Marie Dauguet: 'De nuageux accords circulent'

 

DE NUAGEUX ACCORDS CIRCULENT

 

De nuageux accords circulent

Moëlleusement et s’accumulent

Sur l’eau balbutiante et dont la face ondule.

 

Tout est vaporeux, indécis,

A peine un reflet cramoisi,

Vaguement chatoyant, aux cîmes des roseaux moisis.

 

Les lents bouleaux mal réveillés,

S’étirant au soleil mouillé,

A l’entour des marais embués,

Ont de frileux sourires

Et des chuchotis gazouillés.

 

Plus de sanglots pesants,

De hoquets mous et syncopés,

A travers les pacages trempés

Et les fossés où trembleusement s’écoulait

Un gluant brouillard violet.

 

Le Printemps, éphèbe ingénu,

Candide et nu,

Assis sur les mousses amères

Qu’un rayon d’azur clair veloure,

A la chanson qui s’enamoure

Des merles, aux tournoiements des essaims sauvages,

Vibrances d’or à travers la saulaie

D'or pur, harmonise sa double flûte,

Qu’il essaie,

Dont les volutes

Montent, se contournent et planent,

Diaphanes en l’air diaphane.

 

 

CLOUDY HARMONIES CIRCULATE

 

Cloudy harmonies circulate

Quite softly and accumulate

On babbling water where the surface undulates.

 

All is haziness, indecision,

Scarcely a blurred reflected crimson,

Shimmering vaguely in musty reed-tops’ imprecision.

 

The drowsy birch trees, half-awake,

Which line the shrouded marshy lake

In damp sun start to stretch themselves,

And skittishly they start to smile

Warbling and whispering the while.

 

No more heavy sobs are heard,

No gentle gulps that syncopate

From grasslands in their sodden state

And from the ditches, where a violet, sticky mist

Drains slowly off in turns and twists.

 

And Spring, an artless handsome youth,

Naïve and nude,

Seated on coarse, unyielding moss

That clear-blue rays lend softer gloss,

Attunes to songs that can delight

Blackbirds, to whirlings that wild swarms display in flight,

Gold vibrancies through willows’ hanging strands

Of purest gold; his aulos¹ is at hand,

His song now found –

Its curls of sound

Ascend and convolute, hang high:

Limpid scrolls in a limpid sky.

 

¹ An ancient Greek wind instrument, a double pipe played with a double reed

 

zkg18

ignes fatui

 

we are those who speak no word

yet still are heard

we are those who are long gone

yet still live on

we are those whose race is run

yet still not done

we are murals of the mind

that those not blind

can always find

Marie Dauguet: 'Aubes aux candeurs indolentes'

Aubes aux candeurs indolentes

 

Aubes aux candeurs indolentes,

Cieux dévirginisés à peine,

Où s’effacent de bleues verveines,

Des verveines convalescentes;

 

Matinées douces, tendres, faibles;

Le cœur s’enferme dans lui-même,

Et jouit de sa langueur suprême,

Plus frêle qu’un brin d’herbe frêle.

 

Ne vous soulevez point parfums,

Qu’émanent les soleils défunts;

L’oreille sur ce traversin,

 

Loin des rayons auxquels nous crûmes,

Joie sourde enfin de n’aimer rien

Que du silence dans la brume.

 

6 Mars.

 

 

Naively lazy dawning days

 

Naively lazy dawning days,

Skies of near-pristine blamelessness,

Where blue verbenas fade away,

Verbenas that now convalesce;

 

Soft mornings, fragile, gently pass;

The heart within itself retreats,

Its joyful lassitude complete,

More frail than is a blade of grass.

 

Do not, sweet scents, rise from your lair,

By former suns dispersed in air;

On this soft bolster rest your ear,

 

Far from sun’s rays, our former tryst,

A dull joy that no love’s left here

But for the silence in the mist.

 

6 March

 

 

Marie Dauguet: 'Près de l'étang brumeux'

Près de l'étang brumeux

 

Près de l'étang brumeux, au soleil doux-clairant,

Que j’aime cette odeur de lichen et de mousse

Et des squames vaseux et se décolorant;

L’odeur des troncs spongieux où la hache s’émousse,

Au long de la chaussée à la verdâtre housse;

Des sauges, de la menthe et de la coriandre,

Des houx, en lourd fouillis, qu’un vent mouillé rebrousse:

Un abîme d’amour où l’on voudrait descendre.

 

Cette odeur du brouillard aux palles adhérent,

Dont le radier muet tout à coup s’éclabousse,

Et sous lequel on voit, moëlleux et transparent,

A peine l’étang luire entouré d’herbe rousse,

Si calmement rêvant et sans une secousse;

Cette odeur des bouleaux tout d’impalpable cendre,

Si légère, indiquant leur silhouette mousse:

Un abime d’amour où l’on voudrait descendre.

 

L’odeur exquisement, qui monte et vous surprend,

De l’agaric visqueux sous l’herbe qu’il repousse;

A l’entour des hauts pins vastement respirant,

Des ceps vert-de-grisés en moisissure douce;

Au bord des sentiers creux et dont l’ornière glousse,

Où rampent le crapaud, l’orvet, la salamandre,

L’arôme des genêts roux entr’ouvrant leurs gousses:

Un abîme d’amour où l’on voudrait descendre.

 

Désir, roi tout puissant, par qui la jeune pousse

Surgit du sol fangeux, j’aurai su te comprendre;

Les parfums sont ta voix, s’évoquant, âpre et douce:

Un abime d'amour où je voudrais descendre.

 

 

Close to the misty pond, 

 

Close to the misty pond, lit by the sun’s soft rays,

Oh how I love this smell of lichen and of moss

And of the slimy scales with hues that fade away;

The smell of spongy trunks that blunt sharp axes’ gloss

And line with greenish cloak the straight and narrow track;

The smell of mint, of coriander and of sage,

Of holly. thickly folded, a moist breeze brushes back:

A deep abyss of love with which one would engage.            

 

This smell of fog clinging to altar pallas¹ when

Their silent aprons all at once lift up to show,

Though only briefly, soft, transparent once again

And fringed with reddish grass, the pond’s uncovered glow,

So calmly dreaming and without a single quake;

This smell of birch, of embers senses cannot gauge,

So light, suggesting outlines hardly yet awake:

A deep abyss of love with which one would engage.

 

The quite exquisite smell that takes you by surprise

Of viscous agarics² beneath grass pushed aside;

And dotted round tall pines whose deep breaths upwards rise

Grow ceps² turned verdigris by mould’s unceasing tide;

And edging hollow paths, ruts filled with calling sounds,

Where roaming slowworms, toads and lizards take the stage,

The smell of red broom pods that open all around:

A deep abyss of love with which one would engage.

 

Desire, all-powerful king that makes all new life grow

And surge from miry soil, I should have grasped your ways;

These perfumes are your voice, both rough and sweet I know:

A deep abyss of love with which I would engage.

¹ Palla: cloth used to cover the altar chalice   ² types of fungi

Marie Dauguet: 'Sous la visqueuse nue'

Sous la visqueuse nue

 

Sous la visqueuse nue aux formes d’hippocampe,

Près de l’étang d’or noir sombrement croupissant,

Alors que le soleil descend, mystique lampe,

A travers les roseaux qui se teignent de sang,

 

Je m’enivre à te boire aux berges que détrempe

L’averse, parfum, philtre d'amour, tout puissant

Parfum de ferments et de vase où la nuit rampe;

Par toi tout le mystère où l’on vit se pressent.

 

Loin de ce que je suis, en quelle inconscience?

J’ai savouré déjà tes voluptés intenses,

Mais je ne sais plus où… mais je ne sais plus quand…?

 

Perdue au grand remous des luxures fécondes,

Je partageais la vie indistincte des mondes

Et des premiers baisers, le spasme suffoquant.

 

 

Beneath the viscous cloud

 

Beneath the viscous cloud of changing seahorse forms, 

Close to the gloomy stagnant pond, black-gold in hue,

When evening sun, that mystic lamp which all transforms,

Sets across reeds which dye themselves blood-red anew,

 

Inhaling you on banks the shower now moistens, I

Get drunk, O perfume, my love-potion, potent scent,

A blend of mud and ferment where night lurks nearby;

Through you the total mystery of life is sensed.

 

Far from that which I am – unconsciously maybe ? –

I’ve already savoured fierce pleasures you’ve unfurled,

But have forgotten when… and have forgotten where…?

 

Lost to the swirling tide of fertile lechery,

I fully shared the indistinct life of the world,

Its first embraces – spasms where I gasped for air.

 

Esther Jansma: 'Er was eens een zij die een het had"

 

There was once a she that had an it

 

She could hit it again as she pleased.

She thinks it’s got concussion.

 

And yes, the blows left behind all sorts of things:

a whinging whistling

a humiliatingly loud shriek

and more of the noise to which it can give no answer.

 

And no, its head is not busted, it is still alive

More than that: it gets up.

 

Has it experienced the big bang?

Was this the beginning of an incarnation?

 

At any rate it now knows that time exists.

At any rate it now knows that the other one exists.

There is a before and after.

 

It sometimes thinks of blue aquarium fish.

They swim and swim an swim but

within what to them are unknowable boundaries.

To see the original poem and a discussion of, go to here.

Bo Bergman: 'Mänskligheten'

 

MÄNSKLIGHETEN

 

Du levde länge på din gloria

från ett förfalskat himmelskt adelsbrev.

Nu vet du att du kommit nerifrån,

djupt nerifrån,

och att det mesta Klios griffel skrev

är kriminalhistoria.

 

 

HUMANITY

 

The heavenly halo you lived off for quite some time

was a forged patent of nobility.

You now know that you’ve come from down below

deep down below,

and most of that which Clio’s stylus wrote

is just a history of crime.

 

Bo Bergman: 'Under släggan'

 

UNDER SLÄGGAN

 

Vrid dig under slagen, känn den

tunga släggans slag.

Gör det ont, så spruta gnistor.

Du blir kall en dag.

 

Fråga inte vem som håller

hårt i släggans skaft.

Det kan vara nog att prisa

mästarns kraft.

 

Smides du till ära, eller

hamras du till hån?

Vem bestämmer formen? Kommer

formen utifrån?

 

Vrid dig, böj dig, gläd dig, när den

tunga släggan slår.

Utan hamrad ande

ingen form som står.

 

 

UNDER THE HEAVY HAMMER

 

Squirm beneath the blows, just feel the

heavy hammer’s toll.

If it hurts, then sparks will fly out.

One day you’ll be cold.

 

Do not ask who holds the hammer’s 

shaft, whose grip is tight.

It’s sufficient just to praise the

master’s might.

 

Are you forged for honour, are you

hammered out for scorn?

Who decides the form? Is it from

outside or inborn?

 

Squirm and bend, rejoice now, at the

heavy hammer’s blasts.

With unhammered spirit

there’s no form that lasts.

 

Bo Bergman: ' Adagio'

 

ADAGIO

 

Vattnet rörs och vinden spelar,

vind och vatten ta varann.

Bakom skogens glesa dungar

gula rågen gungar

av och an.

Del är bara du som felar.

Hjärtat saktar sina slag.

Jag hör svag musik som spelar

mig till sömns i dag.

 

Molnen glida lätt som vita

svanar över himlens sjö,

men de tiga där de fara,

svanar sjunga bara

när de dö.

Ont och tungt har jag fått slita,

det är tungt på tiggarstig.

Jag vill fara med de vita

svanarna till dig.

 

 

ADAGIO

 

Rippled water, wind that’s playing –

wind and water meet again.

And, beyond thin copses’ waver,

yellow rye crops quaver

now and then.

With you absent, my heart’s straying,

its beat slows and fades away.

I hear music faintly playing

me to sleep today.

 

Light white swans, the clouds are gliding

gently over seas on high,

but are silent, onward winging,

only start their singing

when they die.

I have toiled, been met with chiding,

harsh my life, its chances few.

I’d be winging with white gliding

swans away to you.