AWAKENINGS
It's strange how you wake sometimes in the middle of the night in the
middle of sleep someone has knocked on a door and in the extraordinary
city of midnight of half- waking
and half-memory heavy gates clang from street to street
Who is this nocturnal visitor with an unknown face
what does he seek what does he spy
Is he a poor man demanding bread and shelter
Is he a thief is he a bird
Is he a reflection of ourselves in the mirror
Back from a transparent abyss
Trying to re-enter us
Then he realizes that we've changed
that the key no longer turns in the lock
Of the mysterious door of bodies
Even if he's only left us for a few minutes
at the troublesome moment when we put out the light
What does he become then
Where does he wander? Does he suffer?
Is this the origin of ghosts?
the origin of dreams?
the birth of regrets?
No longer knock at my door visitor
There's no room on my hearth or in my heart
For the old images of myself
Perhaps you recognise me
I'll never know how do you recognise yourself.
GOOD DAY GOOD EVENING
Its night be the flame
And the red that colours the clouds
Good day sir Good evening madam
You don't look your age
What does it matter if your embraces
Make the twin stars bleed
What does it matter if your face is painted
if hoarsfrost glitters on the branches
Of granite or marble
Your age will show
And the shade of the great trees
will walk on your graves.
PARABOLA (2)
Parabola my nurse...
A parabola was bored in its cage
A parabbola wanted to land on the branch
The branch is too low
The sun too high
I watch the flight of birds
They fall then climb again
The branch is too low
The sun too high
There are some strange birds
Their nest is somewhere
Quite far from the earth
The branch is too low
The sun too high.
MY SIREN
My siren is blue as the veins where she swims
For the moment she sleeps on mother-of-pearl
And on the ocean I create for her
She can visit the magic grottoes of preposterous isles
There some very foolih birds
converse with crocodiles who never finish up
And the very foolish birds fly above the blue siren
The crocodiles return to their drink
And the island doesn't come back
doesn't come back from where it's placed
where my siren and I have forgotten it
My siren has some very beautiful stars in her sky
Blonde stars with black eyes
Red haired stars with sparkling teeth
and dark stars with beautiful breasts
Each night three by three
altenating the color of their hair
These stars visit my siren
This makes for lots of comings and goings in the sky
But my siren has seven boats on her ocean
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Saturday and Sunday
Some with steam and others with sails
Some rapid the others slow
But all beautiful all charming
with sailors who know their craft.
My siren has soaps in all shapes and colors
To wash her lovely skin
My siren has many soaps
One for her hands
Another for her feet
One for yesterday
One for tomorrow
One for each eye
And that one for her scaly tail
And this other one for her tail
And this other one for her hair
And another one for her belly
And another one for her back.
My siren sings for no one but me
I tell my friends to listen to her in vain
No one ever hears her
Except one, only one
But though his air is sincere
I mistrust him, he might be a liar.
TRANSLATED BY AMY LEVIN
FROM :-
EAT IT ALIVE, published by the University of Colorado
Boulder Creative Writing programme,
Volume 3, Issue 5,
December 1981
Paris born surrealist, founder of the Literary Surrealist movement, died at the age of 45 from typhoid, after the Red Army liberated Terezin, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.
.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Desnos
Last known photo of Robert Desnos, Theresienstadt concentration camp, 1945
