and strikes against my brass carcass
where in the rust garret the moon devours
the barbarous bones
of cowardly prowling beasts of the lie
C’est le mot qui me soutient
et frappe sur ma carcasse de cuivre jaune
où la lune dévore dans la soupente de la rouille
les os barbares
des lâches bêtes rôdeuses du mensonge
Barbarity
of rudimentary language
and our faces beautiful as the true operative power
of negation
Barbare
du langage sommaire
et nos faces belles comme le vrai pouvoir opératoire
de la négation
Barbarity
of the dead circulating in the veins of the earth
who at times come to smash their heads against the walls of our ears
and the screams of revolt never heard
that turn in tune and musical tone
Barbare
des morts qui circulent dans les veines de la terre
et viennent se briser parfois la tête contre les murs de nos oreilles
et les cris de révolte jamais entendus
qui tournent à mesure et à timbres de musique
Barbarity
the singular article
barbarity the horned lizard
barbarity the white amphisbaena
barbarity I the spitting cobra
Barbare
l’article unique
barbare le tapaya
barbare l’amphisbène blanche
barbare moi le serpent cracheur
from my putrefying flesh awakening
suddenly a flying gecko
suddenly a fringed gecko
and I adhere so well to the very loci of strength
that to forget me you’ll have to
throw the hairy flesh of your chests to the dogs
qui de mes putréfiantes chairs me réveille
soudain gekko volant
soudain gekko frangé
et me colle si bien aux lieux mêmes de la force
qu’il vous faudra pour m’oublier
jeter aux chiens la chair velue de vos poitrines
Non-Vicious Circle
Cercle non vicieux
Thinking is too noisy
has too many hands grows too many cockchafers
Moreover I have never been wrong
men have never disappointed me they have gazes that transcend them
Nature is not complicated
Penser est trop bruyant
a trop de mains pousse trop de hannetons
Du reste je ne me suis jamais trompé
les hommes ne m’ont jamais déçu ils ont des regards qui les débordent
La nature n’est pas compliquée
All my assumptions are correct
All my implications fruitful
No circle is ever vicious
Hollow
It is just my knees that are knotty and that shall sink stone-like into the labor
of others and their sleep
Toutes mes suppositions sont justes
Toutes mes implications fructueuses
Aucun cercle n’est vicieux
Creux
Il n’y a que mes genoux de noueux et qui s’enfonceront pierreux dans le travail
des autres et leur sommeil
Different Horizon
Autre horizon
Night forked stigmata
night telegraphic bush planted in the ocean
for the scrupulous love-making of cetaceans
night enclosed
splendid muck heap
where with all its strength with all its wild beasts
the purple muscle of the monkshood of another sun prepares to spring
Nuit stigmate fourchu
nuit buisson télégraphique planté dans l’océan
pour minutieuses amours de cétacés
nuit fermée
pourrissoir splendide
où de toutes ses forces de tous ses fauves se ramasse
le muscle violet de l’aconit napel d’un autre soleil
Death at Dawn
Mort à l’aube
A fighter he blows on his brands
his face mismanaged by the night
from which the horn of his lips hissing serpents
ineptly projects a body tortured in oblivion
Lutteur il souffle sur des tisons
son visage mal géré par la nuit
d’où la trompe de ses lèvres siffleuses à serpents
imagine mal un corps torturé dans l’oubli
Tenebrous man inhabited by the will of the fire
when a rape of insects scatters through his hunger
when his feet diminish his toes into segments of naked worms
and only the brands of his eyes are truly ignited
Homme sombre qu’habite la volonté du feu
quand un viol d’insectes s’éparpille dans sa faim
quand ses pieds diminuent ses orteils en tronçons de vers nus
et que seuls les tisons de ses yeux ont bien pris
A thin brand is he who by all the veins of the blood
of his slender shell and in a forest that shall defy
the episcopal plot of laterites carries the leap of a bole
in a secret so transparent that no man believed it
Mince tison il est celui qui par toutes les veines du sang
de sa grêle coquille et parmi une forêt qui défiera
le complot d’évêques des latérites porte le saut d’un fût
dans un secret si clair qu’aucun homme ne l’a cru
Howling
À hurler
Hail birds who cleave and scatter the circle of herons
as well as the genuflexion of their resigned heads
in a sheath of white froth
Salut oiseaux qui fendez et dispersez le cercle des hérons
et la génuflexion de leur tête de résignation
dans une gaine de mousse blanche
Hail birds who with your beaks rip open the true belly of the swamp and the chieftain chest of the setting sun
Salut oiseaux qui ouvrez à coups de bec le ventre vrai du marais
et la poitrine du chef du couchant
Hail hoarse scream
resinous torch
where tracks of rain ticks
and white mice become blurred
Salut cri rauque
torche de résin
où se brouillent les pistes
des poux de pluie et les souris blanches
Howling mad I hail you with my howlings whiter than death
howling mad my howlings to shell the nuggets of virgin snow are diamonds more beautiful for cutting up into flag fringes the rust that seizes hold of your charms
of your weapons
Fou à hurler je vous salue de mes hurlements plus blancs que la mort
fou à hurler mes hurlements à décosser les pépites de neige vierge sont des diaments plus beaux à découper en franges de drapeau la rouille qui s’empare de vos charmes
de vos armes
My time shall come for me to hail
great vast
simple
where each word each gesture shall light up
on your face of a blond goat
grazing in the maddening vat of my hand
Mon temps viendra que je salue
grand large
simple
où chaque mot chaque geste éclairera
sur ton visage de chèvre blonde
broutant dans la cuve affolante de ma main
And there there
good leech
there the beginning of time
there the end of time
there the runnel oh fall oh demons oh reprieve
and the erect majesty of the original eye
Et là là
&nbs
p; bonne sangsue
là l’origine des temps
là la fin des temps
là le ruisseau ô chute ô démons ô recours
et la majesté droite de l’œil originel
The Light’s Judgment
Jugement de la lumière
Captivating the blood the muscles
devouring the eyes this muddle
loading truth onto routine bursts
a water jet of victorious sun
through which
justice shall be done
and all arrogance dismissed
Fascinant le sang les muscles
dévorant les yeux ce fouillis
chargeant de vérité les éclats routiniers
un jet d’eau de victorieux soleil
par lequel
justice sera faite
et toutes les morgues démises
The plates the flesh slide into the thickness of the neck of the waves
silences on the other hand have taken on a terrifying pressure
Les vaisselles les chairs glissent dans l’épaisseur du cou des vagues
les silences par contre ont acquis une pression formidable
Over the arc of a circle
in the public movement of shorelines
the flame
is solitary and splendid in its upright judgment
Sur un arc de cercle
dans les mouvements publics des rivages
la flamme
est seule et splendide dans son jugement intègre
LOST BODY
CORPS PERDU
The original edition of Corps perdu was published by Éditions Fragrance in June 1950. A limited edition art book of 219 copies signed by both the poet and the artist, it was sold exclusively to wealthy collectors. Picasso contributed thirty-two engravings to the richly illustrated volume of 127 pages with his “Tête de nègre” on the cover. George Braziller published the Picasso illustrations with Clayton Eshleman and Annette Smith’s translation of the 1976 revised text in Lost Body (1986). Césaire met Picasso through their mutual friends Michel Leiris and Wifredo Lam. Since both participated in the Wroclaw (Poland) conference in 1948 and the meeting of French intellectuals for peace in 1949, it has been assumed that their collaboration dates from this period (EAC1, 192). Lost Body must have been written very quickly after completion of Solar Throat Slashed. Apart from the poem “Longitude,” which originated as a fragment of a longer text in Tropiques in 1942, no previous state of the other nine poems has been found. In 1950, Césaire articulated a heroic Martinican and Caribbean vision of negritude that he revised a decade later for Cadastre (1961) in a pan-African perspective. Pierre Laforgue makes the point that the 1950 text is contemporaneous with the first edition of the Discourse on Colonialism, published the same year by a Communist party affiliate. “Both texts proclaim a triumphant negritude of which Césaire is the herald, defining himself in ‘Longitude’ as a ‘dynamite pilgrim’ and declaring ‘ah you will not keep me from speaking I who / profess to displease you’” (PTED, 482). Clayton Eshleman has observed that “the ten poems in Lost Body thematically interlock in a fugal manner—in fact, their unity of style and tonal similarity make them read like sections of a single ‘serial poem’. . . . Psychologically, in Lost Body Césaire is struggling with the erosion of his heroic, fiery, and phallic aspects, with the challenge of time, distance, and the instability of Eros, as well as with an anguished Saturnian suspicion that his condition cannot be explained by colonialism but is somehow a part of nature itself” (CLB, xii, xiii). It is paradoxical that this very readable collection remained inaccessible to the general public in its original form until publication of Césaire’s Poésie, Théâtre, Essais et Discours in 2014.
Nigger nigger nigger from the depths of the timeless sky. . .
Nègre nègre nègre depuis le fond du ciel immémorial…
Word
Mot
Among me
from myself
to myself
outside any constellation
clenched in my hands only
Parmi moi
de moi-même
à moi-même
hors toute constellation
en mes mains serré seulement
the rare hiccup of an ultimate raving spasm
my face lost your face distraught
fused together intimate confused
every glistening thing every lapping thing
between our bodies rocked by shipwreck
in the surge or the wind that the wave carries back
flesh
le rare hoquet d’un ultime spasme délirant
ma face perdue ta face éperdue
ensemble fondu intimes confondues
toute chose miroitante toute chose clapotante
entre nos corps balancés par naufrage
dans l’élan ou le vent que la vague rapporte
chair
backlit
as a sandbar
burst
keep vibrating word
I will have luck outside the labyrinth
à contre jour
en banc de sable
éclate
vibre mot
j’aurai chance hors du labyrinthe
longer wider keep vibrating
in tighter and tighter waves
in a lasso to catch me
in a rope to hang me
plus long plus large vibre
en ondes de plus en plus serrées
en lasso où me prendre
en corde où me pendre
in a rainbow
in a bow of rain
and let me be nailed by all the arrows
and their bitterest curare
to the beautiful center* pole of very cool stars
en arc-en-ciel
en ciel en arc
et que me clouent toutes les flèches
et leur curare le plus amer
au beau poteau-mitan de très fraîches étoiles
vibrate
vibrate you very essence of the dark
in a wing in a throat from so much perishing
the word nigger
emerged fully armed from the howling
of a venomous flower
vibre
vibre essence même de l’ombre
en aile en gosier c’est à force de périr
le mot nègre
sorti tout armé du hurlement
d’une fleur vénéneuse
the word nigger
all filthy with parasites
the word nigger
loaded with roaming bandits
with screaming mothers
with crying children
the word nigger
le mot nègre
tout pouacre de parasites
le mot nègre
tout plein de brigands qui rôdent
de mères qui crient
d’enfants qui pleurent
le mot nègre
a sizzling of flesh and horny matter
acrid
burning
the word nigger
like the sun bleeding from its claw onto the
sidewalk of clouds
un grésillement de chairs qui brûlent
âcre
et de corne
le mot nègre
comme le soleil qui saigne de la griffe sur le
trottoir des nuages
the word nigger
like the last laugh calved by innocence
between the tiger’s fangs
and as the word sun is a banging of bullets
and as the word night a ripping of taffeta
the word nigger
le mot nègre
comme le dernier rire vêlé de l’innocence
entre les crocs du tigre
et comme le mot soleil est un claquement de balles
et comme le mot nuit un taffetas qu’on déchire
le mot nègre
dense, right?
from the thunder of a summer
appropriated by
incredulous liberties
dru savez-vous
du tonnerre d’un été
que s’arrogent
des libertés incrédules
Presence
Présence
Crumbling of dungeons
salmi of paradise and prisons
great fish rusted keys that descend
without making rings
silence or distance from my mouth better than coupling
from my mouth to your mouth
Écroulement de donjons
salmis de paradis et de prisons
poissons grandes clefs rouillées qui descendent
sans faire de ronds
silence ou distance de ma bouche mieux qu’appariage
de ma bouche à ta bouche
freshness of a blond serpent
from now on the palm tree caught in your hair
swims to lift it entirely
as waist deep out of the shadow
the salty harbinger of a strong spring
fraîcheur d’un serpent blond
The Complete Poetry of Aimé Césaire Page 41