Sonnet to morality (for Lindsay F Bond)
10 April 2022
MICHAEL DOM
Ples Singsing - A PNG Writer's Blog
TOK PISIN VERSION FOLLOWS
My moral compass swings
On the freed finger tips
Of the monster I hide
The smiling fiend who haunts my dreams
Whose cold silhouette passes me
By the doorway in the mirror
It swings there just at arm’s length
One step away from horror
One move and I embrace it
I cannot subvert
This weird reflection
To love or hate it
Like a shadow that I cannot outrun
The compass on my own extended arm
Sonet bilong pasin na save
(raitim long Lindsay F Bond)
Kompas bilong makim rot emi hangamap
Long pinga bilong han ibin brukim banis
Em han bilong tewel mi iet haitim istap
Tewel save soim tit long mi long driman
Klaut tutak bilong em mekim sikin i kol
Taim mi sanap long dua na galasim em
Kompas emi hangamap klostu tru long han
Wanpela lek tasol, bai popoaia long en
Wanpela lek tasol, mi holim passim em
Mi no inap stret long sakim laik bilong em
Dispela tewel paulim ai taim mi lukluk
Mi ino save bai mi laikim o nogat
Mi no inap long abrusim klaut bilong em
Kompas i hangamap long han bilong mi iet
I thought you might like the Tok Pisin versification Lindsay.
It's some kind of complex iambic hexameter.
I think it's very you.
I especially admire the way the third triplet worked out and the way the heroic couplet ending the English original fit very well in the translation without rhyming.
Posted by: Michael Dom | 10 April 2022 at 08:43 PM
Arming oneself by extending one's hand,
lessons if learned, lessens
harming one's else or extended clan band.
Posted by: Lindsay F Bond | 10 April 2022 at 09:09 AM