Battlefield Band y Louis MacNiece: Bagpipe Music

Hoy, una actuación en vivo de la banda Escocesa Battlefield Band que musicalizó el poema Bagpipe Music de Louis MacNiece. Este tema pertenece al último álbum Room Enough for All que ha sido nominado para un premio en el Festival de Música Independiente en la categoría "Canciones Tradicionales". Disfruten. Abajo, el poema.

Bagpipe Music
by Louis MacNeice

It’s no go the merrygoround, it’s no go the rickshaw,
All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow.
Their knickers are made of crêpe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python,
Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with heads of bison.

John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa,
Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker,
Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whisky,
Kept its bones for dumb-bells to use when he was fifty.

It’s no go the Yogi-Man, it’s no go Blavatsky,
All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi.

Annie MacDougall went to milk, caught her foot in the heather,
Woke to hear a dance record playing of Old Vienna.
It’s no go your maidenheads, it’s no go your culture,
All we want is a Dunlop tyre and the devil mend the puncture.

The Laird o’ Phelps spent Hogmanay declaring he was sober,
Counted his feet to prove the fact and found he had one foot over.
Mrs Carmichael had her fifth, looked at the job with repulsion,
Said to the midwife ‘Take it away; I’m through with overproduction’.

It’s no go the gossip column, it’s no go the Ceilidh,
All we want is a mother’s help and a sugar-stick for the baby.
Willie Murray cut his thumb, couldn’t count the damage,
Took the hide of an Ayrshire cow and used it for a bandage.
His brother caught three hundred cran when the seas were lavish,
Threw the bleeders back in the sea and went upon the parish.

It’s no go the Herring Board, it’s no go the Bible,
All we want is a packet of fags when our hands are idle.

It’s no go the picture palace, it’s no go the stadium,
It’s no go the country cot with a pot of pink geraniums,
It’s no go the Government grants, it’s no go the elections,
Sit on your arse for fifty years and hang your hat on a pension.

It’s no go my honey love, it’s no go my poppet;
Work your hands from day to day, the winds will blow the profit.
The glass is falling hour by hour, the glass will fall for ever,
But if you break the bloody glass you won’t hold up the weather.

Louis MacNiece: Para la Posteridad

Para la Posteridad

Cuando todos  los libros se han detenido como los libros en las tumbas

y  la lectura y hasta el habla han sido reemplazados

por otro, medio,  menos difícil, nos preguntamos si

encontrarás en las flores y frutas  el mismo color y sabor

que contenían para nosotros,  para quienes estaban  enmarcados en palabras,

y  será tu pasto verde,  tu cielo azul,

¿o serán tus pájaros siempre pájaros sin alas?

Louis MacNeice, Visitations (1957).

Versión:  Marina Kohon

 To Posterity 

When books have all seized up like the books in graveyards 

And reading and even speaking have been replaced 

By other, less difficult, media, we wonder if you 

Will find in flowers and fruit the same colour and taste 

They held for us for whom they were framed in words, 

And will your grass be green, your sky be blue, 

Or will your birds be always wingless birds? 

Louis MacNeice: Andén de Salida

Andén de Salida

Amor, mi amor, ya es hora de partir,

La campana de bronce tañe huida

Y el verano en la gorra de un guarda perforará nuestros boletos

Y nos impulsará hacia donde las líneas brillantes se aclaran

Hemos estado ahí antes,  aunque no la hayamos visto-

La tierra ha sido siempre nuestra

Sus piedras nuestros huesos, sus ríos nuestros hermanos de sangre;

Nunca visitamos ese país, sólo hemos sido él.

La distancia se abre como una boca para recibirnos

Lengua con  lengua sin sentido

Consumando nuestros sueños por las noches, venciendo

A los pensamientos  que día a día nos derrotan.

Adivinado pero nunca conocido- el universal evasivo;

Al andar a tientas detrás del aroma

Disuelto en el agua corriente del tiempo,  engañamos a nuestra imaginación

Para tomar intacto lo que siempre  está  disperso.

En esta búsqueda de la compañía

Con quiénes  atesoramos  nuestras esperanzas de un año

Para gastarlas en una quincena- flor de panadero

Que nos cuenta el pasado y el penique gastado.

Entonces, empaca como los demás, asegúrate lucir de lo mejor

Para la dudosa oportunidad  de este año;

No importa si es Francia o Gales o las Islas Canarias

El lugar-quién sabe- es una persona para quien debamos arreglarnos.

Difícilmente;  por así decirlo, me ponga celoso

A menos que el dios del lugar

Pueda unir  su persona con la mía para  tu deleite

aunque nadie sabe, ni nadie, aunque supiera, nos diría.

Pero por las dudas empaca- tus vestidos de verano y tus sandalias

Y un par de guantes para las ciudades

Y un pequeño frasco de perfume- Chanel o Coty-

Y tus aros colgantes enroscados como velas de navidad.

Parte a las tres y quince- elevando  pistones-

La hora cero;

En asientos  en  esquinas opuestas deseamos cercanía

Y ternura, para lo que erróneamente entendemos por  distancia.

Louis MacNeice, 1938

Versión:   Eugenio Polisky y Marina Kohon

Departure Platform

Love, my love, it is high time to travel,

The brass bell clangs escape

And Summer in a porter’s cap will punch our tickets

And launch us where the shining lines unravel.

We have been there before though never seen it –

The land that was always ours

Whose stones are our bones’, whose rivers our blood’s kindred;

We have never toured that country, only been it.

The distance opens like a mouth to meet us

Wantonly tongue to tongue

Consummating our dreams by night, defeating

The daily thoughts which day by day defeat us.

Divined but never known – the evasive universal;

But fumbling after the scent

Dissolved in the running water of time, we fool our fancy

To catch intact what is always in dispersal.

Upon which quest in company with many

We hoard our hopes a year

To blow in a fortnight – a dandelion puffball

Telling the past time and the spent penny.

So pack like the others, be sure you look your best for

This year’s unlikely chance;

Whether it is France or Wales or the Canary Islands

The place – who knows – is a person to be well dressed for.

Unlikely; and, were that so, I should be jealous

Unless that god of the place

Could fuse his person with mine for your enjoyment –

Which nobody knows nor, if they knew, would tell us.

But on the off chance pack – your summer frocks and sandals

And a pair of gloves for towns

And one small bottle of scent – Chanel or Coty –

And your jazz earrings twisted like like Christmas candles.

It leaves at three-fifteen – with lifting pistons –

The zero hour;

Opposite in corner seats we hope for nearness

And dearness in what is wrongly called the distance.

Louis Mac Neice: Bajo la Montaña

Louis MacNeice
BAJO LA MONTAÑA


Vista de arriba
... la espuma en la bahía es una pluma
que se abre... se repliega.
Visto de arriba
el campo es una falda y las parvas botones
que la mantienen al ras de la tierra.

Vista de arriba
la casa es un artefacto mudo cuya función
hace tiempo es obsoleta.
Pero cuando uno baja
las rompientes son escoria fría y las algas
sisean contra la costa nauseabundas.
Cuando uno baja
el campo es una cosecha provechosa o malograda, la fuente
de dolor en las espaldas, si no de congoja.
Y cuando uno baja
la casa es un maétstrom de amores y de odios donde uno
-que ha bajado- pertenece.

Seen from above
The foam in the curving bay is a goose-quill
That feathers … unfeathers … itself.

Seen from above
The field is a flap and the haycocks buttons
To keep it flush with the earth.

Seen from above
The house is a silent gadget whose purpose
Was long since obsolete.

But when you get down
The breakers are cold scum and the wrack
Sizzles with stinking life.

When you get down
The field is a failed or a worth-while crop, the source
Of back-ache if not heartache.

And when you get down
The house is a maelstrom of loves and hates where you –
Having got down – belong.

Traducción: Jorge Fondebrider
Foto: Otoño en Irlanda.