Tonight if you lean your face close
and civilization stretches out
at the end of your arms, tonight
if in full flight you catch my image
say it was from afar
like a die in the night

Translated by Robert Majzels and Erin Moure.


one calls noise of beauty
the sea soldered to the salt
in the infinitely night
beyond all the narrations
one also calls
noise of beauty silence
its slow signature at the bottom of dawn

Translated by Pierre Joris.


THE INDOCILE BACK OF WORDS

                                                  L

long-time lilac lips
liquor of light and literature
or little lizard of the Lido
louvered in my lion-lexicon of questions

long time on lesbian lips
let loose from tears under lapis-lazuli light
I long to lick sweet lobe and loukoum
long time I leaned into this reading
of lyrcr lagoon and language long ago


                                          P

for all the passions in the present
possible a promenade
we plunged into panoramas
with phrases, ponderings
to the power of perfume and paradox
possibly
particles of dust. Say it’s from Peking or Palmyra
or Pompey
we partook in its plenitude
proposed to physically possess
poetry

Translated by Erin Moure & Robert Majzels
                                            
                                                        J

                                            no translation
                                               just listen


Fences in Breathing

The were two sentences with an idea of time and 
night. Sentences permeable to death and oblivion.
One could readily have believed in a story between them.
Each sentence poured its meaning into a great vivarium of
torments and questions with words ever easier to caress.
Yet each one sought to understand the laws of her own
gravity. Whenever the two sentences crossed paths too
quickly or too often without apparent explanation, inner
reality dealt the universe a sharp, glorious kick. There
remained a wound in the middle of the universe. One
needed to behold it, then to have no fear of burrowing into
it until the universe became the universe again. This is how
the sentences moved forward into the night, carrying with
them a quaking of the heart, a taste of the eternity that
recommences at the edge of the void, as fascinating as
dawn in any mother tongue, in any foreign tongue.

What is it in my head that makes me think I am
someone else who cannot truly resemble me or maybe
the opposite it is frightening this carpet of words the scroll
of images and nothing to explain if we are here if we are
pretending to be here if we are with someone inside
ourselves whom we love or who splits our head in two so
that our thoughts scatter deep into the cosmos and that at
last we may cry fully emptied of our breathing.

Talking to oneself doesn’t hurt a soul and many people
in hotels do it quite naturally talking to oneself is not
pretending to talk to someone who is on one’s mind or to
whom one must repeat insults and sweet nothings like in
childhood and the seasons it takes a lot of freedom to talk
to oneself about the world we live in freedom is buried I
cannot distinguish it under the thousands of pages of law
that have come into being since the steel of guns has been
firing here and there at the frontiers of the real no one law
can be changed without another law authorizing it I enjoy
talking alone in front of large mirrors in hotel rooms it
helps me juggle the various facets of my body and the
objects that decorate the room I am someone who readily
acts out of fear that’s how it is when I walk three times by
the same window that shows close-ups of people’s real
lives it’s as if I were talking out loud to the invisible part of
myself so as to not be afraid and so that it gives me joy

Stay alive says the voice also applies to all girls
whoever you are stay alive because of the smooth wind
through the roses and through your raptures stay alive
show yourself with your syllables and your images
don’t be afraid to touch your melancholy
stay alive despite the flies and the burns the little decorations
stay alive arms open like pages of a dictionary
breathe high and loud between the signs the mirrors the little sketches
don’t forget your grisgris and Latin grammar
stay alive despite your mother in her bathtub terrorists and liars stay alive
in the moon’s axis and touch go ahead touch your mirrors
in the right places before watching yourself leave
stay alive like somebody who is not you.

Translated by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood