Surrealist, Lover, Resistant
Page 41
À s’endormir à la légère,
Nous rejoindrons ce faux portrait
Qui nous ressemble trait pour trait.
Baignant nos pieds, voici la Saône
Voici des ponts, voici du vent,
Voici Lyon et voici le Rhône,
Voici la lune sur son trône
Qui, dans son palais du Levant,
Éteint les torches aux pylônes
Pour mieux attirer Don Juan
À l’aisselle du confluent.
Car cette nuit est nuit de noces.
De par le monde on boit du vin,
On entend des bruits de carrosses
Et des aboiements de molosses
Au fond des bois et des ravins.
L’or qui tintait pour le négoce
Met le reflet des chandeliers
Au cou des femmes, en colliers.
Un couple, sous le ciel, s’épouse.
Bien loin, dans un lieu très secret,
Des violons, sur les pelouses,
Font pleurer des femmes jalouses
Et chacun boit, mais nul ne sait
Pour qui les heures de nuit cousent
Un trousseau de fièvre et d’amour
Et le linceul du petit jour.
ON DIT qu’en grand mystère, à minuit, près d’une source
Un jeune homme de pleines vertus
Va dévêtir une jeune fille dont la grâce et la pudeur égalent l’ardeur de volupté;
On dit qu’un couple, au matin, sera réveillé
Par l’odeur de la forêt et le chant des oiseaux;
On dit qu’ils vivront longuement une inaltérable jeunesse.
On dit qu’ils seront le couple parfait,
Que la femme enfantera, dans la joie, des enfants à leur image,
On dit que leur bonheur ne cédera pas à l’ennui, ni leur désir à la lassitude,
On dit qu’on aurait voulu naître d’un tel père et d’une telle mère
Et vivre les années qui suivront cette noce,
On dit, mais on n’est pas certain, qu’ils ont, à l’instant, échangé leur premier baiser.
On dit, et de cela on est sûr, qu’ils sont les enfants de la terre
Que leurs vertus, leurs pensées et leurs désirs ignorent tout ce qui n’est pas la terre,
Qu’ils goûteront sans danger à tous les fruits.
Et, toi, Calixto, étoile de la terre, à peine visible dans la lumière,
Tu continues à servir de repère sur notre route certaine vers un but lointain.
Mais le regard que nous portons sur toi s’envole et rompt le fil qui devrait t’attacher à nous et nous à toi.
MAIS TU TE TRISSES, tu décarres
Et dans la boîte à réfléchir
La der des noyes, malabare,
Remet du noir et plus que mare
Nous corne qu’il faut dégauchir.
Minute! à la dernière gare
Le dur attendra mézigo:
Signé «Canrobert» ou «Gigot».
À revivre tous les naufrages
Pour en être sauvé toujours
Par la vague même et l’orage,
Tel atteignit un paysage
Au-delà des nuits et des jours.
C’était le domaine des sages,
Il en donna la clé aux fous
Pour chercher un lieu sans verrous.
À s’endormir à la légère,
Ô lumière, ô Calixto,
Il prit la route buissonnière
Vers un réveil qui le libère
Autant des ports que des bateaux.
À s’endormir à la légère,
En retrouvant la pesanteur
Il retrouva son créateur,
À s’endormir à la légère:
La terre et, seulement, la terre…
CALIXTO
DRIFTING IN FREE AND EASY SLEEP
BENEATH THE SKY, TO SOUNDS OF STREAMS,
THE PLANETS’ RHYTHM IN OUR DREAMS,
WE’RE PLUNGED IN EARTH AND LIE DOWN DEEP…
IF SECRET OR IF MYSTERY
IS EVER BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY DREAMS,
IT IS IN SLEEP BY SOUNDING STREAMS,
WHEN THE WIND’S BLADES GO SNIPPING BY.
DRIFTING IN FREE AND EASY SLEEP
ON BED OF EARTH, HOW DEEP, HOW DEEP,
YOU EARTHLINGS PLUNGE IN ROTTING MESS!
FERNS CRUMBLE IN THE LAUNDRY-PRESS
INSIDE A SILK-EDGED BRUSHWOOD CHEST,
WHERE, NYMPH CALIXTO, NOW UNDRESSED,
LIGHT OF YOUR FLESH ACHIEVES EXCESS.
Calixto, nymph! Your flesh unveiled,
Set free from day, becomes a star:
Its light illuminates us here,
Early or late, as ebbs the year.
What matter, though, if we prefer,
Sprung from your flesh and unconcealed,
Your heart itself, both dark and clear.
Let lightning’s flash submerge on shores
Where your flesh wanes in sensual shift
Across the sky where someone scores
North east south west and points adrift
And cursive herbs are browsed by bears,
She-bears of clouds and dawns and gleams,
Who drink the sweat-drops out of dreams.
This is when dresses flake and fall,
When thighs and bellies, firm and full,
A smile concealed in a cagoule,
When rumps and haunches start to roll,
The viner takes the vine that’s his,
And, in the night’s clear waterfall,
All give themselves to kiss on kiss,
And irritate their way to bliss.
You friends on Ocean’s distant shores
Whose womenfolk I never knew:
Under a roof of shooting-stars
You disinter mandragoras.
I am your distant cousin too:
I watch the selfsame semaphores,
praetexta nympha, Calixto:
Signs that neap-tides are overdue.
Your trundling chariot cannot cross
The far horizon: Artemis,
Wind on her prow, discovers there
A surly monster mother-bear.
That huntress adds you to her prey,
Your offspring too, and stains the mud
With a libation of your blood.
Single-bed sky: you’ve dreams for cubs,
Of ice and fire and smells of earth.
On grapplings of illicit loves,
On games of dice and doubt and dare,
You sketch your figure not foursquare,
A nymph in travail, cold as North,
A deep-sea ship that has no berth.
For quite some time you’ve played the beast
But beauty is beneath the cloak
As is the backbone in the fish,
The skeleton beneath your flesh
On which the knife-blade barked and broke:
As thoughts inside your head encased,
Memory, prayer, and hope, the light
Conducive to the sense of sight.
On language too, one lifts the lid
To find a store of secrets hid.
In her valise the queen of women
Conceals the star of friendly omen:
The prisoner whose eyes are peeled
Dreams of the fair, the far afield,
As in the days when Argonauts
Used argot to express their thoughts.
Start with the heat. Or else there’d be
Nix for the goggle-balls to shoof:
After the lush has necked enough.
Start with the heat, the master-key
That cracks the crib for villainy:
The heat can take a liberty
And, by our leave, rub out the staff.
Twilight and silence. What a thrill
To cop an earful of a spring,
The pure and simple murmuring!
Twilight and silence. Right, but still,
Don’t get caught out: a mighty whoosh
Can sweep away the whole kaboosh.
I only hope the twilit spring
Drowns the unlovely gathering.
To snuff those bronze-brown eyes to hell
The air should turn to axle-grease
Before their legs rise parallel.
I hope it gives them a disease
And runs them through from soles to cockles,
From clavicles to metacarpals.
I hope it’s soiled and spavined too,
To rot the whole revolting crew.
As for the cathouse and the tart
Who struts and takes, hand over fist,
When the sun’s up and pushing hard
Like an express across the clart,
I hope her belly’s truly stuffed,
And every one of them stuck fast.
She’ll make a first-rate Grove of Rest
For all who ride, a clinging shift.
Oft in the stilly blooming night,
Still early for their little shtick,
They’ll up and take to blooming flight,
And squeal and whimper to the bill
To see them up the wooden hill.
What’s given them a blooming fright?
The mares in heat, with appetite
To tan their cruppers double quick.
We’ll have our night of saccharine,
The mouth-to-mouth, the big beguine.
No cops to dodge, no fear! We’ll kip,
Mitts tightly clenched and thumb on lip:
Lay our last nickel on the bar,
Knock it back, cocky as we are,
While worms in softwood coffins chew
Their goggle-eyes and honkers too.
But more than earth, air, water, fire,
The hitmen’s mitts will liquidate
Conniving scabs, demob the dire
Snap-judgments of the lawless State.
Here is the fighting men’s reward,
The castle toppled at a stroke,
The dancing day, the singing bird:
A doddle and a piece of cake.
But you, Calixto, great she-bear,
Haven’t you beetled off your patch?
The claret is cascading where
Your excellency shirked the watch:
None of the good old rules are there.
Small fry who stag and shift a share
Think they are sharks: but there’s a catch:
The stars decree they’ll meet their match.
The people are the people still.
With buttoned lip they keep their place
To settle scores with fools who will
Shortly be stiffs, the cretinous:
Big Stick Day! Time to cut their crêpe.
No fools the wasps who understand,
Calixto, while we seem to sleep,
The day is very close at hand.
The twinklers winking in the sky
Entice the john who passes by,
The big red ball gets men to snore
While morgues are busied more and more,
The bunnies hear the birdy tweet,
The fish has stuffed himself replete,
Cruises the crannies, voids his vent.
The water curls for ornament.
IN THE OAK-AVENUE where night is thick,
A horse’s slow step echoes, now and then
Slows down. A horn-blast fades across the plain.
Twin lines of trees in all their branches creak,
As once in torture-cells the creaking boot
Clamped tight on some despairing captive’s foot.
Hot room, in which at dawn the men of pain
Load their twelve guns: unlawful, flagrant breach.
Through autumn leaves in the oak-avenue
I see the knots of stars that shine on you
Like quarter-lights that light some skipper’s deck.
I hear a song of murder and the rack
From helm and timbers, and the mainmast’s groans
Sound like that torture-boot that cracks the bones.
BROKEN BY TREES into a murky foam,
The night knows agony, transforms its ire
Into a cyclone that ignites the flame:
The wind goes missing, and the calm is fear.
Silence is total, as the turgid air
Smokes on the trivet; terror craves its fate.
Flames leap. The hammer’s on the anvil for
The blacksmith who shall make the work complete.
Myriads desired to see this spectacle;
And now by night, as constellations shape
Themselves each to a perfect pentacle,
All is fulfilled while men and women sleep.
Roll on the daybreak, when the play is done:
I’ll show them all the signs of what went on.
DAWN AT LAST EXITS from a jar that breaks,
Calixto, when you stumble: moments pass,
Your light is changed. The landscape flickers, shakes:
The earth is kissed by little bits of glass.
Your kisses, rolled and buffed by gentle waves,
Calixto, and your deep-ringed eyes succumb,
Drowning in tears, and your lacklustre gaze
Can’t meet your image on the sea’s flat calm.
She-bear, it’s time. Back to your shady lair:
It’s sunrise. Slink away, with lowered head:
Invisible, walk on, across the air.
We’ll hear you railing and complaining yet,
Where life embroils a labyrinthine thread;
Calixto’s in her home, and roaring there.
CRY FURY! Snows and lavas mix and swirl
Inside this heart that vomits up the sun
Teeth slice the muzzle through and bite the tongue,
Hurt, like your flesh when steel trap-jaws are sprung.
Turning and rushing round your carousel
With whirlwind hub the algebraic sun
Pulls, breaks, and welds together one by one
Links of the shackles of the shuffling gang.
Why yell why rage saltpetre drooling mouth
A sleep of fodder purple stuff reborn
You, we, they, all of you, cry out and shout
Three snakes the jaws stuffed full it rains manure
Dung falling on your eyes your hair your fur.
Demons disperse when daylight scrubs you out.
CEASE FROM CRYING, o Calixto, that the sky, this sky’s your exile
Far from the Olympian lover, who prised your clothes apart.
(You didn’t do too badly on earth in the days of your April
Before you felt in your flesh, not flesh, but the ancient dart)
No, one or two popes, on the contrary, on the week’s concluding day,
Search the catacombs for your dwelling, hoping to find the way.
It’s no good our falling in some shadowy abyss
If wine, that’s banned and banished, cannot break the dismal mood.
It’s no good renouncing your algebra’s drunkenness
If we drain the casks, Calixto, and the joy is not renewed.
May providence ever preserve us from bread that has no leaven,
From dreamless nights, from wineless cellars, from a starless heaven.
But laugh, Calixto, laugh at one who hopes that when he dies
He will find consciousness again, and memories of romance:
Are bit and bridle buried too, when we inter the horse?
No, that’s how death will be, no more than night and silence.
The way of the world is just a rut; there are ruts for moralities;
Crimes or virtues, nothing human can possibly alter your course.
Expect no reward nor punishment, in this or the other place.
Trust the other, high or low, to give you wings with feathers on:
You’ll find again, under its disguise as an angel in furbelows,
The flesh of desire and pleasure, and that smiling female face,
And the liberty without which no virtue blows and grows.
But all of that belongs, Calixto, merely to human reason.
And if there is a cause in the whirlwind of stars and atoms
Scattered about in what we know of a recent universe,