Vertaallab is een serie op Ooteoote die dichters en schrijvers uit andere taalgebieden aan de lezer voorstelt. Elke aflevering minstens één, bij voorkeur nieuw, gedicht. Dat u mag vertalen, als u wilt. Graag zelfs, wat ons betreft. Post uw Nederlandse vertaling van onderstaand gedicht als reactie op dit bericht. Onderstaand gedicht is een voorpublicatie uit Wallace’s achste boek uit de reeks The End of America.

___

Home is where
xxxxxxxxxxxxxI hide out, guns drawn
xxxxxxxwaiting for Adobe Flash Player

xxxxxxxxxxxxxor a phone call to slip
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxabstract money out of my abstract

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxximage of myself. Tried to define

xxxxxxxa tree and realized
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxI don’t know much about

xxxxxxxxxxxxxwhose definitions I’ve been
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxborrowing to steal some fire-

xxxxxxxbreathing into a complacent
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxsystem just for getting

everything over with.
What would Captain Kirk do?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxIn this space
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxship I should be saving

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThe people inside
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWho try to explore

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxStill I’m asking what
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxit costs to imagine

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxany universe burgeoning

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxbeyond the limits it knows

I don’t mind you living
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxin your body
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxexcept the ceiling’s pushing lower

xxxxxxxxxxxxxinside this little mini-
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxvan filled with overpriced
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxnon-working gadgets.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxFresh peaches
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxin the morning won’t

xxxxxxxxxxxxxand not much else

This offer, its managerial savvy

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxfrom a couple guys in cowboy gear

may fund armies in the golden
xxxxxxxxxxxxxtriangle international
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxfunds exchange
I’ve still
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxlost the beautiful moment
touching my forehead

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxto the stars

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthat weren’t much more
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthan operatives with a budget

who taught me how
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxto set up accounts

xxxxxxxxxand watch the money

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxcome in in smaller

chunks than would even

xxxxxxxxxbe worth defending

___

Mark Wallace is the author of more than fifteen books and chapbooks of poetry, fiction, and essays. Temporary Worker Rides a Subway won the 2002 Gertrude Stein Poetry Award and was published by Green Integer Books. His critical articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, and he has co-edited two essay collections, Telling It Slant: Avant Garde Poetics of the 1990s, and A Poetics of Criticism. Most recently he has published a novel, The Quarry and The Lot, and a book of poems, Felonies of Illusion, and his chapbook The End of America: Book One has just come out with Dusie Kollektiv. He teaches at California State University San Marcos.