Boot in einer Flasche - Poem by Raymond A. Foss

Okay, for those who don’t speak German,
the title of the poem is
“A Boat in a Bottle”
and that’s the point,
this is about doing just that…
and the tension in trying
a class project gone awry
Not doing one
but two things badly

In my sophomore year
in Ms. Keefe’s German class
we had to do something and describe it
auf Deutsch
My brilliant idea was to learn how
to make a boat in a bottle

This may be a case where not following the directions
Is the better path.

I have no idea what I wrote,
what I told the class to do
though I vaguely do remember some
of these words
“Sie schnitzen den Block des Holzes in die Form
des Rumpfs des Bootes.”
(You carve the block of wood into the shape
of the hull of the boat.)
And I remember desperately trying and laughing
to find that dowling is dowling

The main thing I learned was
Dieses Projekt erfordert Geduld.
(This project requires patience.)
And that is hard to do while demonstrating
something you’ve never done before
and speaking another language
during the nice awkward time
of puberty

July 16, 2006 14:05
1976 - Making a boat in a bottle, for my project to do a how to for German class
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/michel.bardet/conseilsa.htm (and of course the site where I found the best instructions was a site in French “Bateaux en Bouteilles”). And back in 1976, we had no sites like - http://dictionary.reference.com/translate/text.html (I wish it was).
You need to sand the wood dowling to a point.
--- Sie müssen das Holz versanden, das zu einem Punkt dowling ist.
You shape a piece of modeling clay to be the base and the waves of the water, to hold your boat.
--- Sie formen ein Stück modellierenden Lehm, um die Unterseite und die Wellen des Wassers zu sein, Ihr Boot zu halten.
You carefully pull the string so that the masts tilt into a vertical position.
-- Sie ziehen sorgfältig die Zeichenkette, damit die Maste in eine vertikale Position kippen.