Translating O'Hara: oh, what fun it is

Translating Frank O'Hara's "Choses Passagères" convinces me the great New York poet wrote French the way I read it: with a good dictionary by his side, trusting more to literal word-for-word exchanges than to a fluent speaker's familiarity with idiom & then relying on a poet's instinct for literary discovery. It seems that if the French appears quirky it wasn't something he intended for its own sake: he wrote here with a view to shaping out a product that only an aesthetic voluptuary like Frank O'Hara could've desired. But the poem may have been also a kind of intentional linguistic ruse.

The poem seems strongly to challenge the translator to make French idiomatic phrases, of which there are plenty, resonate with poetic meanings & eventually crystallize into 'the poem'. O'Hara is said to have written "Choses Passagères" by flipping randomly through Cassell's French-English dictionary, almost Mac Low-style, and forming a purposely aberrant piece collected from random samplings of French idiom. As the title suggests, like "things in passing". He's condemned the reader to steer a treacherous course between the literal & figurative, letting the real poem somehow appear in the evanescence of interpretation. In other words, no two translations of O'Hara's poem can be exactly alike.

I will, however, offer a version of the poem that won't chase after random meanings, and purposely treat the lines as if they were meant to construct a whole poem: as if what we had was a French translation of an O'Hara poem that was first written in English. And to do this properly it'll be necessary to treat almost every verse line as a literal entity whose rough edges (such as in the use of anguille ) may need to be pared down to something like the tenor of O'Hara's overall writing style. I offer a variation on "the poetic is stranger than fiction" motif.

I'd like to thank Magda Viehover, friend & colleague, for her assistance in tackling some of the tougher phrasing in O'Hara's poem.
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J'écorche l'anguille par la queue, peut-être un noeud
     d'anguille, ou il y a anguille sous roche,
je ne fais que toucher barres.
Chapeaux bas! mais, il n'y avait pas un seul chapeau,
et moi; j'avais beaucoup travaillé dans le temps.
J'avais souffert un grand échec, mystérieusement.
Qui se sent galeux se gratte!

Hébergement? je suis à la hauteur d'une île, c'est du
     hasard, et je ne suis pas une haridelle,
plein d'impudicité, non, non, j'imprime un mouvement
     à une machine,
la semaine des quatre jeudis, du temps que la reine
     Berthe filait.

J'aime partout les kinkajous.
Hier soir, j'étais un labadens; maintenant? je suis
     un lavabo.
Je mange les morilles moresques, quelle suffisance!
Je suis un homme qui se noie, montant un cheval à nu, et
     mon ciel est courvert de nuances.
Est-ce que j'ai un bel organe, hein? je fais ses orges
     très bien, pourquoi pas?

Ce fruit est du poison tout pur, c'est la pure vérité,
     et pourquoi pas?
ça ne nous rajeunit pas! La rouille ronge le fer,
     c'est un souvenir soviétique.
La trébuchage, le tric-trac, vous vous trompez! dites
     voir turlututu chapeau pointu!
Ce drap est d'un bon user,
pour trouver l'usurpateur utérin. Oui, mais, je suis seul.
Par monts et par vaux, le valet de bourreau vient,
c'est un wattman vulcanien, et j'ai peur.
Il pleut. Je mange un xiphias.
Il n'y gagnera rein, je suis une yole, un you you, moi.
Tu es un homme zélateur, donc? Mon ange, tu as un oeil
     qui dit zut à l'autre.
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I'll skin the thing alive, perhaps to its very tip—
     there's something in the wind.
Here I go again!
Good job, man! but without anyone in my sights
& just me who've worked my ass off
and suffered much, odd as it sounds.
If you're a dog, you'll itch like one!

Nowhere to stay? I'm fit to reign on my solitary isle,
     surprisingly, and I'm no nag,
no sleazy old nag! and nor am I made of movable parts
     no way! I'm no paragon

I love sleek,yellow-haired critters.
Last night a friend but now I'm just a sleazy ol'
     shit.
I gnaw on exotic things til I'm satisfied.
I drown in misery while riding horseback in the nude,
      & my prospects are grey
Am I as good as anyone else? Damn right! Why
    can't I take care of myself, too?

And the truth can be a poison, that's for sure!
     And why not?
Can't live in the past either!
Hardships harry the poor heart (as the Russian
     saying goes)
Come on, no pompous ass in a pointy hat can tell
     you anything you don't already know!
Under fine cloth the cankers fester.
     Yes, but I'm still alone
Up hill and down dale, death's messenger goes,
a fiery streetcar driver, & I'm afraid.
    It's raining. I dine on swordfish.
I won't kill myself working, nothing but skiffs & dinghies
     for me.
So you're a Zealot, then? My dear, you've got
a good eye for sticking it to others!