swashing of conches, the chatter of glasses in bars —
the night sky blossoming with aromatic stars,
and more, moreover, sways like a basket let down
opposite the slope, against our face, and we drown
in the blue abyss blossoming below the town.
Poles Apart (Métropolitain)
From the Ossianic Ocean to the Straits of Indigo,
on rose and orange sands washed by the Sky of Vino,
crystal boulevards have sprung up, newly occupied by
poor families who make do from market stalls: The City.
Tumbling from the Wastes of Bitumen down the slippery slopes
where coils of horrible fog stretch out in monstrous ropes
across the sky that billows, rolls, descends, recedes, in all
the sinister black smoke the oceanic pall
can body forth, are helmets, cartwheels, bobbing bottles,
scuttled submarines and horses’ rumps: The Battle.
Lift your head: that arched wooden bridge; those last
market gardens of Samaria; those masks whipped by the blast
and reddened by the lantern on a freezing night;
that girl gone down the river in her gaudy dress, a water-sprite;
those luminous skulls among the rows of peas,
and all the other mad phantasmagoria: The Rural Scene.
Those roads bordered by railings and walls that barely contain
their budding groves, and frightful flowers you might name
‘Love’ and ‘Dove’, damask roses languishing in boredom,
properties of faery aristocracies, and foreign kingdoms,
still receivers of the ancient music howsoever.
And there are inns already that are closed forever.
There are princesses; and if by now you’re not completely high,
there’s the study of the stars: The Sky.
That morning when, with Her, you struggled under those blows
of snow, those green lips, those blocks of ice, those
black banners, and blue beams of gleaming lunar length,
those purple perfumes of the polar sun: Your Strength.
Phases of the Moon (Phrases)
1
When the world has dwindled to a single dark wood
gawped at by these four kindred eyes — to where we stood
on a beach, two loyal children — to the musical house
we loved to delve in — I’ll find you, little mouse.
Should there be but one solitary old man, calm
and bearded in his luxury — I’ll kneel before you, little ma’am.
Should I realize every one of your memories,
should I be she who knows the muzzle — I’ll suffocate you, little tease.
2
When we are strong as strong, who backs down? When gay as gay,
who falls about with laughter? When nasty, nasty, what can they say?
Put on your finery, and dance, and laugh. Reap and sow.
I never could throw love out the window.
3
Beggar-girl, monstrous child, my counterpart! It’s all the same
to you, these miserable women on the game,
their wiles my quandary. O wrap me to you with that voice
of yours, impossible voice! That flatters my despair, my vice.
4
Overcast morning in July. A taste of ashes
drifts through the sweaty air. A smell of wood sleazes
on the hearth. Fetid flowers. Chaos on the boulevards,
canal mist dank on the fields. Why not incense and peignoirs?
5
I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple, garlands
from window to window; gold chains from star to star, and I dance.
6
The mountain pool smokes night and day.
What witch will loom against the pallid sunset? What spray
7
While public funds are squandered by the great and good and proud,
a bell of rose-coloured fire tolls in the clouds.
8
Reviving a pleasant taste of India ink, a black
powder drizzles on my vigil. I consult the almanac,
turn down the gaslight, throw myself onto the bed.
And, turning towards the shadows of a riverbed,
I see you, O my lovely girls, my queens, emerge
in dripping radiance to drag me from the verge!
Fée (Fairy)
All for Helen, ornamental oozing saps collogued
in virgin shadows: silent, unmoved, glittering the astral road.
Summer’s torrid heat was given over to the mute birds,
inevitable languor to an expensive funeral barge
through winding estuaries of loves long dead;
and perfumes like an evanescent freshet overlaid
the chorus of the Timberwomen to the rumble
of the torrent through the ruined wood, from the cowbells
in the valleys echoing the long cries of the steppes;
all for Helen, bushy furs and shadows quivered, bee-skeps
oozed, the poor shivered, shimmering the celestial legends.
And her eyes, her dancing far superior to a thousand
precious dazzles coldly flowing in, or to the pleasure
of that unique décor, that one and only hour.
Demotic Nocturne (Nocturne vulgaire)
A breath cleaves operatic breaches in the walls
of shimmery, dilapidated marble halls,
disperses all the boundaries of hearth and home,
and blurs the casement windows with a faery foam.
One foot planted on a gargoyle, shimmying along
the grapevine, I fell into this coach whose chaise longue
interior bespoke antique, as did the panes
of bull’s-eye glass, the panels boasting marbled veins.
Hearse of my sleep, my bucolic folly caravan veers on
the verge of the overgrown high road to Bygone.
And swirling in a window-bubble north-north-west
I saw pale lunar figures, leaves, and breasts.
Deep bottle blue and verdigris invade the scene,
unhitch the horses teetering along the scree.
This is where you whistle up the storm of Sodom,
vicious beasts, and armies wreaking drunken bedlam.
Postilion and dream animals, will they reprise
themselves below the suffocating forest trees,
to plunge me headlong in the fount of silk? And send
us lashed across these lapping waters I have penned,
across a floor awash with shattered glass and drink
to roll before the barking mastiffs black as ink,
whose jaws dispense a cataract of awful foam …
a breath disperses all the boundaries of home.
La Bête (Bottom)
Reality being too prickly for my big personality,
I found myself nonetheless chez Milady,
as a great big grey-blue bird soaring to the ceiling
cornice, trailing my wings through the shades of evening.
I became, at the foot of the four-poster bed
which hid her adorable jewellery, her golden braid,
her physical masterworks, a great big bear
with violet gums, fur grizzled with grief, my eyes on the pair
of silver and crystal consoles. All became shadow
and glowing aquarium. Come morning, I rushed out to go —
brave dawn of June — braying on to the fields,
brandishing my great big donkey grievance, till the well-heeled
Sabine suburban housewives from beyond the railway track
Lives (Vies)
1
O the enormous a
venues of the Holy Land,
the terraces of the Temple! The desert sand!
What has become of him, the Brahman who explained
the Book of Proverbs to me as if preordained?
And even the old women of that time and place,
I see them still! And I remember azure space,
the silver hours and sunlit rivers, my companion’s
hand on my shoulder, as on the peppery plains
we caressed each other. Thundering about my thought,
a flight of scarlet pigeons. Exiled, I had wrought
a stage on which to realize all the masterpieces
of dramatic literature from West to East.
I could show you untold riches. I could tell
tales of treasures found by you. I’d know the sequel.
My wisdom? Scorned as chaos. What’s my nothingness
to the wonders that await you, and will leave you speechless?
2
I am an inventor such as never yet was seen;
moreover, a musician of the Hippocrene
who has discovered something like the clef of love.
At present, as a country gentleman, I live
off my meagre lands and modest piece of sky,
trying to rejuvenate the memory
of my beggar childhood, my apprenticeship,
arriving in my clogs, and then the slip on slip
of half a dozen widowhoods, the raucous nights
when, sober-headed as I was, I could not rise
to the occasion of my comrades’ capriccioso.
Though I don’t regret my divine former ego:
the sober air of this bleak country keeps me well
supplied with scepticism. But since I’m compelled
to say that scepticism doesn’t pay the bills,
and I’m devoted to a newer set of ills,
watch out! For very soon now I expect to be
a lunatic of high and dangerous degree!
3
In a loft in which they locked me at the age
of twelve, I came to know the world. I was a page
in La Comédie Humaine. In a cellar I learned
History. In a northern city, at a nocturne
revel, the Old Masters’ mistresses were brought
to me. In a gloomy Paris arcade I was taught
Astronomy. And in a most superior abode
surrounded by the entire Orient below,
I worked prodigiously until my oeuvre was complete,
then spent my time there in illustrious retreat.
I’ve brewed my blood. Paid all my dues. I really do come
from beyond the tomb. Commissions? That I’ve done.
INTERLUDE
Tale (Conte)
A prince was not happy with himself because until then he had put all his energies into perfecting vulgar liberalities. He foresaw astounding revolutions of love, and suspected his wives could do better than complaisance ornamented by celestial luxury. He wished to see the truth, the hour of essential desire and satisfaction. Aberration of piety or not, that was what he wished for. He had a tolerable amount of worldly power at his disposal.
All the women who had known him were put to death: what plunder in the Garden of Beauty! Under the sabre’s edge, they gave him their blessing. He did not order any new ones. Women reappeared.
He put to death all who followed him on hunting or drinking expeditions. Everyone followed him.
He entertained himself in slitting the throats of rare beasts. He set palaces in flames. He would pounce on his people and hack them to pieces. Still the hoi polloi, the golden roofs, the splendid animals remained.
Can one find bliss through mass destruction, rejuvenation through cruelty? There was not so much as a murmur from the masses. No one ventured an opinion.
One evening he was haughtily galloping. A Genie appeared, a being of ineffable, emphatic beauty. His countenance and bearing displayed the promise of a manifold and complex love! Nay, of inexpressible and unendurable felicity! It is probable that the Prince and the Genie annihilated each other in perfect health. How could they not help but die of it? So they died together.
But the Prince passed away in his palace, at a normal age. The Prince was the Genie. The Genie was the Prince.
Deep music falls short of our desire.
ACT TWO
Invisible Cities (Les Ponts)
Skies a crystal grey. Bizarre design of bridges, some straight,
some humpbacked, others looping down oblique and angulate,
a design repeated in the other, lighted circuits
of the grand canal, but all so long and delicate
that the docks, overloaded with domes, are lowered
and diminished. A few of the said bridges are still covered
with hovels. Others support poles, frail parapets and tropes.
Minor chords cross each other and fade away; ropes
ascend from the embankments. You can make out a red coat,
perhaps other costumes; musical instruments you may note.
Are these popular tunes, snatches of seigneurial spree,
fragments of public anthems? Wide as an arm of the sea,
the water is grey and blue. A white ray
falling from the outer sky annihilates this comedy.
On the Road (Enfance)
1
Black-eyed idol, shocked with yellow hair, of no known clan
or ancestry, yet nobler than fable, Mexican
crossed with Flemish; her domain the arrogant azure
and forty shades of greenery which court the shore
called into being by the shipless waves which speak
its place names of barbaric Slavic, Celtic, Greek.
At the brink of the forest — dream flowers tingle, flash
and flare — the girl with orange lips, her knees sashed
by the glassy flood that gushes from the meadows,
body bare but shimmering and clothed by flora, rainbow,
sea and shadow. Ladies stroll on terraces
adjacent to the sea. There are girls and giantesses,
tall black women proud amid the mossy verdigris,
jewels standing in the fat soil of the seaside groves
and thawing flowerbeds. Young mums the images
of big sisters with their eyes full of pilgrimages;
sultanas, swanky princesses in haughty haute couture
and little foreign girls, and girls in melancholic sweet amour.
Quel ennui, the hours of murmuring, ‘Ma chérie,
I know just how you feel … He will come round, you’ll see.’
2
That’s her, the little dead girl, behind the bed of roses.
Mamma, passed away, passes down the steps. To the roses.
Cousin’s carriage squeaks on the sand. The sun
sets on little brother (he’s in India!) in the red carnation
meadow. And the old men buried, for their part,
bolt upright in the wallflower-covered rampart.
A swarm of golden leaves surrounds the general’s house.
You take the red road to the empty inn. We’re in the South.
The chateau’s up for sale, the shutters hanging loose.
The curate has the keys to the church: it’s no longer in use.
Around the park the keepers’ cottages lie forlorn,
the fences overgrown with rustling, sky-scraping thorn.
In any case there’s nothing to be seen beyond the trees.
The meadows climb to hamlets without anvil or cock.
The sluice gate lies open. O Calvaries
and windmills of the wilderness, the isles of haycock.
3
Magic flowers buzzed. Hill slopes rocked him to and fro.
Fabulously elegant monsters performed a mambo.
Clouds fattening and floating tier upon tier
over the high seas gathered from an eternity of t
ears.
4
In the woods there is a bird. His song stops you. You blush.
There is a clock that never strikes. You hear the hush.
There is a pothole in which white things seethe around.
There is a lake that goes up, and a steeple that goes down.
There is a little carriage in the copse, abandoned
or it’s running away down the road beribboned.