Catherine

[Marc]

MA CATHOUE À MOI

Tu n'étais qu'à l'état embryonaire

lorsque je commençais le secondaire

Mais maintenant tu as grandi

et moi, j'ai grossi...

Ça faisait longtemps que j'ai commencé à fumer

quand tu as atteint la puberté

Je prenais déjà des joins

Lorsque tu n'avais même pas de seins...

Souvent, sur le sofa, en pleine après-midi

Je me réveille en sursaut, poussant un cri

Tel un naufragé qui dans la mer se noit

"À moi" je soupire, soit ma Cathoue à moi...

À qui fera les premiers pas

Rien ne se fera car je ne les ferais pas

Mais en ma compagnie tu as été si gentille

Alors, vois l'homme qui se cache derrière la guenille...

[Marc]

I know not many will understand because it is in French. A poem I wrote as I put myself in the shoes of a friend.

[Steve]

I have no idea what any of this means? but I read it through anyway!  

[Alistair]

Well, I have  

It's a poem about the writer's little daughter, I think?

[Marc]

This poem is not very serious, only the intonation is. But in English, it loses all the word plays, cultural connotations and ambiance. And it doesn't rhyme translated.

You were only at the embryo-state

When I started High-School

But now you have grown

and me, grown fat

It's been a while since I had started smoking

when you were in puberty

I already smoked grass

when you didn't even have breasts

Often, on the couch, in the middle of the afternoon

I wake up suddenly, screaming

As a castaway in the sea drowning

"Save me" I sigh, be my Cathoue

To who will make the first steps

Nothing will be done because I won't

But in my company you've been so nice

So see the man behind the cloth

....

Actually it makes no sense in English, especially since there is a inside joke at the end that only my friends can catch.

[Steve]

Yep... Should have left it in French...It reads much better!