A keresés eredménye

Elsa

Is it enough that you appear ?
That look, (when) you tie again
Your hair, that touching gesture.
May I be reborn and recognize
A world inhabited by songs
Elsa1 my love my youth
 
Water (is) strong2 and sweet as a wine
Like in the sun of the windows
You give me the caress of being
You give me the thirst and the hunger
To live again and to know
Our story until the end
 
It's a miracle to be together
That the light on your cheek
That around you the wind is playing
Always if I see you I'm shaking
As at his first date
A young man who looks like me
 
For the first time your mouth
For the first time your voice
From a wing on top of the woods
The tree shudders to the stump
It's always the first time
When your dress casually touches me
 
My life in truth begins
The day I met you
You whose arms knew how to steer
His atrocious road to my dementia
And who showed me the land
That goodness alone sow
 
You came to the heart of the confusion
To chase bad fevers
And I flamed up like a juniper
At Christmas between your fingers
I was born really from your lip
My life is from you
 
Is it enough that you appear ?
That look, (when) you tie again
Your hair, that touching gesture.
May I be reborn and recognize
A world inhabited by songs
Elsa my love my youth
 

• 1. Elsa Triolet, the friend of Louis Aragon who wrote this poem.
• 2. 'Eau forte' also means 'etching'.

You won't come back from there

You won't come back from there, you who used to hit on girls,
young man whose naked heart I saw beating
as I ripped your shirt off. And you won't
come back either, you the old card player
 
whom a shell cut in two midriff.
And yet for once you had a smashing hand.
And you, the guy with tatoos, former Légionnaire,
you'll survive a long time without face nor eyes.
 
We head off God knows where to, it's like a nightmare.
We'll slide down the line of fire.
Somehow it doesn't look much of a game anymore.
The blokes up there are awaiting replacement.
 
The train of last glimmers rumbles in the distance.
The slumbering soldiers, shaken by the dance
let their foreheads sink and bend their necks.
It smells of tobacco, wool and sweat.
 
Looking at you, I can't help but see your fates.
Brides of the earth and grooms of pains.
The trench lamp paints you the colour of tears.
You feebly drag your condemned legs.
 
Already, the stone thinks of where your name will be written
Already, you're nothing but a golden word on our squares
Already, the memories of your love fades away
Already, you only exist because of your demise.
 
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Soul, does it remember?

Versions: #2
Soul, does it remember?
Soul, does it remember at the bottom of paradise
From Auteuil's station and trains of long ago
bringing you everyday, coming from the chapel?
So long ago already! Yet how I remember
 
after the first words of good morning and welcome
My old arm in yours we were leaving that Auteuil
And under the trees filled with a kind music
Our discussion was often metaphysical
 
O your strong arguments, your coalman faith
Not without some tendency, O so frank! to deny
But left so quickly at the first step of doubt!
And then we came back, more than slow, by road
A bit of the long way, at my place, at ours rather
to have lunch of hardly anything, lightly smoking quick and early
And hurry a long time a vague work
 
My poor child, your voice in the Bois de Boulogne!
 
All of my work is dedicated to Ms Z. G., who is the real counterpart of Beatrice Portinari for me.

Oh sad, sad was my soul.

Versions: #2
Oh sad, sad was my soul
Because, because of a woman
 
I did not console myself
Even though my heart has gone away
 
Even though my heart, even though my soul
Had fled far away from that woman
 
I did not console myself
Even though my heart has gone away
 
And my heart, my too sensitive heart
Said to my soul: Is it possible?
 
Is it possible? - was it -
This proud exile, this sad exile?
 
My soul said to my heart: Do I know
Myself what this trap wants from us
 
To be present although exiled
Even though gone so far
 
Oh sad, sad was my soul
Because, because of a woman
 
All of my work is dedicated to Ms Z. G., who is the real counterpart of Beatrice Portinari for me.

Solitude

I'm from a different country than you
A different neighborhood, a different solitude
Today I create side roads for myself
I'm not from where you live any more, I'm waiting for mutants
Biologically speaking, I content myself with the concept
That I have of biology—I piss, I ejaculate, I weep
It is of the utmost importance that we shape our ideas
As if they were manufactured objects
I'm willing to provide you with the molds
But.. solitude.. solitude..
 
Let me warn you, the molds are made of a novel texture
They were cast tomorrow morning
If today you don't feel the relative feeling of your duration
Then it's pointless to pass on to you, pointless for you to look before you, for before is behind
Nighttime is daytime
And.. solitude.. solitude..
 
It is of the utmost importance that laundromats
At the street corners
Be as imperturbable as green or red traffic lights
The detergent cops will show you the place
Where you're free to clean
What you think is your conscience
While being only a dependence of the neurological computer
You use as a brain
Yet.. solitude.. solitude..
 
Despair is a superior form of criticism
For the time being, we shall call it 'happiness'
The words you use no longer being 'words'
But a duct of sorts through which
Illiterates clear their consciences
But.. solitude.. solitude..
 
We shall touch on the Civil Code later
For now I'd like to codify the uncondifiable
I'd like to measure your danaidic democracies
I'd like to slip into absolute void and become the untold
The unsettled, the unblank by lack of clarity
Clarity is standing in my pants!
In my pants!
 

To a dead singer. A tribute to Edith Piaf

You had a bird's name1 and you sang like a flock of them,
like a huge cloud of birds that would have torn their throat bloody
screaming all sorts of things, even plain rubbish,
with such a gusto! You were a genius idiot.
You were a genius idiot.
 
You had a bird's name and the voice of Attila.
You where heard here and listened to from distant lands.
You were all together the 'little black beds ball'2,
a street Wagner, a sidewalk Bayreuth,
a sidewalk Bayreuth.
 
And there was a kind of blessing in your hands,
and you used it quite well to bless all these idiots,
these nice, emotional idiots that are called people
and, as they become an audience, they become smart as well.
Become smart as well.
 
It's not always the case, of course, even in Paris.
Shitty authors have to earn a living too.
You did manage to avoid these.
You could have sung tabloid headlines3 like a piece of Apollinaire.
like a piece of Apollinaire.
 
They couldn't replace you, though they tried hard.
Money can't come to terms with your shadow
under the miracle headlights and the arc lamps,
whatever Mr. might think, say or do.
Whatever Mr. Stark might do.
 
STOP!
STOP THE MUSIC!4
 

• 1. 'piaf' is slang for 'sparrow'
• 2. no idea what that refers to. Ferré could use pretty obscure references at times. Maybe some popular ball of the era fallen into oblivion?
• 3. 'France Soir' is an old and rather cheap newspaper
• 4. from of hers

This translation does not claim to be of any particular value.
Glad if you liked it, sorry if you didn't.
You can reuse it as you please.
Glad if it's for knowledge or understanding, sorry if it's just for money or fame.