The Penguin Book of French Poetry

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The Penguin Book of French Poetry Page 57

by Various


  the frothing city dense with proud calls and lights / boils over the stewpan of its eyelids / its tears flow away in streams of abject populations / over the sterile plain towards the sleek flesh and lava / of the umbrageous mountains the apocalyptic temptations

  perdu dans la géographie d’un souvenir et d’une obscure rose

  je rôde dans les rues étroites autour de toi

  tandis que toi aussi tu rôdes dans d’autres rues plus grandes

  autour de quelque chose

  lost in the geography of a memory and of a mysterious rose / I prowl the narrow streets around you / while you too you prowl other greater streets / around something

  Philippe Soupault

  (1897– )

  Soupault was a founder of Surrealism, his name permanently associated with that of Breton through their collaboration on Littérature and their co-authorship of Les Champs magnétiques. He left the group in 1927 in disapproval of their growing alliance with Marxist orthodoxy, and his subsequent literary career has ranged through novels, translation, criticism and essays. But he was an important figure in the movement’s early years, perpetuating within it the influence of Apollinaire. His response to the world of images, particularly the urban landscape, is motivated by emotion rather than a surrender to the unconscious, once he has moved on from the initial period of feverish experimentation.

  Major poetic works: Aquarium 1917, Rose des vents 1920, Westwego 1922, Georgia 1926, Sang Joie Tempête and Etapes de l’Enfer 1934, Ode à Londres bombardée 1944, l’Arme secret 1946, Chansons du jour et de la nuit 1949, etc.

  Dimanche

  L’avion tisse les fils télégraphiques

  et la source chante la même chanson

  Au rendez-vous des cochers l’apéritif est orangé

  mais les mécaniciens des locomotives ont les yeux blancs

  la dame a perdu son sourire dans les bois

  Sunday

  The aeroplane weaves the telegraph wires / and the spring sings the same song At the cabmen’s local the aperitif is orange / but the engine-drivers have white eyes / the lady has lost her smile in the woods

  La grande Mélancolie d’une avenue

  à G. di Chirico

  Au bout du monde

  C’est la main

  Hors concours

  ou le gant

  la tour

  le train passe

  c’est un nuage

  DEMENAGEMENTS POUR TOUS PAYS

  à l’entresol

  cinq heures

  le vent part

  En voiture

  The Great Melancholia of an Avenue

  for G. di Chirico

  To the end of the world This is the hand Without rival / or the glove / the tower / the train passes / this is a cloud / REMOVALS TO ALL COUNTRIES / on the mezzanine / five o’clock / the wind sets off In a car

  Say it with Music

  Les bracelets d’or et les drapeaux

  les locomotives les bateaux

  et le vent salubre et les nuages

  je les abandonne simplement

  mon cœur est trop petit

  ou trop grand

  et ma vie est courte

  je ne sais quand viendra ma mort exactement

  mais je vieillis

  je descends les marches quotidiennes

  en laissant une prière s’échapper de mes lèvres

  A chaque étage est-ce un ami qui m’attend

  est-ce un voleur

  est-ce moi

  je ne sais plus voir dans le ciel

  qu’une seule étoile ou qu’un seul nuage

  selon ma tristesse ou ma joie

  je ne sais plus baisser la tête

  est-elle trop lourde

  Dans mes mains je ne sais pas non plus

  si je tiens des bulles de savon ou des boulets de canon

  Say it with Music

  The golden bracelets and the flags / the locomotives the ships / and the bracing wind and the clouds / I abandon them simply / my heart is too small / or too big / and my life is brief / I do not know exactly when my death will come / but I am growing old / I go down the daily steps / letting a prayer steal from my lips On every floor is it a friend waiting for me / is it a thief / is it me / I can see nothing more in the sky / but a single star or a single cloud / according to my sadness or my joy / I can no longer bow my head / is it too heavy Nor do I know / if I am holding soap bubbles or cannon-balls in my hands / I am walking / I am growing old / but my red blood my precious red blood / courses through my veins/ driving before it the memories of the present / but my thirst is too great / I stop once more and I await / the light Paradise paradise paradise

  je marche

  je vieillis

  mais mon sang rouge mon cher sang rouge

  parcourt mes veines

  en chassant devant lui les souvenirs du présent

  mais ma soif est trop grande

  je m’arrête encore et j’attends

  la lumière

  Paradis paradis paradis

  Stumbling

  Quel est ce grand pays

  quelle est cette nuit

  qu’il regarde en marchant

  autour de lui

  autour du monde

  où il est né

  Les pays sont des secondes

  les secondes de l’espace

  où il est né

  Les doigts couverts d’étoiles

  et chaussé de courage

  il s’en va

  Rien ne finit pour lui

  Demain est une ville

  plus belle plus rouge que les autres

  où le départ est une arrivée

  et le repos un tombeau

  La ligne d’horizon

  brille

  comme un barreau d’acier

  Stumbling

  What is this great land / what is this night / at which he gazes as he walks / around him / around the world / where he was born Countries are seconds / the seconds of space / where he was born With his fingers clothed in stars / and his feet shod with courage / he goes on his way Nothing ends for him Tomorrow is a city / more lovely more red than the others / where departure is an arrival / and repose a tomb The line of the horizon / shines / like a steel bar / like a thread that must be cut / in order not to rest / ever Knives are made for cutting / guns for killing / eyes for looking / man for walking / and the earth is round / round / round / like the head / and like desire There are very pretty things / flowers / trees / lace / to say nothing of insects But we know all that / we have already seen it / and have had enough of it Over there we don’t know To hold a stick in the right hand / and nothing in the left hand / but a little fresh air / and sometimes a cigarette / in the heart

  comme un fil qu’il faut couper

  pour ne pas se reposer

  jamais

  Les couteaux sont faits pour trancher

  les fusils pour tuer

  les yeux pour regarder

  l’homme pour marcher

  et la terre est ronde

  ronde

  ronde

  comme la tête

  et comme le désir

  Il y a de bien jolies choses

  les fleurs

  les arbres

  les dentelles

  sans parler des insectes

  Mais tout cela on le connaît

  on l’a déjà vu

  et on en a assez

  Là-bas on ne sait pas

  Tenir dans sa main droite une canne

  et rien dans sa main gauche

  qu’un peu d’air frais

  et quelquefois une cigarette

  dans son cœur

  le désir qui est une cloche

  Et moi je suis là

  j’écoute j’attends

  un téléphone un encrier du papier

  j’écoute j’attends j’obéis

  Le soleil chaque jour tombe

  dans le silence

  je vieillis lentement sans le savoir

  un
paysage me suffit

  j’écoute et j’obéis

  je dis un mot un bateau part

  un chiffre un train s’éloigne

  Cela n’a pas d’importance

  puisqu’un train reviendra

  demain

  et que déjà le grand sémaphore

  fait un signe

  et m’annonce l’arrivée

  d’un autre vapeur

  j’entends la mer au bout d’un fil

  et la voix d’un ami

  à des kilomètres de distance

  Mais Lui

  je suis l’ami de l’air

  et des grands fleuves blancs

  / desire which is a bell And me there I am / I listen I wait / a telephone an inkpot paper / I listen I wait I obey The sun falls each day / into silence / I am growing old slowly without knowing / a landscape is enough for me / I listen and I obey / I say a word a boat departs / a figure a train moves off That is of no importance / since a train will come back / tomorrow / and since already the great semaphore / signals / and announces to me the arrival / of another steamship / I hear the sea on the end of a wire / and the voice of a friend / kilometres away But Him / I am the friend of the air / and of the great white rivers

  l’ami du sang

  et de la terre

  je les connais et je les touche

  je peux les tenir dans mes mains

  Il n’y a qu’à partir

  un soir un matin

  Il n’y a que le premier pas

  qui soit un peu pénible

  un peu lourd

  Il n’y a que le ciel

  que le vent

  Il n’y a que mon cœur

  et tout m’attend

  Il va

  une fleur à la boutonnière

  et fait des signes de la main

  Il dit au revoir au revoir

  mais il ment

  Il ne reviendra jamais

  / the friend of blood / and of the earth / I know them and I touch them / I can hold them in my hands It’s just a matter of leaving / one evening one morning Just a matter of the first step / that’s a little painful / a little heavy Just a matter of the sky / of the wind Just a matter of my heart / and all awaits me He goes on / with a flower in his buttonhole / and signals with his hand He says see you again see you again / but he is lying He will never come back

  Paul Eluard (1895–1952)

  A supremely lyrical and humanitarian poet, Paul Eluard (real name Grindel) did much to build the bridge between Surrealism and the general reading public. In his vision there is a communicative generosity and an absence of aggressive or élitist hermeticism; there is an unparadoxical harmony between the surreal and the real, and indeed a sense that the one is organically within the other; and there is a warm spontaneity and a joyful idealism that make him one of the finest love-poets of the twentieth century. Born in an industrial suburb of Paris, he also maintained contact with the cultural and political life of ordinary people, and a commitment to poetry as something to be shared by all, part of a drive towards a new social order founded on and animated by love. His purpose was to awaken the poet within every human being.

  The first great love in his life was for Gala (Helena Dmitrievna Diakonova). He met her at a Swiss sanatorium after a serious illness in 1912, and married her in 1917. She shared the Surrealist experience with Eluard in the 1920s, but left him in 1929 to embark on a long, extraordinary and much-documented relationship with the painter Salvador Dali. Eluard found a new love, Nusch (Maria Benz), and with her his poetry became more concrete, less startling and dreamlike though still exhilarating, a celebration of the couple as the principle of a loving and creative society. She died in 1946, but after a period of extreme depression he was renewed by a third loving relationship in his final months, with Dominique Lemor.

  He had been a member of the Surrealist movement almost from the start, finding in its exaltation of our dreams a perfect theatre for his original perceptions of a reality not abolished but whose laws of time and space have been suspended, a world orchestrated by love into a hallucinatory symphony of images, a universe where man can be a god through the power of his desire. This vision is later incorporated into his more explicit anti-Fascist commitment and Resistance activity (as a co-ordinator of intellectual opposition to occupation and collaboration), and the principle of love within the couple expands into a belief in fulfilment through interdependence of all men, in the defeat of solitude and meaninglessness through human solidarity.

  Major volumes: Mourir de ne pas mourir 1924, Capitale de la douleur 1926, L’Amour, la Poésie 1929, La Vie immédiate 1932, Les Yeux fortiles 1936, Cours naturel 1938, Poésie et Vérité 1942, Au Rendez-vous allemand 1945, Poésie in-interrompue 1946, Le Dur Désir de durer 1946, Le Temps déborde 1947, Corps mémorable 1947, Le Phénix 1951.

  L’Amoureuse

  Elle est debout sur mes paupières

  Et ses cheveux sont dans les miens,

  Elle a la forme de mes mains,

  Elle a la couleur de mes yeux,

  Elle s’engloutit dans mon ombre

  Comme une pierre sur le ciel.

  Elle a toujours les yeux ouverts

  Et ne me laisse pas dormir.

  Ses rêves en pleine lumière

  Font s’évaporer les soleils,

  Me font rire, pleurer et rire,

  Parler sans avoir rien à dire.

  Woman in Love

  She is standing on my eyelids and her hair is in mine, she has the shape of my hands, she has the colour of my eyes, she is absorbed into my shadow like a stone against the sky.

  Her eyes are always open and she does not let me sleep. Her dreams in broad daylight make the suns evaporate, make me laugh, cry and laugh, and speak when I have nothing to say.

  La courbe de tes yeux…

  La courbe de tes yeux fait le tour de mon cœur

  Un rond de danse et de douceur,

  Auréole du temps, berceau nocturne et sÛr,

  Et si je ne sais plus tout ce que j’ai vécu

  C’est que tes yeux ne m’ont pas toujours vu.

  Feuilles de jour et mousse de rosée,

  Roseaux du vent, sourires parfumés,

  Ailes couvrant le monde de lumière

  Bateaux chargés du ciel et de la mer,

  Chasseurs des bruits et sources des couleurs,

  Parfums éclos d’une couvée d’aurores

  Qui gît toujours sur la paille des astres,

  Comme le jour dépend de l’innocence

  Le monde entier dépend de tes yeux purs

  Et tout mon sang coule dans leurs regards.

  The Curve of your eyes…

  The curve of your eyes moves in orbit round my heart A round of dance and gentleness, halo of time, safe nocturnal cradle, and if I know no longer all that I have lived it is because your eyes have not always seen me.

  Leaves of day and froth of dew, reeds of the wind, scented smiles, wings spreading a mantle of light over the world, boats laden with the sky and the sea, hunters of sounds and springs of colours,

  Perfumes hatched out from a brood of dawns that lies for ever on the straw of the stars, as daylight depends on innocence the whole world depends on your pure eyes and all my blood flows into their gaze.

  La terre est bleue…

  La terre est bleue comme une orange

  Jamais une erreur les mots ne mentent pas

  Ils ne vous donnent plus à chanter

  Au tour des baisers de s’entendre

  Les fous et les amours

  Elle sa bouche d’alliance

  Tous les secrets tous les sourires

  Et quels vêtements d’indulgence

  A la croire toute nue.

  Les guêpes fleurissent vert

  L’aube se passe autour du cou

  Un collier de fenêtres

  Des ailes couvrent les feuilles

  Tu as toutes les joies solaires

  Tout le soleil sur la terre

  Sur les
chemins de ta beauté.

  The Earth is blue…

  The earth is blue like an orange Never a mistake words do not lie They no longer give you cause to sing It’s up to kisses now to hear each other Madmen and loves She her weddingring mouth All the secrets all the smiles And what garments of indulgence You would think her quite naked.

  The wasps are flowering green The dawn puts on around its neck A necklace of windows Wings cover the leaves You have all the solar joys All the sunlight upon the earth On the roads of your beauty.

  Le front aux vitres…

  Le front aux vitres comme font les veilleurs de chagrin

  Ciel dont j’ai dépassé la nuit

  Plaines toutes petites dans mes mains ouvertes

  Dans leur double horizon inerte indifférent

  Le front aux vitres comme font les veilleurs de chagrin

  Je te cherche par delà l’attente

  Par delà moi-même

  Et je ne sais plus tant je t’aime

  Lequel de nous deux est absent.

  With my brow against the window panes…

  With my brow against the window panes like the night watchers of grief Sky whose darkness I have surpassed Plains very small in my open hands In their double horizon inert indifferent With my brow against the window panes like the night watchers of grief I seek you beyond expectation Beyond myself And I love you so much I know no longer Which of the two of us is absent.

  A perte de vue dans le sens de mon corps

  Tous les arbres toutes leurs branches toutes leurs feuilles

  L’herbe à la base les rochers et les maisons en masse

 

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