Poetspace

Chanson d’automne

Les sanglots longs
Des violins
De l’automne
Blessent mon coeur
D’une langueur
Monotone.

Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
Sonne l’heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
Et je pleure

Et je m’en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m’emporte
Deça, delà,
Pareil à la
Feuille morte.

by Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)

Song of Autumn

The long sobs
Of violins
Of autumn
Wound my heart
With a languor
Monotone.

All suffocating
And wan, when
The hour strikes
I recall
The old days
And I weep

And I leave
With the ill wind
Which blows me
Here and there
Just like the
Dead leaf.

by Paul Verlaine (1844-1896), translated by Mary Folliet, July 2007

Tapenade

Tapenade
I seldom eat,
but when I do,
it is a treat.

There are many foods
that we like
that on occasion
are just right.

Little nibbles, radishes,
salmon roe, a celery stick,
ginger biscuits, raspberries,
at certain times
they’re just the trick.

For some there is a richer fare:
in great variety there are
foie gras, oysters, truffles even,
pheasant paté, caviar.

I’ve tried this time, and very hard,
not to mention, not to think
of those who can’t afford a crust.
I often cannot sleep a wink,
suppressing conscience is a must. I’m not too good at stopping thought
and banning misery from my mind;
the guilt grows in direct proportion
to how well I’ve lunched or dined. But, no! This time I’ll not give way
in spite of Rwanda, Kosovo.
I’ll imitate those others who
to be quite frank, don’t want to know. So here I am with tapenade,
olive paté and quite delightful,
to be followed of course by something better
and refusal to think of what is frightful.by John Calder, Terminus Nord 11/4/99

Jet Lag

The spirits sag.
If I had a tail
it wouldn’t wag.
No energy
to unpack my bag,
can’t sleep ‘though tired:
it’s jet lag.

I must concentrate
to read my letters.
It is my fate
to be in fetters
to bills, demands
and things to write;
no magic wands
to put things right.

Differently I’ll see
things tomorrow.
I’ll be more me
in lesser sorrow.
I’ll know I’ve won
when jet lag’s gone.

by John Calder

Tristesse de la lune

Ce soir, la lune rêve avec plus de paresse ;
Ainsi qu’une beauté, sur de nombreux coussins,
Qui d’une main distraite et légère caresse
Avant de s’endormir le contour de ses seins. Sur le dos satiné des molles avalanches,
Mourante, elle se livre aux longues pâmoisons,
Et promène ses yeux sur les visions blanches
Qui montent dans l’azur comme des floraisons.Quand parfois sur ce globe, en sa langueur oisive,
Elle laisse filer une larme furtive,
Un poète pieux, ennemi du sommeil,Dans le creux de sa main prend cette larme pâle,
Aux reflets, irisés comme un fragment d’opale,
Et la met dans son cœur loin des yeux du soleil.by Charles Baudelaire (1844-1896)

Sorrows of the Moon

Tonight the moon more lazily dreams;
Like a beauty on many cushions,
Who with a discreet and light hand caresses
Before falling asleep the contour of her breasts. On the satin back of soft avalanches,
Dying, she surrenders to long swoons,
And wanders her eye toward white visions
Which climb in the blue like blossoms.When sometimes on this globe, in her idle languor,
She lets flow a furtive tear,
A pious poet, enemy of sleep,In the palm of his hand takes this pale tear,
Of rainbow reflections like an opal fragment,
And places it in his heart far from the sun’s gaze. by Charles Baudelaire (1844-1896), translated by Mary Folliet, 2007

Winter in the City

This frigid Sunday New York mornsmoke stacks emit speeding cloudswafting up & away into the pale skywhite writing which dissipatesdissolving vaporous breathwinter thoughts thrust upfrom high rise dwellers’ dreamssequestered in overheated homesalienated from both inner and outer weatherof début-de-siècle discontent.

What pleasures and comforts remainrequire valiant effort to vanquishseasonal inertia & ennuiwhile liberation beckons and travel—exotic escape fantasiesfar from routines of duty and selfadventure in a warm world of abandonseascapes of laguorous beachesbold sun, bright strides towardone pristine horizon of joy…

In harmony with the sighing smoke stacks across the cold city beyond my windowI, too, sigh, longing to dissipate:by memory & revery compelledinto contemplation of then and whenlove & loss across the dying decadesredeemed by fleet moments of blissin consciousness frozen nowice floes awaiting fire musicalong the dream river of transcend-dance.

Mary Folliet (revised Paris, Nov. 2007)

Schools as Mental Institutions

The world of schools can be seen as mental institutions with teachers cast (unwillingly perhaps) as therapists. This world is not much different in essence in the United States from schooling in Europe. Certainly the crisis experienced by the teacher caught between a school system determined to process the child as a unit and the parents determined to develop the child (from without) into a product is nearly identical. For in this situation, this same teacher must deal as a human being with the student, another human being, in a way which satisfies the teacher, the parents, and the school system.

by Jim Haynes

A Thorny Issue

We can complain
because
the rose bushes
have thorns,
or rejoice because
the thorn bushes
have roses.
—Graffitti found in a women’s toilet

I repeat myself: Everything is! Everything is itself. It is in itself neither good nor bad. It is your perception of it which gives it value. A rose bush is a rose bush is a rose bush. If you think/feel it is good for you, it follows that you might think it is also good for everyone else, that everyone will think/feel the same as you.

But it isn’t necessarily so…

by Jim Haynes, Everything Is, Paris.