
By
Published:
1K Views

Badge Awards

Literature Text

A Drunk Man Reads French Poetry for Open Mic Night

A-ahem! Good evening open mic night, are you
ready to rock? I will now read you, no
shut up, Arthur, I can hear you talking
back there! Sorry. I will now read a poem
by, uh...what the f...Arthur, what is this?
A poem by, uh, the guillotine of Apollo.
Anyway, here goes, so shut up and quit laughing.

Moon, I'm half fluent, less lucid, or demonic,
urges and verges long since past, slurring
the stars, or, well, I figure they're bells.
Ya see, everything's lighter after drinks (only
had three, thanks) and voices are loud as sky tombs--
see, told ya moonlight's a mile long pole of light--
and sometimes they find a third voice and go on adventures.
God, I'm tired, and it's dark--what was I saying, Arthur?
What? I can't hear you over these lights, deca-decad, uh...
pretty sweet. The lights, they're pretty sweet, like a rose
trapped in an air vent, or something.

I really hope you all got a kick out of that, because
I sure as hell won't remember it come morning. Thank you,
open mic, and goodnight!
I had much more fun with this than I probably should have. And I hope it's funny, because I know I amuse me a lot more than I tend to amuse others.

This is for #transliterations prompt 5. I understand Spanish well enough (and like Lorca well enough) that that wouldn't have been a challenge, and Italian makes a fair amount of sense to me because of the Spanish studies, so I decided to go with the French. While I probably could've made sense of the French if I tried hard enough to focus on my knowledge of romance languages...well, I had lots of fun blatantly not trying to actually understand. Many sincere apologies to Apollo's guillotine (Guillaume Apollinaire), who is probably rolling over in his grave.
© 2011 - 2024 ikazon
Comments27
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Solarune's avatar
LOL! :XD: That's a brilliant take on the prompt. I love the combination of imagery (moonlight's a mile long pole of light) and the drunken narrative. My only criticism is that it seems a tad short, like the narrator didn't finish the poem, although maybe that was to do with drunkenness too ;) and it's probably my reading of the original French poem that biased me.
Love the Apollo's guillotine bit. :lmao: