Year: 2024

Jules Supervielle – Boarding party

irlandesuk poetry, translation ,

Jules_Supervielle

Pirates, wild gestures,
Abducted from the Cape Verdes
In the heat of the boarding
A black woman in the sea.

The sunset metamorphoses
The ocean, the earth, the air
A naked black man turns pink
Sliced by an iron sabre.

It’s my eyes that fantasize,
And among chairs and blankets
On the gloomy liner
Only valets circulate.

Jules Supervielle  (1884-1960)

Translation by John Lyons

ABORDAGE

Pirates, gestes sauvages,
Rapt aux îles du Cap-Vert,
Dans le rut de l’abordage
Une négresse à la mer.

Le couchant métamorphose
L’océan, la terre, l’air
Un noir nu se mue en rose
Que tranche un sabre de fer.

Ce sont mes yeux qui transposent,
Et parmi chaises et plaids
Sur le paquebot morose
Seuls circulent des valets.

Robert Desnos – Love is not dead

irlandesuk poetry, translation

No, love’s not dead in this heart nor in these eyes nor in this mouth
which was announcing its ongoing funeral.
Listen, I’ve had enough of the picturesque, of colours and charm.
l love love, its tenderness and its cruelty.
My love has but one name, one shape.
Everything passes. Mouths press to this mouth.
My love has but one name, one shape.
And if some day you remember it
O you, my love’s shape and name,
One day on the high seas between America and Europe,
When the sun’s last flourish scintillates upon the undulating
surface of the waves, or maybe one stormy night
beneath a tree in the countryside, or in a fast car,
One spring morning on boulevard Malesherbes,
One rainy day,
At dawn before you go to bed,
Tell yourself that you shouldn’t regret things: Ronsard before me
and Baudelaire sang of the regret of old women and dead women
who despised love’s purest form.
You when you’re dead
You’ll still be a beauty and desirable.
I’ll already be dead, entirely enclosed within your immortal body,
within your stunning image ever present amongst
the perpetual wonders of life and eternity, but if I live
Your voice and its accent, the beam of your eyes
Your scent and the scent of your hair and many other things
will live on inside me,
In me who am neither Ronsard nor Baudelaire,
I who am Robert Desnos and whom, having known and loved you,
Are just as worthy as them.
I who am Robert Desnos, for loving you
And who wants to attach no other reputation
to my memory on the contemptible earth

Robert Desnos

From À la mystérieuse, (1926)

Translation by John Lyons

Be minimum

irlandesuk art, poetry

lake_detail

                           Landscape, John Lyons (oil on canvas)

History – dead time – a past buried in
a chromatic wilderness – a burnt match
floating in a pool of dark rainwater –
an old hair on an old pillow case  Be
minimum  – with your words – in your actions
Resolve to move forward
                                   to write new texts
in a world of warmth and affection  The
past is scribble of fret and fear and
fate beyond absolution  Be mini-
mum  Cut to the quick  Courage – conviction
Angels will appear on the edge of night
By day they will mingle with sparrows and
crows  She who is not worthy will lose her
way  Exercise discretion
                                     Say no more

John Lyons

Portrait of a Woman – Gonzalo Rojas

irlandesuk poetry, translation ,

Gonzalo Rojas

                       Gonzalo Rojas Pizarro (1916–2011)

There will always be the night, woman, to stare you in the face,
alone in your mirror, free from your husband, naked
in the precise and terrible reality of the immense vertigo
that destroys you. You’ll always have your night and your knife,
and the frivolous telephone to hear the single thrust of my farewell.

I swore not to write to you. That’s why I’m calling you in the air
to say nothing to you, as the void says: nothing, nothing,
but the same and always the same thing
that you never hear me, that you never understand me,
although your veins burn from what I’m saying.

Put on the red dress that suits your mouth and your blood,
and burn me with the last cigarette of fear
of the great love, and proceed barefoot on the air that you came on
with the visible wound of your beauty. Woe is she
who cries unceasingly in the storm.

Don’t die on me. I’m going to paint your face in a flash
just as you are: two eyes to see the visible and the invisible,
an archangel nose and an animal mouth, and a smile
that forgives me, and something sacred and ageless that flies out
of your forehead, woman, and it makes me tremble,
because yours is the face of the Spirit.

You come and go, and you worship the sea that sweeps you away
with its foam, and you remain motionless, hearing me call out to you
in the abyss of the night, and you kiss me like a wave.
You were an enigma. You will be an enigma. You will not fly with me.
Here, woman, I leave you your portrait. 

Gonzalo Rojas
(translation by John Lyons)

The great Chilean poet, Gonzalo Rojas, was exiled by the Pinochet dictatorship in 1973.

Retrato de mujer

Siempre estará la noche, mujer, para mirarte cara a cara,
sola en tu espejo, libre de marido, desnuda
en la exacta y terrible realidad del gran vértigo
que te destruye. Siempre vas a tener tu noche y tu cuchillo, y el frívolo teléfono para escuchar mi adiós de un solo tajo.

Te juré no escribirte. Por eso estoy llamándote en el aire
para decirte nada, como dice el vacío: nada, nada,
sino lo mismo y siempre lo mismo de lo mismo
que nunca me oyes, eso que no me entiendes nunca,
aunque las venas te arden de eso que estoy diciendo.

Ponte el vestido rojo que le viene a tu boca y a tu sangre,
y quémame en el último cigarrillo del miedo
al gran amor, y vete descalza por el aire que viniste
con la herida visible de tu belleza. Lástima
de la que llora y llora en la tormenta.

No te me mueras. Voy a pintarte tu rostro en un relámpago
tal como eres: dos ojos para ver lo visible y lo invisible,
una nariz arcángel y una boca animal, y una sonrisa
que me perdona, y algo sagrado y sin edad que vuela de tu frente,
mujer, y me estremece, porque tu rostro es rostro del Espíritu.

Vienes y vas, y adoras al mar que te arrebata con su espuma,
y te quedas inmóvil, oyendo que te llamo en el abismo
de la noche, y me besas lo mismo que una ola.
Enigma fuiste. Enigma serás. No volarás
conmigo. Aquí, mujer, te dejo tu figura.