More Babelfish poetry...

First, some pretentious musings on art:

There's something appealing to me about art that is partially left to forces beyond the direct control of the artist. One of my favorite activities with a camera is setting the ten-second timer, then swinging the camera around from its string until I hear the shutter click. Some small percentage of such pictures will be gorgeous. It slightly surprises me that I feel this way, because it's also true that a large part of what I get out of any sort of art comes from the feeling of purpose, the feeling of connecting with the vision and intention of the artist. Perhaps there's something intriguing to me in the tension between control and randomness. Some power in the act of intentionally setting out to create something through chance, and then applying a human sensibility to distill from whatever happens to come into existence something worth presenting as art.

Okay, pretension over for now. I have recently come to the realization that an entertaining use of time when I can't think of anything else to do is to create Babelfish Poetry (yeah, I like it better as one word -- I know that isn't how it's written on the site, but whatever). So I came up with rules for this game: I take something, say a poem I've written in English, and run it through Babel Fish into and out of Japanese, then copy/paste the result into Microsoft Word. I am then allowed only limited operations: I can hit Enter or Backspace, and change the capitalization of letters if it becomes necessary. That is all. With this method I have turned a random poem I wrote a while ago into the following:

We looked at month, in the naked wood:
The road where the paper arranged the note which is tidied.
Our eyes which idly follow to that distant disk.
Last project. I blinked.
That I panted, catch, being turned, innocently far distant country.
Confused, I opened my mouth; but everyone reacted.
You caught my confusion with my tongue.
To do that it is possible month?
It is isolated from other things, someone did not know, the world repelled,
as for me the paper which scrutinizes the edge correct line.
Suddenly, I surround my shoulder which feels that arm.
He asked quietly, and I nodded.
I shot my confusion of sigh.
And the world was the right,
this was our last chance because.
Month was not important; I loosened in that love.
Worry above this and above this it does not doubt.
I permitted my head remainder of that warm shoulder.
This time as for me,
This time as for me you have known permanently.

And I awoke,
simultaneously,
I hung on,
desperate in encouraging, in certainty.
But naturally, he disappeared.
And I in the world, being the place where the month moves in the sky,
crossing him,
do not grasp me under any condition.