The Mezunian

Die Positivität ist das Opium des Volkes, aber der Spott ist das Opium der Verrückten

Let’s Read Some Amazing Haiku by Scaffale & Google Translate

I don’t know how, but some suns ago I ran into this page full o’ haiku & made the mad mistake to try understanding it through Google Translate. The poetry I received touched me in places so touchy that I had to share them.


Scaffale:
電信柱(なだらかな緑の山を)

Google Translate:
Telephone pole (a gentle green mountain)

A succinct contrast ’tween humble, e’erlasting nature & the lightning-striking shadow cast by the modern technology brought on by this telephone pole stabbing into the earth like an upside-down sword.

Actually, I have a feeling this isn’t e’en that off o’ a translation.

It gets weirder.


Scaffale:
少年の死んだ日

Google Translate:
Boy dead day

My favorite holiday.


Scaffale:
夕方(姉は小さな妹をすかし)

Google Translate:
Evening (My sister watermark a little sister)

That’s what happens when li’l sis uses the 30-day free trial o’ big sis’s eyeliner.


Scaffale:
夕方(子供が 泣かずに)

Google Translate:
Evening (to not cry children)

A truly Issaesche haiku wherein the perspective is reversed, with the wolves warning o’ the dangers o’ the world’s true monsters: undisciplined children running @ them & possible tugging @ their tails or ears.


Scaffale:
春(この冷たい目をした)

Google Translate:
Spring (was this cold eye)

Stop watching me in April showers, Spring.


Scaffale:
餅をつく

Google Translate:
Tell a rice cake

I told e’m.


Scaffale:
私は甲虫

Google Translate:
I beetle

The cruelly tantalizing title for a Kafka-Asimov crosso’er that’d ne’er happen. The world is a worse place.


Scaffale:
(ある少女に)

Google Translate:
(Keep yourself silent)

Must be the polite way to tell someone to shut their trap.


Scaffale:
生ひ立ち II

Google Translate:
Freshness II

Not as good as the original.


Scaffale:
雨(雨とくさ くさ)

Google Translate:
Rain (rain cloudsiness)

Well, I know this translation can’t be correct, ’cause “cloudsiness” isn’t e’en a real word.


Scaffale:
(何といふ)

Google Translate:
(What is it?)

“Epic” by Faith No More.


Scaffale:
(提燈が一つ)

Google Translate:
(One lantern is one)

“Ayn Rand writes haiku.”


Scaffale:
赤子に

Google Translate:
In a baby

Eww.


Scaffale:
切り通し

Google Translate:
cutting

Emo haiku.


Scaffale:
(茶ぶだうが)

Google Translate:
(Stupid)

I told you to translate, not editorialize, stupid machine.


Scaffale:
II 胃病患者(兎 兎 健康な兎)

Google Translate:
II Stomach disease patient (rabbit healthy rabbit)

This one’s apparently “incomplete,” as opposed to such complete works as “woman” & “face.” I guess we’ll ne’er know if the patient o’ercomes his pain & eats the health-supplying rabbit’s supple meat or not.


Scaffale:
骨牌の占ひ

Google Translate:
Occupation of bone tiles

The noble, but forgotten craft.

I think this is the title o’ some “Angry-Men” British play.


Scaffale:
縫物をする人へ

Google Translate:
To those who do sewing

We sew-lute you.


Scaffale:
言葉(彼女は私の中に)

Google Translate:
Language (she is in me)

English As She Is Spoke 2.0.

Strangely, most o’ the haiku seem to just be random words like “woman,” “horse,” “face,” “night,” & “November.” & many o’ these e’en I can confirm are those words—’less there’s some subtle extra meaning in those words that I don’t know.

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Posted in Haiku, Senryu y amigos, Poetry, What the Fuck Is this Shit?