Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Chair vive (Living Chair)

being a translation of Pierre Reverdy's poem...



Lève-toi carcasse et marche
Would that levity's toys be only carcasses on the march

Rien de neuf sous le soleil jaune
Ringing just enough to suss our sun as jaundiced

Le der des der des louis d’or
A coinage falling jangling from a foreign pantaloon

La lumière qui se détache
A luminous key which detaches itself

sous les pellicules du temps
From the cell-like transparencies of time

La serrure du cœur qui éclate
A sister whose heart and key are equal

Un fil de soie
Un fil de plomb
Un fil de sang

A child of silk
A child of lead
A child of blood

Après ces vagues de silence
The waves which appraise the silence

Ces signes d’amour au crin noir
The loving signs which cringe in black

Le ciel plus lisse que ton œil
The lazy seal which lisps Dick Caton's lictortron

Le cou tordu d’orgueil
Exorcism's psyclopean owl

Ma vie dans la coulisse
My life dancing in cool lisps

D’où je vois onduler les moissons de la mort
A voice which must only moisten a death

Toutes ces mains avides qui pétrissent des boules de fumée
For the rustic manes which gambol about the bolus of fumes

Plus lourdes que les piliers de l’univers
For the positive icon which emblazons its pilloried pillar

Têtes vides
Life's head

Cœurs nus
As a heart hung in a noose

Mains parfumées
Speaks mainly of perfume

Tentacules des singes qui visent les nuées
For its tentacles of singed nudes equate to visions

Dans les rides de ces grimaces
Seas of dancers ridden into seas of grimace

Une ligne droite se tend
Or the adroit and tender lines

Un nerf se tord
Which create a weird foam

La mer repue
The Oedipal eye

L’amour
Loving all lameness in grace as dysjointing

L’amer sourire de la mort
The quiet sister which hides in the dark

2 comments:

  1. I really wonder about this translation and hope that no one uses this to help understand the poem. Just so the reader knows, this translation is not at all a translation of the poem but it must be an imagined version of the piece created by the blog's author.

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  2. Oh sorry.. it is what is called an homophonic translation.. and is meant only for fun and creativity.. look it up.. theyve been popular among poets for many years..

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Irrony Observes The Earthing.