torstai 22. huhtikuuta 2021

Ode to Bill Gates ... from My Wife

 

Hi Bill,
Sorry to bother you.

I’m sitting here writing a letter to you because my wife doesn’t stop nagging – and between you and me – isn’t willing to go to bed before I thank you. You can only guess how hard it is to thank a man whose computer operating system constantly requires updates, and I must wait for them to be completed. Sometimes even the deadline for the translation text has been exceeded. After getting free from the fucking that haunted me in the early years, I started to draw pictures to make the waiting time go faster. When the Windows system was engaged in a contradictory internal dialogue, my old drawing skills from my youth returned. And in the long run, I have become an outstanding painter. Yes, during the 20 years you have time to get Windows better and I have to creativeness.

A year ago, encouraged by my wife, I held a visual art exhibition on Helsinki Boulevard in the famous photo gallery. The miracle that I got there. My show was a success, and my painting sold out at the incredible starting prices my wife charged them. She, a prominent, comforted me before the show: prices can always drop but hardly ever raise under the buyer’s beak. I agreed, considering myself a modern wise man who can guide his wife without her even realizes this. Who would buy my painting at astronomical sums? Wrong again.

What bothers me most, however, is that while we have been able to get our household on a more solid footing thanks to the income from painting sales, I have not received praise from my wife, but I have to thank you. She says that I couldn’t eat chewing gum and walk simultaneously before I got acquainted with Windows and adds that now I remember all the assignments and carry out the translation work in time even though I had heard it the night before.

This is how I will thank you and send the most valuable painting of my exhibition to you. Even before the show, my wife had decided to leave the picture with the highest offered price for you. Can you imagine hugs from my wife to you and painting from me?

With respect
Matti Ivarsson
Translator

PS My wife is shouting from the living room that dear greetings to you from her. Her name is Hulda, and she is already planning the next art show. And she adds:”  Don’t use foul language or criticize the Windows operating system. You owe to Billie”.

keskiviikko 14. huhtikuuta 2021

When I Didn’t Fall Asleep; Kiam mi ne ekdormis

When I Didn’t Fall Asleep

When I didn’t fall asleep
My mother used to say:
Try to catch the tail of sleep.
Those words calmed down
The mind of a child.
© Yelling Rosa
14/4 –21

Kiam mi ne ekdormis

Kiam mi ne ekdormis
Mia patrino kutimis diri:
Provu kapti la voston
de dormo.
Tiuj vortoj trankviliĝis
la menson de infano.
© Yelling Rosa
14/4 -21