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TEXTS
THREE QUENEAU SONGS
Forme de la Ferme
La vache vêlu un veau velu
le boeuf boit à l'abreuvoir
le poule picore
le chat cherche à se hucher
au haut du bûcher
le cheval et sa charrette
charroient des sacs de son
l'ouvrier agricole sue sa motocyclette
soulève un peu de poussière
le chien aboie
le fumier fume
le fermier fume
la ferme est de forme
parallélépipédique
la cheminée cylindrique
et l'arrière de la ménagère
sphérique
Jardin Oublié
L'espace doux entre verveines
entre pensées entre reines-
marguerites, entre bourdaines
s'étend à l'abri des tuiles
l'espace cru entre artichauts
entre laitues entre poireaux
entre pois entre haricots
s'étend à l'abri du tilleul
l'espace brut entre orties
entre lichens entre grimmies
entre nostocs et funaries
s'étend à l'abri des tessons
en ce lieu compact et sûr
se peut mener la vie obscure
le temps est une rature
et l'espace a tout effacé
Soixante-quatre Ans
Une broches d'étain pourrissait
sur la route
la petite fille qui l'avait laissé tomber
atteignait maintenant ses quatre-vingt ans
elle ne pensait plus à sa broche d'étain
elle ne pensait plus qu'à couper de l'herbe
pour ses lapins
et tous les jours elle marchait sur la
broche d'étain
morte dans son souvenir depuis
soixante-quatre ans.
Raymond Queneau (1903–1976)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY x 2
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear . . .
Happy birthday to you.
NOON
Bent white pine boards,
soaking up sun's heat,
Giant's cradle on the ground,
at Huron, North Dakota.
August sixteenth
Nineteen fifty three.
Jon Eichman
IF YOU IMAGINE
If you imagine,
if you imagine,
little sweetie, little sweetie,
if you imagine this will,
this will,
this will last forever
this season of love,
you're fooling yourself
little sweetie, little sweetie
you're fooling yourself.
If you think, little one,
if you think,
ah, ah, that that rosy complexion,
that waspy waist,
those lovely muscles,
the enamel nails,
nymph thigh,
and your light foot,
if you think, little one,
that will,
that will,
that will last forever,
you're fooling yourself,
little sweetie, little sweetie,
you're fooling yourself.
The lovely days disappear,
the lovely holidays,
suns and planets go round in a circle,
but you, my little one,
you go straight toward you know not what,
very slowly draw near,
the sudden wrinkle,
the weighty fat,
the triple chin,
the flabby muscle,
come gather,
gather the roses of life,
and may their ptals be a calm sea of happinesses,
come gather, gather,
if you don't do it,
you're fooling yourself,
little sweetie, little sweetie,
you're fooling yourself.
Raymond Queneau (1903–1976)
trans. Michael Benedikt
LOUIS XVI GOES TO THE GUILLOTINE
Stink
stink
stink
what's that stink,
it's Louis the sixteenth, that bad egg,
and his head drops into the basket, his rotten head
Since the cold is terrific,
this twenty-first of January,
it rains blood,
it rains snow and all sorts of other filth
that flourishes out of his ancient corpse,
like a dog croaked
on the bottom of a pail,
in the midst of dirty laundry,
who has had plenty of time to start decomposing
like the fleur-de-lys on the garbage can,
which the cows refuse to nibble,
for they give off an odor of true divinity,
god the father of all mud
who gave to Louis sixteenth the divine right to croak,
like a dog in a laundry pail.
Benjamin Peret (1899–1959)
trans. Charles Simic
LES VRAIS MIRACLES
Le bon vieux curé! Après qu'il nous eût quitté,
nous le vîmes s'envoler audessus du lac
comme une chauvesouris. Il était assez absorbé dans ses penséespour ne pas meme s'apercevoir du miracles. Le bas de la soutane était mouillé, il s'en étonna.
Max Jacob (1876–1944)
THREE APOLLINAIRE SONGS
Annie
Sur la côte du Texas
Entre mobile et Galveston il y a
Un grand jardin tout plein de roses
Il contient aussi une villa
Qui est une grande rose
Une femme se promene souvent
Dans le jardin toute seule
Et quand je passe sur la route bordée de tilleuls
Nous nous regardons
Comme cette femme est mennonite
Ses rosiers et ses vêtements n'ont pas de boutons
Il en manque deux à mon veston
La dame et moi suivons presque le même rite
La Dame
Toc toc
Il a fermé sa porte
Les lys du jardin sont flétris
Quel est donc ce mort qu'on emporte
Tu viens de toquer à sa porte
Et trotte trotte
Trotte la petitte souris
Clotilde
L'anémone et l'ancolie
Ont poussé dans le jardin
Où dort la mélancolie
Entre l'amour et le dedain
Il y vient aussi nos ombres
Que la nuit dissipera
Le soleil qui les rends sombres
Avec elles disparaîtra
Les déités des eaux vives
Laissent couler leurs chevaux
Passe il faut que tu poursuives
Cette belle ombre que te veux
Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918)
SUSIE ASADO
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado.
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado.
Susie Asado which is a told tray sure.
A lean on the shoe this means slips slips hers.
When the ancient light grey is clean it is yellow,
it is a silver seller.
This is a please this is a please there are the saids
to jelly. These are the wets these say the sets to
leave a crown to Incy.
Incy is short for incubus.
A pot. A pot is a beginning of a rare bit of trees.
Trees tremble, the old vats are in bobbles,
bobbles which shade and shove and render clean, render clean must.
Drink pups.
Drink pups drink pups lease a sash hold, see it
shine and a bobolink has pins. It shows a nail.
What is a nail. A nail is unison.
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
THREE SOUPAULT SONGS
Medaille de Sauvétage
Mon nez est long comme un couteau
et mes yeux sont rouges de rire
La nuit je recueille le lait et la lune
et je cours sans me retourner
Si les arbres ont peur derrière moi
Je m'en moque
Comme l'indifférence est belle à minuit
Où vont ces gens
orgueil des cités
musiciens de village
la foule danse à toute vitesse
et je ne suis que ce passant anonyme
ou quelqu'un d'autre dont j'ai oublié le nom
Phillippe Soupault (1897–1990)
Georgia
Je ne dors pas Georgia
je lance des flèches dans la nuit Georgia
j'attends Georgia
je pense Georgia
Le feu est comme la neige Georgia
La nuit est ma voisine Georgia
j'écoute les bruits tous sans exception Georgia
je vois le fumée qui monte et qui fuit Georgia
je marche à pas de loups dans l'ombre Georgia
je cours voici la rue les faubourgs Georgia
Voici une ville qui est la même
et que je connais pas Georgia
je me hâte voici le vent Georgia
et le froid silence et la peur Georgia
je fuis Georgia
je cours Georgia
les nuages sont bas ils vont tomber Georgia
j'étends les bras Georgia
je ne ferme pas les yeux Georgia
j'appelle Georgia
je crie Georgia
j'appelle Georgia
je t'appelle Georgia
Est-ce que tu viendras Georgia
bientôt Georgia
Georgia Georgia Georgia
Georgia
je ne dors pas Georgia
je t'attends
Georgia
Phillippe Soupault (1897–1990)
Horizon
Toute la ville est entrée dans ma chambre
les arbres disparaissaient
et le soir s'attache à mes doigts
Les maisons deviennent des transatlantiques
le bruit de la mer est monté jusqu'a moi
Nous arriverons dans deux jours au Congo
j'ai franchi l'Equateur et le Tropique du
Capricorne
je sais qu'il y a des collines innombrables
Notre-Dame cache le Gaurisankar et les
aurores boréales
la nuit tombe goutte à goutte
j'attends les heures
Donnez-moi cette citronade et la dernière cigarette
je reviendrai à Paris
Phillippe Soupault (1897–1990)
WILD GEESE
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver (1935–2019)
THREE SONGS FROM 'PARIS SPLEEN'
The Stranger
Tell me, enigmatic man, whom do you love best?
Your father, your mother, your sister, or your brother?
"I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother."
Your friends, then?
"You use a word that has no meaning for me."
Your country?
"I am ignorant of the latitude in which it is situated."
Beauty?
"Her I would love willingly"
Gold?
"I hate it as you hate God."
What, then, extraordinary stranger, do you love?
"I love the clouds—the clouds that pass—the marvellous clouds."
Intoxication
One must be for ever drunk: that is the sole question
of importance. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time that bruises your shoulders and bends you to the earth, you must be drunk without cease. But how? With wine, with poetry, with virtue, with what you please. But be drunk. And if sometimes, on the steps
of a palace, on the green grass by a moat, or in the
dull loneliness of your chamber, you should wake up, your intoxication already lessened or gone, ask of the wind, of the wave, of the star, of the bird, of the timepiece, of all that flees, all that sighs, all that revolves, all that sings, ll that speaks, ask of these the hour; and wind and wave and star and bird and timepiece will answer you: "It is the hour to be drunk! Lest you be the martyred slave of Time, intoxicate yourself, be drunk without cease! With wine, with poetry, with virtue, or with what you will."
The Gifts of the Moon
The Moon, who is caprice itself, looked in at the window as you slept
in your cradle, and said to herself: "I am well pleased with this child."
And she softly descended her stairway of clouds and passed through the window-pane without noise. She bent over you with the supple tenderness of a mother and laid her colors upon your face. So your eyes have remained green and your cheeks pale. From contemplation of your visitor your eyes are so strangely wide; and she so tenderly wounded you upon the breast
that you have ever kept a certain readiness to tears.
In her joy, the Moon filled your chamber with a phosphorescent air, a luminous poison; and this living radiance thought, "You shall be for ever under the influence of my kiss. You shall love all that loves me
and that I love: clouds, and silence, and night; the vast green sea; the unformed and multitudinous waters; the place where you are not; the lover you will never know; monstrous flowers, and perfumes that bring madness;
cats that stretch themselves swooning upon the piano and lament with sweet, hoarse voices.
"And you shall be loved of my lovers, courted of my courtesans. You shall be the Queen of men with green eyes, whose breasts also have I wounded in my nocturnal caress: men that love the sea, the immense green ungovernable sea; the unformed and multitudinous waters; the place where they are not; the woman they will never know; sinister flowers that seem
to bear the incense of some unknown religion; perfumes that trouble the will; and all savage and voluptuous animals, images of their own folly."
And that is why I am couched at your feet, O spoiled child, beloved, accursed, seeking in you the reflection of that august divinity, that prophetic godmother, that poisonous nurse of all lunatics.
Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
adapted translations by James Huneker (1919)
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Farm's Form
The cow chews her cud
the sow soughs at the trough
the kid cavorts
the cat crouches on her haunches
and crunches catbirds against the fence
the horse in his harness
harrows long rows
the farmhand on his Harley
raises dollops of dirt
the brussel sprouts sprout
the dungheap heats up
the farmer cools down
the farm's form is
parallelepipedical
the chimney's cylindrical
and the backside of the milkmaid is
spherical
Forgotten Garden
The scented space between beds
of forget-me-nots and meadowsweet
vervain and tansy and marguerites
extends to the shelter of the tool-shed
The bare space between rows
of lettuce and leeks between the shoots
of young beans and the tops of celery-root
extends to the shelter of the limetree's shadow
The rough space between clumps
of burdock and nettles of asparagus
gone to seed choked with crab grass
extends to the shelter of the rubbish dump
In this place compact and safe
one can lead a hidden life
time is an eraser
and all's effaced by space
Sixty-four Years
A pewter brooch lies stained and rusting
in the road
the little girl who dropped it there
has now attained her eightieth year
she's not thinking of her pewter brooch
she's only thinking of the greens she'll cut
for her rabbits in their hutch
every day she's walking on the
pewter brooch
forgotten now for
sixty-four years.
trans. Teo Savory
MIRACLES REAL MIRACLES
Nice old priest!
After he'd left us we saw him fly over the lake, just like a bat, his thoughts absorbing him, not even understanding that this flight was a miracle. His cassock, the hem of his cassock is wet! That amazes him.
trans. Armand Schwerner
Annie
On the shores of Texas
Between Mobile and Galveston there is
A great garden filled with roses
There is also a villa
Which is one huge rose
A woman passes often
In the garden alone
And when I pace the road edged with lime trees
Our eyes meet
As she is Mennonite
Her rose trees and her garments have no buttons
My jacket's missing two
That lady and I observe almost the same rite.
The Lady
Knock knock
He has shut the door
The garden lilies are faded
Who is that corpse they're carrying off
You were just knocking at his door
And trot trot
Trot little mouse
Clotilde
Anemones and buttercups
Bloom in that garden
Where grief slumbers
Between love and disdain
Our shades too wander there
Until the night dispel them
And the sun vanish
That made them somber
Gods of spring water
Unbond their streaming hair
Pass for you must follow
That fair shadow you desire
trans. Ann Hyde Greet
Life-Saving Medal
My nose long like a knife
and my eyes red from laughing
At night I gather the milk and the moon
and run without turning around
f the trees are afraid behind me
I don't give a damn
How beautiful: indifference at midnight
Where are these people going
pride of the cities
village fiddlers
the crowd dances up a storm
and me just this anonymous passer-by
or somebody else whose name I forgot
trans. Rosemarie Waldrop
Georgia
I do not sleep Georgia
I hurl spears in the night Georgia
I am waiting Georgia
I am thinking Georgia
The fire is like snow Georgia
The night is my neighbor Georgia
I hear each and every noise Georgia
I see the smoke that rises and wisps Georgia
I walk like a wolf in the shadows Georgia
I am running here is a suburban street Georgia
Here is a city that is the same
and I've never seen it before Georgia
I hurry on and this is the wind Georgia
and cold and silence and fear Georgia
I escape Georgia
I am running Georgia
the clouds are low they will fall Georgia
I open my arms Georgia
I do not close my eyes Georgia
I call Georgia
I cry Georgia
I am calling Georgia
I call you Georgia
Would you come again Georgia
Soon Georgia
Georgia Georgia Georgia
Georgia
I do not sleep Georgia
I am waiting for you
Georgia
trans. Paul Auster
Horizon
The whole town has come into my room
the trees have disappeared
and evening clings to my fingers
The houses are turning into ocean liners
the sound of the sea has just reached me up here
In two days we'll arrive in the Congo
I've passed the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn
I know there are innumerable hills
Notre-Dame hides the Gaurisankar and the
Northern Lights
night falls drop by drop
I wait for hours
Give me that lemonade and a last cigarette
I'm going back to Paris
trans. Rosemarie Waldrop
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