Bird Cage — Cage d'Oiseau / Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau

  
Bird Cage

I am a bird cage
A bone cage
With a bird

The bird in my bone cage
Is death making its nest

When nothing is happening
I hear its wings ruffling

And when I’ve laughed a lot
If I suddenly stop

I hear it chirping
Deep down
Like a tiny alarm

It is a bird held captive
Death in my bone cage

Wouldn't it like to fly away
Is it you who makes it stay
Or is it me
I can't say

It cannot leave until
Having eaten all
My heart
The blood source
With the life inside

It will have my soul in its beak.

—
Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
translated by George J. Dance



["Bird Cage" by George J. Dance (translation of "Cage d'Oiseau" by Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.]


Cage d’Oiseau

Je suis une cage d’oiseau
Une cage d’os
Avec un oiseau

L’oiseau dans ma cage d’os
C’est la mort qui fait son nid

Lorsque rien n’arrive
On entend froisser ses ailes

Et quand on a ri beaucoup
Si l’on cesse tout à coup

On l’entend qui recoule
Au fond
Comme un grelot

C’est un oiseau tenu captif
La mort dans ma cage d’os

Voudrait-il pas s’envoler
Est-ce vous qui le retiendrez
Est-ce moi
Qu’est-ce que c’est

Il ne pourra s’en aller
Qu’aprés avoir tout mangé
Mon coeur
La source du sang
Avec la vie dedans

Il aura mon âme au bec.

~~
Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau (1912-1943)
de Regards et jeux dans l'éspace, 1937

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the European Union]

Read more by Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau here:
https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau biography

Order Looking and Playing in Space at Amazon.com.

The Cup / Duncan Campbell Scott

       
The Cup

Here is pleasure; drink it down.
Here is sorrow; drain it dry.
Tilt the goblet, don’t ask why.
Here is madness; down it goes.
Here’s a dagger and a kiss,
Don’t ask what the reason is.
Drink your liquor, no one knows;
Drink it bravely like a lord.
Do not roll a coward eye,
Pain and pleasure is one sword
Hacking out your destiny;
Do not say, "It is not just."
That word won’t apply to life;
You must drink because you must;
Tilt the goblet, cease the strife.
Here at last is something good,
Just to warm your flagging blood.
Don’t take breath —
At the bottom of the cup
Here is death: Drink it up.

--
Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947)
from Labour and the Angel, 1898

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Duncan Campbell Scott biography

River of my Eyes — Rivière de mes Yeux / Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau

 
River of My Eyes

O my eyes this morning wide as rivers
O waves of my eyes ready to reflect all
And this freshness under my eyelids
Amazing
Everywhere around images I see

Like a brook refreshing the isle
And like the flowing wave
Surrounding the sun bather.

—
Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
translated by George J. Dance

from Looking and Playing in Space, 2011


River of My Eyes by George J. Dance [translation of "Riviere de mes yeux" by Hector de Saint-Denys Garnewu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Rivière de mes yeux

Ô mes yeux ce matin grands comme des rivières
Ô l'onde de mes yeux prêts à tout refléter
Et cette fraîcheur sous mes paupières
Extraordinaire
Tout alentour des images que je vois

Comme un ruisseau rafraîchit l'île
Et comme l'onde fluente entoure
La baigneuse ensoleillée

~~

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
de Regards et jeux dans l'éspace, 1937

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the European Union]

Read more by Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau here:

http://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau biography

Order Looking and Playing in Space at Amazon.com.

Stars at Tallapoosa / Wallace Stevens

Stars at Tallapoosa

The lines are straight and swift between the stars.
The night is not the cradle that they cry,
The criers, undulating the deep-oceaned phrase.
The lines are much too dark and much too sharp.

The mind herein attains simplicity,
There is no moon, no single, silvered leaf.
The body is no body to be seen
But is an eye that studies its black lid.

Let these be your delight, secretive hunter,
Wading the sea-lines, moist and ever-mingling,
Mounting the earth-lines, long and lax, lethargic.
These lines are swift and fall without diverging.

The melon-flower nor dew nor web of either
Is like to these.  But in yourself is like:
A sheaf of brilliant arrows flying straight,
Flying and falling straightway for their pleasure,

Their pleasure that is all bright-edged and cold;
Or, if not arrows, then the nimblest motions,
Making recoveries of young nakedness
And the lost vehemence the midnights hold.

--
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), 1922
from Harmonium, 1923

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Wallace Stevens biography

A High-Toned Old Christian Woman / Wallace Stevens

A High-Toned Old Christian Woman

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
Is equally converted into palms,
Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,
Madame, we are where we began. Allow,
Therefore, that in the planetary scene
Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,
Proud of such novelties of the sublime,
Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.

--
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), 1922
from Harmonium, 1923

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Wallace Stevens biography

"A High-toned Old Christian Woman" read by Tom O'Bedlam. Courtesy SpokenVerse.

A Vision / Duncan Campbell Scott

   
A Vision

The tenebrous sky
Was founded on lightning,
And there came marching
To a funeral,
A multitude so millioned
That number was unthinkable;
There were massed together
Kings pierced with their sceptres,
Tyrants shod with the points of swords,
And priests each with a live coal
In the palm of his hand,
Learned men
With book-yokes on their necks,
Merchants with gold eyelids;
Each one tortured with his symbol
And an innumerable host
Without sign or distinction;
Each bore a tuft of grass
In his fingers;
The grass was in seed,
And as they walked,
The seed fell where it listed.
There was no sound
As the host marched
To the funeral;
But what was buried
Was far in the Past,
And the host poured up
From the Future.

--
Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947)
from Beauty and Life,1921 

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Duncan Campbell Scott biography

Vowels — Voyelles / Arthur Rimbaud

         
Vowels

Black A, white E, red I, green U, blue O: you vowels,
Some day I'll tell the tale of where your mystery lies:
Black A, a jacket formed of hairy, shiny flies
That buzz among harsh stinks in the abyss's bowels;

White E, the white of kings, of moon-washed fogs and tents,
Of fields of shivering chervil, glaciers' gleaming tips;
Red I, magenta, spat-up blood, the curl of lips
In laughter, hatred, or besotted penitence;

Green U, vibrating waves in viridescent seas,
Or peaceful pastures flecked with beasts – furrows of peace
Imprinted on our brows as if by alchemies;

Blue O, great Trumpet blaring strange and piercing cries
Through Silences where Worlds and Angels pass crosswise;
Omega, O, the violet brilliance of Those Eyes!

---
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
translated by George J. Dance, 2010
from Doggerel, and other doggerel, 2015


[Vowels by George J. Dance [translation of "Voyelles" by Arthur Rimbaud] is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Unported License.]

"Voyelles" collage by Airair , 1998 (detail). CC BY 2.5, Wikimedia Commons''.

Voyelles

A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu: voyelles,
Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes:
A, noir corset velu des mouches éclatantes
Qui bombinent autour des puanteurs cruelles,

Golfes d'ombre; E, candeurs des vapeurs et des tentes,
Lances des glaciers fiers, rois blancs, frissons d'ombelles;
I, pourpres, sang craché, rire des lèvres belles
Dans la colère ou les ivresses pénitentes;

U, cycles, vibrements divins des mers virides,
Paix des pâtis semés d'animaux, paix des rides
Que l'alchimie imprime aux grands fronts studieux;

O, suprême Clairon plein des strideurs étranges,
Silences traversés des Mondes et des Anges;
- O l'Oméga, rayon violet de Ses Yeux!

--
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
1871

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"Voyelles" read by Alain Couchot. Courtesy Audiolude.

Arthur Rimbaud biography

George J. Dance biography