Robert Desnostranslated from the French by William Kulik
[untitled]
Chicago The els sound like donut batter dropped into oil In the prairie there's a cowboy: he murders the stars with his pistol to commemorate the birth of his son hidden behind a carob tree sleeps the pirate of the lost savannah in a novel by Gustave Aymard. In the Chicago prison there's an assassin with TB tended by three ladies with white hands with enamel eyes by a doctor with tortoise-shell glasses by a clergyman shaved by a star bore well-groomed Courage! said the three ladies with white hands Courage! said the doctor with the tortoise-shell frames Tomorrow he might get up Courage repeated the clergyman shaved by a star bore Tomorrow he might get up and when he does they'll take him to be executed
If, Like the Winds on the Face of a Compass
If, like the winds on the face of a compass There is meaning to space and time, If they have one they have a thousand and more And just as many as if they have none. For who among us does not imagine or feel the presence of Shadows roaming outside all geometries Of worlds that escape our senses? At the intersection of diagonal paths We listen to a hunting horn die out Always reborn, always the same. That vision of sky and compass Is absorbed and dissolves in the air Like sounds that make our flesh quiver Or the dim light beneath our closed eyes. We collide with other worlds Without feeling, seeing or hearing them In the depths of summer, at the height of winter, Other seasons drift down on us like ashes. While like the winds on the face of the compass The door slams and flags flap, Sails fill and without visible cause An absurd presence imposes itself on us Material, indifferent and relentless.
The Land of Eternal Return
The old back for more the young their first time Trees grow high as the moon Age like the young Die like the old. That's how it goes old folks! that's how it goes, young ones! The apple cheeks will wrinkle Just like the cheeks of the old And tears roll down them. so go the kisses of the old so go the kisses of the young The light in those beautiful eyes will go out Like the flame of a dying candle The wax flowing like your tears. But love will never die my old ones! It will never die in the hearts of the young The light will shine forever through whatever storm The flame of life and love Will shine forever in the darkest depths It isn't true it can't be The color in your cheeks will never fade Let the wheat myrtle and rye grow The flush of kisses on your throats Nothing dies death is not real.
Robert Desnos, born in Paris in 1900, published his first poems at age sixteen. Associated with the Surrealists in the 1920s, he became one of the most accomplished lyricists of the twentieth century. During World War II, while making his living as a journalist, he worked secretly for the French Resistance. He was eventually arrested by the Nazis and sent to a succession of concentration camps, where he contracted the typhoid fever that led to his death in 1945. William Kulik is a poet and translator who lives in North Central Pennsylvania. His most recent book is The Selected Poems of Max Jacob (Oberlin, 1999). A volume of prose poems, Nowhere Fast, is looking for a publisher. The Voice of Robert Desnos: Selected Poems will be published by the Sheep Meadow Press in 2005.
