Adagio on Mont Royal¹⁸ 

There’s a jungle of dreams
in my imperfect heart¹⁹ 
lit up by patchouli
with channels overflowing 
jammed by poppies²⁰ 
crashing the exit gates
just to finish
this melting Bilboquet ice cream cone.
 
Overture
for dancing dragonflies
tiny tinted notes²¹
graffitied with honey ochre carmine
the crickets keep on chirping
fluttering in lively spirals
oblivious to the fractured cadences and
clamoring traffic of Mont Royal Avenue
 
Arrhythmic symphony of hidden bossa nova²² 
ephemeral notes of clandestine kisses
I disappear into a rustle²³ 
and reappear surreptitiously
to reclaim
 
What absconded without asking²⁴ 
And returns
Just like that.

¹⁸ This powerful poem is so easy to love.  So beautiful.  Yet there’s a hint in line 2 that it’s actually based on a serious organic malfunction, an event that leads to this display of lyricism. Otherwise you’d hardly know, unless you have perhaps been overcome by something similar.
¹⁹ Malogrado is such a meaty Spanish word. I was torn between ill-fated and other options.
²⁰ Using the double Ps of poppies, I went with jamming, with its double Ms.
²¹ Tiny tinted notes, is just a godsend to solve the beauty of minúsculas notas teñidas.
²² This incredible lilting phrase left me flat-footed.  I preferred a literal translation, hoping I could make up the music further down.
²³ The chance came with the mellifluous desparezco en un suspiro, initiating a series of alliterations in English on U: rustle, surreptitious, returns.
²⁴ Most of the challenges in this translation were of a sonorous and rhythmical kind rather than lexical. ‘Absconded’ was a nice find to balance ask. I worked to amp up assonance and resonance proper to the musical cadences and texture of this Adagio, a poem that defies ordinary logic. But its lyricism has an ironclad logic of its own.

Adagio en la Mont-Royal

Tengo una jungla de sueños
en un corazón malogrado
encendido de pachuli
canales inundados
de amapolas obstruidas
combate en la puerta de salida
para terminar
el helado Bilboquet derretido

Obertura
para las libélulas danzantes
minúsculas notas teñidas
con grafitis de miel ocre carmín
los grillos no paran de cantar
agitándose en espirales de vida
ignorando la cadencia fracturada y los
ruidos de carros de la Avenida Mont-Royal

Sinfonía arrítmica de un bossa nova escondido
notas efímeras de besos clandestinos
desaparezco en un suspiro
y vuelvo caprichosamente
para retomar

Lo que se fue sin permiso
Lo que regresa
Así no más