Thus, Woman, Principle of Life, Speaker of the Ideal
Would you see
The dark form of the sun
The contours of life
Or be truly dazzled
By the fire that fuses all
The flame conveyer of modesties
In flesh in gold that fine gesture
Error is as unknown
As the limits of spring
The temptation prodigious
All touches all travels you
At first it was only a thunder of incense
Which you love the more
The fine praise at four
Lovely motionless nude
Violin mute but palpable
I speak to you of seeing
I will speak to you of your eyes
Be faceless if you wish
Of their unwilling colour
Of luminous stones
Colourless
Before the man you conquer
His blind enthusiasm
Reigns naively like a spring
In the desert
Between the sands of night and the waves of day
Between earth and water
No ripple to erase
No road possible
Between your eyes and the images I see there
Is all of which I think
Myself inderacinable
Like a plant which masses itself
Which simulates rock among other rocks
That I carry for certain
You all entire
All that you gaze at
All
This is a boat
That sails a sweet river
It carries playful women
And patient grain
This is a horse descending the hill
Or perhaps a flame rising
A great barefooted laugh in a wretched heart
An autumn height of soothing verdure
A bird that persists in folding its wings in its nest
A morning that scatters the reddened light
To waken the fields
This is a parasol
And this the dress
Of a lace-maker more seductive than a bouquet
Of the bell-sounds of the rainbow
This thwarts immensity
This has never enough space
Welcome is always elsewhere
With the lightning and the flood
That accompany it
Of medusas and fires
Marvellously obliging
They destroy the scaffolding
Topped by a sad coloured flag
A bounded star
Whose fingers are paralysed
I speak of seeing you
I know you living
All exists all is visible
There is no fleck of night in your eyes
I see by a light exclusively yours.
Would you see
The dark form of the sun
The contours of life
Or be truly dazzled
By the fire that fuses all
The flame conveyer of modesties
In flesh in gold that fine gesture
Error is as unknown
As the limits of spring
The temptation prodigious
All touches all travels you
At first it was only a thunder of incense
Which you love the more
The fine praise at four
Lovely motionless nude
Violin mute but palpable
I speak to you of seeing
I will speak to you of your eyes
Be faceless if you wish
Of their unwilling colour
Of luminous stones
Colourless
Before the man you conquer
His blind enthusiasm
Reigns naively like a spring
In the desert
Between the sands of night and the waves of day
Between earth and water
No ripple to erase
No road possible
Between your eyes and the images I see there
Is all of which I think
Myself inderacinable
Like a plant which masses itself
Which simulates rock among other rocks
That I carry for certain
You all entire
All that you gaze at
All
This is a boat
That sails a sweet river
It carries playful women
And patient grain
This is a horse descending the hill
Or perhaps a flame rising
A great barefooted laugh in a wretched heart
An autumn height of soothing verdure
A bird that persists in folding its wings in its nest
A morning that scatters the reddened light
To waken the fields
This is a parasol
And this the dress
Of a lace-maker more seductive than a bouquet
Of the bell-sounds of the rainbow
This thwarts immensity
This has never enough space
Welcome is always elsewhere
With the lightning and the flood
That accompany it
Of medusas and fires
Marvellously obliging
They destroy the scaffolding
Topped by a sad coloured flag
A bounded star
Whose fingers are paralysed
I speak of seeing you
I know you living
All exists all is visible
There is no fleck of night in your eyes
I see by a light exclusively yours.
Paul Eluard - Poems
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SEARCHCONTACTABOUTHOME
Paul Eluard
Twenty-Four Poems
Contents
First Line Index
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Contents
Absence
Easy
Talking of Power and Love
The Beloved
Max Ernst
Series
Obsession
Nearer To Us
Open Door
The Immediate Life
Lovely And Lifelike
The Season of Loves
As Far As My Eye Can See In My Body's Senses
Barely Disfigured
In A New Night
Fertile Eyes
I Said It To You
It's The Sweet Law Of Men
The Curve Of Your Eyes
Liberty
Ring Of Peace
Ecstasy
Our Life
Uninterrupted Poetry
Index of First Lines
Absence
I speak to you over cities
I speak to you over plains
My mouth is against your ear
The two sides of the walls face
my voice which acknowledges you.
I speak to you of eternity.
O cities memories of cities
cities draped with our desires
cities early and late
cities strong cities intimate
stripped of all their makers
their thinkers their phantoms
Landscape ruled by emerald
live living ever-living
the wheat of the sky on our earth
nourishes my voice I dream and cry
I laugh and dream between the flames
between the clusters of sunlight
And over my body your body extends
the layer of its clear mirror.
Easy
Easy and beautiful under
your eyelids
As the meeting of pleasure
Dance and the rest
I spoke the fever
The best reason for fire
That you might be pale and luminous
A thousand fruitful poses
A thousand ravaged embraces
Repeated move to erase themselves
You grow dark you unveil yourself
A mask you
control it
It deeply resembles you
And you seem nothing but lovelier naked
Naked in shadow and dazzlingly naked
Like a sky shivering with flashes of lightning
You reveal yourself to you
To reveal yourself to others
Talking of Power and Love
Between all my torments between death and self
Between my despair and the reason for living
There is injustice and this evil of men
That I cannot accept there is my anger
There are the blood-coloured fighters of Spain
There are the sky-coloured fighters of Greece
The bread the blood the sky and the right to hope
For all the innocents who hate evil
The light is always close to dying
Life always ready to become earth
But spring is reborn that is never done with
A bud lifts from dark and the warmth settles
And the warmth will have the right of the selfish
Their atrophied senses will not resist
I hear the fire talk lightly of coolness
I hear a man speak what he has not known
You who were my flesh's sensitive conscience
You I love forever you who made me
You will not tolerate oppression or injury
You'll sing in dream of earthly happiness
You'll dream of freedom and I'll continue you
The Beloved
She is standing on my eyelids
And her hair is wound in mine,
She has the form of my hands,
She has the colour of my eyes,
She is swallowed by my shadow
Like a stone against the sky.
Her eyes are always open
And will not let me sleep.
Her dreams in broad daylight
Make the suns evaporate
Make me laugh, cry and laugh,
Speak with nothing to say.
Max Ernst
In one corner agile incest
Turns round the virginity of a little dress
In one corner sky released
leaves balls of white on the spines of storm.
In one corner bright with all the eyes
One awaits the fish of anguish.
In one corner the car of summer's greenery
gloriously motionless forever.
In the glow of youth
lamps lit too late.
The first one shows her breasts that kill the insects that are red.
Series
For the splendour of the day of happinesses in the air
To live the taste of colours easily
To enjoy loves so as to laugh
To open eyes at the final moment
She has every willingness.
Obsession
After years of wisdom
During which the world was transparent as a needle
Was it cooing about something else?
After having vied with returned favours squandered treasure
More than a red lip with a red tip
And more than a white leg with a white foot
Where then do we think we are?
Nearer To Us
Run and run towards deliverance
And find and gather everything
Deliverance and riches
Run so quickly the thread breaks
With the sound a great bird makes
A flag always soared beyond
Open Door
Life is truly kind
Come to me, if I go to you it's a game,
The angels of bouquets grant the flowers a change of hue.
The Immediate Life
What's become of you why this white hair and pink
Why this forehead these eyes rent apart heart-rending
The great misunderstanding of the marriage of radium
Solitude chases me with its rancour.
Lovely And Lifelike
A face at the end of the day
A cradle in day's dead leaves
A bouquet of naked rain
Every ray of sun hidden
Every fount of founts in the depths of the water
Every mirror of mirrors broken
A face in the scales of silence
A pebble among other pebbles
For the leaves last glimmers of day
A face like all the forgotten faces.
The Season of Loves
By the road of ways
In the three-part shadow of troubled sleep
I come to you the double the multiple
as like you as the era of deltas.
Your head is as tiny as mine
The nearby sea reigns with spring
Over the summers of your fragile form
And here one burns bundles of ermine.
In the wandering transparency
of your noble face
these floating animals are wonderful
I envy their candour their inexperience
Your inexperience on the bed of waters
Finds the road of love without bowing
By the road of ways
and without the talisman that reveals
your laughter at the crowd of women
and your tears no one wants.
As Far As My Eye Can See In My Body's Senses
All the trees all their branches all of their leaves
The grass at the foot of the rocks and the houses en masse
Far off the sea that your eye bathes
These images of day after day
The vices the virtues so imperfect
The transparency of men passing among them by chance
And passing women breathed by your elegant obstinacies
Your obsessions in a heart of lead on virgin lips
The vices the virtues so imperfect
The likeness of looks of permission with eyes you conquer
The confusion of bodies wearinesses ardours
The imitation of words attitudes ideas
The vices the virtues so imperfect
Love is man incomplete
Barely Disfigured
Adieu Tristesse
Bonjour Tristesse
Farewell Sadness
Hello Sadness
You are inscribed in the lines on the ceiling
You are inscribed in the eyes that I love
You are not poverty absolutely
Since the poorest of lips denounce you
Ah with a smile
Bonjour Tristesse
Love of kind bodies
Power of love
From which kindness rises
Like a bodiless monster
Unattached head
Sadness beautiful face.
In A New Night
Woman I've lived with
Woman I live with
Woman I'll live with
Always the same
You need a red cloak
Red gloves a red mask
And dark stockings
The reasons the proofs
Of seeing you quite naked
Nudity pure O ready finery
Breasts O my heart
Fertile Eyes
Fertile Eyes
No one can know me more
More than you know me
Your eyes in which we sleep
The two of them
Have cast a spell on my male orbs
Greater than worldly nights
Your eyes where I voyage
Have given the road-signs
Directions detached from the earth
In your eyes those that show us
Our infinite solitude
Is no more than they think exists
No one can know me more
More than you know me.
I Said It To You
I said it to you for the clouds
I said it to you for the tree of the sea
For each wave for the birds in the leaves
For the pebbles of sound
For familiar hands
For the eye that becomes landscape or face
And sleep returns it the heaven of its colour
For all that night drank
For the network of roads
For the open window for a bare forehead
I said it to you for your thoughts for your words
Every caress every trust survives.
It's The Sweet Law Of Men
It's the sweet law of men
They make wine from grapes
They make fire from coal
They make men from kisses
It's the true law of men
Kept intact despite
the misery and war
despite danger of death
It's the warm law of men
To change water to light
Dream to reality
Enemies to friends
A law old and new
That perfects itself
From the child's heart's depths
To reason's heights.
The Curve Of Your Eyes
The curve of your eyes embraces my heart
A ring of sweetness and dance
halo of time, sure nocturnal cradle,
And if I no longer know all I have lived through
It's that your eyes have not always been mine.
Leaves of day and moss of dew,
Reeds of breeze, smiles perfumed,
Wings covering the world of light,
Boats charged with sky and sea,
Hunters of sound and sources of colour
Perfume enclosed by a covey of dawns
that beds forever on the straw of stars,
As the day depends on innocence
The whole world depends on your pure eyes
And all my blood flows under their sight.
Liberty
On my notebooks from school
On my desk and the trees
On the sand on the snow
I write your name
On every page read
On all the white sheets
Stone blood paper or ash
I write your name
On the golden images
On the soldier's weapons
On the crowns of kings
I write your name
On the jungle the desert
The nests and the bushes
On the echo of childhood
I write your name
On the wonder of nights
On the white bread of days
On the seasons engaged
I write your name
On all my blue rags
On the pond mildewed sun
On the lake living moon
I write your name
On the fields the horizon
The wings of the birds
On the windmill of shadows
I write your name
On each breath of the dawn
On the ships on the sea
On the mountain demented
I write your name
On the foam of the clouds
On the sweat of the storm
On dark insipid rain
I write your name
On the glittering forms
On the bells of colour
On physical truth
I write your name
On the wakened paths
On the opened ways
On the scattered places
I write your name
On the lamp that gives light
On the lamp that is drowned
On my house reunited
I write your name
On the bisected fruit
Of my mirror and room
On my bed's empty shell
I write your name
On my dog greedy tender
On his listening ears
On his awkward paws
I write your name
On the sill of my door
On familiar things
On the fire's sacred stream
I write your name
On all flesh that's in tune
On the brows of my friends
On each hand that extends
I write your name
On the glass of surprises
On lips that attend
High over the silence
I write your name
On my ravaged refuges
On my fallen lighthouses
On the walls of my boredom
I write your name
On passionless absence
On naked solitude
On the marches of death
I write your name
On health that's regained
On danger that's past
On hope without memories
I write your name
By the power of the word
I regain my life
I was born to know you
And to name you
LIBERTY
Ring Of Peace
I have passed the doors of coldness
The doors of my bitterness
To come and kiss your lips
City reduced to a room
Where the absurd tide of evil
leaves a reassuring foam
Ring of peace I have only you
You teach me again what it is
To be human when I renounce
Knowing whether I have fellow creatures
Ecstasy
I am in front of this feminine land
Like a child in front of the fire
Smiling vaguely with tears in my eyes
In front of this land where all moves in me
Where mirrors mist where mirrors clear
Reflecting two nude bodies season on season
I've so many reasons to lose myself
On this road-less earth under horizon-less skies
Good reasons I ignored yesterday
And I'll never ever forget
Good keys of gazes keys their own daughters
in front of this land where nature is mine
In front of the fire the first fire
Good mistress reason
Identified star
On earth under sky in and out of my heart
Second bud first green leaf
That the sea covers with sails
And the sun finally coming to us
I am in front of this feminine land
Like a branch in the fire.
Our Life
We'll not reach the goal one by one but in pairs
We know in pairs we will know all about us
We'll love everything our children will smile
At the dark history or mourn alone
Uninterrupted Poetry
From the sea to the source
From mountain to plain
Runs the phantom of life
The foul shadow of death
But between us
A dawn of ardent flesh is born
And exact good
that sets the earth in order
We advance with calm step
And nature salutes us
The day embodies our colours
Fire our eyes the sea our union
And all living resemble us
All the living we love
Imaginary the others
Wrong and defined by their birth
But we must struggle against them
They live by dagger blows
They speak like a broken chair
Their lips tremble with joy
At the echo of leaden bells
At the muteness of dark gold
A lone heart not a heart
A lone heart all the hearts
And the bodies every star
In a sky filled with stars
In a career in movement
Of light and of glances
Our weight shines on the earth
Glaze of desire
To sing of human shores
For you the living I love
And for all those that we love
That have no desire but to love
I'll end truly by barring the road
Afloat with enforced dreams
I'll end truly by finding myself
We'll take possession of earth
Index of First Lines
I speak to you over cities
Easy and beautiful under
Between all my torments between death and self
She is standing on my eyelids
In one corner agile incest
For the splendour of the day of happinesses in the air
After years of wisdom
Run and run towards deliverance
Life is truly kind
What's become of you why this white hair and pink
A face at the end of the day
By the road of ways
All the trees all their branches all of their leaves
Adieu Tristesse
Woman I've lived with
Fertile Eyes
I said it to you for the clouds
It's the sweet law of men
The curve of your eyes embraces my heart
On my notebooks from school
I have passed the doors of coldness
I am in front of this feminine land
We'll not reach the goal one by one but in pairs
From the sea to the source
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Paul Eluard
Sixteen More Poems
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First Line Index
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Contents
The Word
Your Orange Hair in the Void of the World
Nusch
Thus, Woman, Principle of Life, Speaker of the Ideal
'You Rise the Water Unfolds'
I Only Wish to Love You
The World is Blue As an Orange
We Have Created the Night
Even When We Sleep
To Marc Chagall
Air Vif
Certitude
We two
'At Dawn I Love You'
'She Looks Into Me. . . '
A Single Smile
Index of First Lines
The Word
I have an easy beauty one that is happy.
I glide on the surface of winds.
I glide on the surface of seas
I have grown sentimental
I no longer know the guide
I no longer move silk over ice
I am diseased flowers and stones
I love the most chinese of nudes
I love the most naked lapses of wings
I am old but here I am beautiful
And the shadow that flows from the deep windows
Each evening spares the dark heart of my stare.
Your Orange Hair in the Void of the World
Your orange hair in the void of the world
In the void of these heavy panes of silence
Shade where my bare hands seek your image.
The shape of your heart is chimerical
And your love resembles my lost desire.
O sighs of amber, dreams, glances.
But you were not always here. My memory
Is still obscured by seeing your coming
And going. Time consumes words, like love.
Nusch
The sentiments apparent
The lightness of approach
The tresses of caresses.
Without worry or suspicion
Your eyes confide in what they see
Seen by what they gaze at.
Confidence of crystal
Between two mirrors
At night your eyes are lost
To fuse waking to desire.
Thus, Woman, Principle of Life, Speaker of the Ideal
Would you see
The dark form of the sun
The contours of life
Or be truly dazzled
By the fire that fuses all
The flame conveyer of modesties
In flesh in gold that fine gesture
Error is as unknown
As the limits of spring
The temptation prodigious
All touches all travels you
At first it was only a thunder of incense
Which you love the more
The fine praise at four
Lovely motionless nude
Violin mute but palpable
I speak to you of seeing
I will speak to you of your eyes
Be faceless if you wish
Of their unwilling colour
Of luminous stones
Colourless
Before the man you conquer
His blind enthusiasm
Reigns naively like a spring
In the desert
Between the sands of night and the waves of day
Between earth and water
No ripple to erase
No road possible
Between your eyes and the images I see there
Is all of which I think
Myself inderacinable
Like a plant which masses itself
Which simulates rock among other rocks
That I carry for certain
You all entire
All that you gaze at
All
This is a boat
That sails a sweet river
It carries playful women
And patient grain
This is a horse descending the hill
Or perhaps a flame rising
A great barefooted laugh in a wretched heart
An autumn height of soothing verdure
A bird that persists in folding its wings in its nest
A morning that scatters the reddened light
To waken the fields
This is a parasol
And this the dress
Of a lace-maker more seductive than a bouquet
Of the bell-sounds of the rainbow
This thwarts immensity
This has never enough space
Welcome is always elsewhere
With the lightning and the flood
That accompany it
Of medusas and fires
Marvellously obliging
They destroy the scaffolding
Topped by a sad coloured flag
A bounded star
Whose fingers are paralysed
I speak of seeing you
I know you living
All exists all is visible
There is no fleck of night in your eyes
I see by a light exclusively yours.
'You Rise the Water Unfolds'
You rise the water unfolds
You sleep the water flowers
You are water ploughed from its depths
You are earth that takes root
And in which all is grounded
You make bubbles of silence in the desert of sound
You sing nocturnal hymns on the arcs of the rainbow
You are everywhere you abolish the roads
You sacrifice time
To the eternal youth of an exact flame
That veils Nature to reproduce her
Woman you show the world a body forever the same
Yours
You are its likeness.
I Only Wish to Love You
I only wish to love you
A storm fills the valley
A fish the river
I have made you the size of my solitude
The whole world to hide in
Days and nights to understand
To see no more in your eyes
Than what I think of you
And a world in your image
And days and nights ruled by your eyelids.
The World is Blue As an Orange
The world is blue as an orange
No error the words do not lie
They no longer allow you to sing
In the tower of kisses agreement
The madness the love
She her mouth of alliance
All the secrets all the smiles
Or what dress of indulgence
To believe in quite naked.
The wasps flourish greenly
Dawn goes by round her neck
A necklace of windows
You are all the solar joys
All the sun of this earth
On the roads of your beauty.
We Have Created the Night
We have created the night I hold your hand I watch
I sustain you with all my powers
I engrave in rock the star of your powers
Deep furrows where your body's goodness fruits
I recall your hidden voice your public voice
I smile still at the proud woman
You treat like a beggar
The madness you respect the simplicity you bathe in
And in my head which gently blends with yours with the night
I wonder at the stranger you become
A stranger resembling you resembling everything I love
One that is always new.
Even When We Sleep
Even when we sleep we watch over each other
And this love heavier than a lake's ripe fruit
Without laughter or tears lasts forever
One day after another one night after us.
To Marc Chagall
Donkey or cow, cockerel or horse
On to the skin of a violin
A singing man a single bird
An agile dancer with his wife
A couple drenched in their youth
The gold of the grass lead of the sky
Separated by azure flames
Of the health-giving dew
The blood glitters the heart rings
A couple the first reflection
And in a cellar of snow
The opulent vine draws
A face with lunar lips
That never slept at night.
Air Vif
I looked in front of me
In the crowd I saw you
Among the wheat I saw you
Beneath a tree I saw you
At the end of my journeys
In the depths of my torment
At the corner of every smile
Emerging from water and fire
Summer and winter I saw you
All through my house I saw you
In my arms I saw you
In my dreams I saw you
I will never leave you.
Certitude
If I speak it's to hear you more clearly
If I hear you I'm sure to understand you
If you smile it's the better to enter me
If you smile I will see the world entire
If I embrace you it's to widen myself
If we live everything will turn to joy
If I leave you we'll remember each other
In leaving you we'll find each other again.
We two
We two take each other by the hand
We believe everywhere in our house
Under the soft tree under the black sky
Beneath the roofs at the edge of the fire
In the empty street in broad daylight
In the wandering eyes of the crowd
By the side of the foolish and wise
Among the grown-ups and children
Love's not mysterious at all
We are the evidence ourselves
In our house lovers believe.
'At Dawn I Love You'
At dawn I love you I've the whole night in my veins
All night I have gazed at you
I've all to divine I am certain of shadows
They give me the power
To envelop you
To stir your desire to live
At my motionless core
The power to reveal you
To free you to lose you
Invisible flame in the day.
If you go out the door opens on daylight
If you go out the door to myself stands open.
'She Looks Into Me. . . '
She looks into me
The unknowing heart
To see if I love
She has confidence she forgets
Under the clouds of her eyelids
Her head falls asleep in my hands
Where are we
Together inseparable
Alive alive
He alive she alive
And my head rolls through her dreams.
A Single Smile
A single smile disputes
Each star with the gathering night
A single smile for us both
And the blue of your joyful eyes
Against the mass of night
Finding its flame in my eyes
I have seen by needing to know
The deep night create the day
With no change in our appearance.
Index of First Lines
I have an easy beauty one that is happy.
Your orange hair in the void of the world
The sentiments apparent
Would you see
You rise the water unfolds
I only wish to love you
The world is blue as an orange
We have created the night I hold your hand I watch
Even when we sleep we watch over each other
Donkey or cow, cockerel or horse
I looked in front of me
If I speak it's to hear you more clearly
We two take each other by the hand
At dawn I love you I've the whole night in my veins
She looks into me
A single smile disputes
Translated by A. S. Kline (C) Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved
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Thus, Woman, Principle of Life, Speaker of the Ideal
Would you see
The dark form of the sun
The contours of life
Or be truly dazzled
By the fire that fuses all
The flame conveyer of modesties
In flesh in gold that fine gesture
Error is as unknown
As the limits of spring
The temptation prodigious
All touches all travels you
At first it was only a thunder of incense
Which you love the more
The fine praise at four
Lovely motionless nude
Violin mute but palpable
I speak to you of seeing
I will speak to you of your eyes
Be faceless if you wish
Of their unwilling colour
Of luminous stones
Colourless
Before the man you conquer
His blind enthusiasm
Reigns naively like a spring
In the desert
Between the sands of night and the waves of day
Between earth and water
No ripple to erase
No road possible
Between your eyes and the images I see there
Is all of which I think
Myself inderacinable
Like a plant which masses itself
Which simulates rock among other rocks
That I carry for certain
You all entire
All that you gaze at
All
This is a boat
That sails a sweet river
It carries playful women
And patient grain
This is a horse descending the hill
Or perhaps a flame rising
A great barefooted laugh in a wretched heart
An autumn height of soothing verdure
A bird that persists in folding its wings in its nest
A morning that scatters the reddened light
To waken the fields
This is a parasol
And this the dress
Of a lace-maker more seductive than a bouquet
Of the bell-sounds of the rainbow
This thwarts immensity
This has never enough space
Welcome is always elsewhere
With the lightning and the flood
That accompany it
Of medusas and fires
Marvellously obliging
They destroy the scaffolding
Topped by a sad coloured flag
A bounded star
Whose fingers are paralysed
I speak of seeing you
I know you living
All exists all is visible
There is no fleck of night in your eyes
I see by a light exclusively yours.
'You Rise the Water Unfolds'
You rise the water unfolds
You sleep the water flowers
You are water ploughed from its depths
You are earth that takes root
And in which all is grounded
You make bubbles of silence in the desert of sound
You sing nocturnal hymns on the arcs of the rainbow
You are everywhere you abolish the roads
You sacrifice time
To the eternal youth of an exact flame
That veils Nature to reproduce her
Woman you show the world a body forever the same
Yours
You are its likeness.
I Only Wish to Love You
I only wish to love you
A storm fills the valley
A fish the river
I have made you the size of my solitude
The whole world to hide in
Days and nights to understand
To see no more in your eyes
Than what I think of you
And a world in your image
And days and nights ruled by your eyelids.
The World is Blue As an Orange
The world is blue as an orange
No error the words do not lie
They no longer allow you to sing
In the tower of kisses agreement
The madness the love
She her mouth of alliance
All the secrets all the smiles
Or what dress of indulgence
To believe in quite naked.
The wasps flourish greenly
Dawn goes by round her neck
A necklace of windows
You are all the solar joys
All the sun of this earth
On the roads of your beauty.
We Have Created the Night
We have created the night I hold your hand I watch
I sustain you with all my powers
I engrave in rock the star of your powers
Deep furrows where your body's goodness fruits
I recall your hidden voice your public voice
I smile still at the proud woman
You treat like a beggar
The madness you respect the simplicity you bathe in
And in my head which gently blends with yours with the night
I wonder at the stranger you become
A stranger resembling you resembling everything I love
One that is always new.
Even When We Sleep
Even when we sleep we watch over each other
And this love heavier than a lake's ripe fruit
Without laughter or tears lasts forever
One day after another one night after us.
To Marc Chagall
Donkey or cow, cockerel or horse
On to the skin of a violin
A singing man a single bird
An agile dancer with his wife
A couple drenched in their youth
The gold of the grass lead of the sky
Separated by azure flames
Of the health-giving dew
The blood glitters the heart rings
A couple the first reflection
And in a cellar of snow
The opulent vine draws
A face with lunar lips
That never slept at night.
Air Vif
I looked in front of me
In the crowd I saw you
Among the wheat I saw you
Beneath a tree I saw you
At the end of my journeys
In the depths of my torment
At the corner of every smile
Emerging from water and fire
Summer and winter I saw you
All through my house I saw you
In my arms I saw you
In my dreams I saw you
I will never leave you.
Certitude
If I speak it's to hear you more clearly
If I hear you I'm sure to understand you
If you smile it's the better to enter me
If you smile I will see the world entire
If I embrace you it's to widen myself
If we live everything will turn to joy
If I leave you we'll remember each other
In leaving you we'll find each other again.
We two
We two take each other by the hand
We believe everywhere in our house
Under the soft tree under the black sky
Beneath the roofs at the edge of the fire
In the empty street in broad daylight
In the wandering eyes of the crowd
By the side of the foolish and wise
Among the grown-ups and children
Love's not mysterious at all
We are the evidence ourselves
In our house lovers believe.
'At Dawn I Love You'
At dawn I love you I've the whole night in my veins
All night I have gazed at you
I've all to divine I am certain of shadows
They give me the power
To envelop you
To stir your desire to live
At my motionless core
The power to reveal you
To free you to lose you
Invisible flame in the day.
If you go out the door opens on daylight
If you go out the door to myself stands open.
'She Looks Into Me. . . '
She looks into me
The unknowing heart
To see if I love
She has confidence she forgets
Under the clouds of her eyelids
Her head falls asleep in my hands
Where are we
Together inseparable
Alive alive
He alive she alive
And my head rolls through her dreams.
A Single Smile
A single smile disputes
Each star with the gathering night
A single smile for us both
And the blue of your joyful eyes
Against the mass of night
Finding its flame in my eyes
I have seen by needing to know
The deep night create the day
With no change in our appearance.
Index of First Lines
I have an easy beauty one that is happy.
Your orange hair in the void of the world
The sentiments apparent
Would you see
You rise the water unfolds
I only wish to love you
The world is blue as an orange
We have created the night I hold your hand I watch
Even when we sleep we watch over each other
Donkey or cow, cockerel or horse
I looked in front of me
If I speak it's to hear you more clearly
We two take each other by the hand
At dawn I love you I've the whole night in my veins
She looks into me
A single smile disputes
Translated by A. S. Kline (C) Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.
We use cookies to enhance user experience. Continued use of this site implies consent to that usage. Please see our Privacy Policy.
(C) Copyright 2000-2016 A. S. Kline, All Rights Reserved
Design by ADKline.
SEARCHCONTACTABOUTHOME
Paul Eluard
Twenty-Four Poems
Contents
First Line Index
Download
Home
Contents
Absence
Easy
Talking of Power and Love
The Beloved
Max Ernst
Series
Obsession
Nearer To Us
Open Door
The Immediate Life
Lovely And Lifelike
The Season of Loves
As Far As My Eye Can See In My Body's Senses
Barely Disfigured
In A New Night
Fertile Eyes
I Said It To You
It's The Sweet Law Of Men
The Curve Of Your Eyes
Liberty
Ring Of Peace
Ecstasy
Our Life
Uninterrupted Poetry
Index of First Lines
Absence
I speak to you over cities
I speak to you over plains
My mouth is against your ear
The two sides of the walls face
my voice which acknowledges you.
I speak to you of eternity.
O cities memories of cities
cities draped with our desires
cities early and late
cities strong cities intimate
stripped of all their makers
their thinkers their phantoms
Landscape ruled by emerald
live living ever-living
the wheat of the sky on our earth
nourishes my voice I dream and cry
I laugh and dream between the flames
between the clusters of sunlight
And over my body your body extends
the layer of its clear mirror.
Easy
Easy and beautiful under
your eyelids
As the meeting of pleasure
Dance and the rest
I spoke the fever
The best reason for fire
That you might be pale and luminous
A thousand fruitful poses
A thousand ravaged embraces
Repeated move to erase themselves
You grow dark you unveil yourself
A mask you
control it
It deeply resembles you
And you seem nothing but lovelier naked
Naked in shadow and dazzlingly naked
Like a sky shivering with flashes of lightning
You reveal yourself to you
To reveal yourself to others
Talking of Power and Love
Between all my torments between death and self
Between my despair and the reason for living
There is injustice and this evil of men
That I cannot accept there is my anger
There are the blood-coloured fighters of Spain
There are the sky-coloured fighters of Greece
The bread the blood the sky and the right to hope
For all the innocents who hate evil
The light is always close to dying
Life always ready to become earth
But spring is reborn that is never done with
A bud lifts from dark and the warmth settles
And the warmth will have the right of the selfish
Their atrophied senses will not resist
I hear the fire talk lightly of coolness
I hear a man speak what he has not known
You who were my flesh's sensitive conscience
You I love forever you who made me
You will not tolerate oppression or injury
You'll sing in dream of earthly happiness
You'll dream of freedom and I'll continue you
The Beloved
She is standing on my eyelids
And her hair is wound in mine,
She has the form of my hands,
She has the colour of my eyes,
She is swallowed by my shadow
Like a stone against the sky.
Her eyes are always open
And will not let me sleep.
Her dreams in broad daylight
Make the suns evaporate
Make me laugh, cry and laugh,
Speak with nothing to say.
Max Ernst
In one corner agile incest
Turns round the virginity of a little dress
In one corner sky released
leaves balls of white on the spines of storm.
In one corner bright with all the eyes
One awaits the fish of anguish.
In one corner the car of summer's greenery
gloriously motionless forever.
In the glow of youth
lamps lit too late.
The first one shows her breasts that kill the insects that are red.
Series
For the splendour of the day of happinesses in the air
To live the taste of colours easily
To enjoy loves so as to laugh
To open eyes at the final moment
She has every willingness.
Obsession
After years of wisdom
During which the world was transparent as a needle
Was it cooing about something else?
After having vied with returned favours squandered treasure
More than a red lip with a red tip
And more than a white leg with a white foot
Where then do we think we are?
Nearer To Us
Run and run towards deliverance
And find and gather everything
Deliverance and riches
Run so quickly the thread breaks
With the sound a great bird makes
A flag always soared beyond
Open Door
Life is truly kind
Come to me, if I go to you it's a game,
The angels of bouquets grant the flowers a change of hue.
The Immediate Life
What's become of you why this white hair and pink
Why this forehead these eyes rent apart heart-rending
The great misunderstanding of the marriage of radium
Solitude chases me with its rancour.
Lovely And Lifelike
A face at the end of the day
A cradle in day's dead leaves
A bouquet of naked rain
Every ray of sun hidden
Every fount of founts in the depths of the water
Every mirror of mirrors broken
A face in the scales of silence
A pebble among other pebbles
For the leaves last glimmers of day
A face like all the forgotten faces.
The Season of Loves
By the road of ways
In the three-part shadow of troubled sleep
I come to you the double the multiple
as like you as the era of deltas.
Your head is as tiny as mine
The nearby sea reigns with spring
Over the summers of your fragile form
And here one burns bundles of ermine.
In the wandering transparency
of your noble face
these floating animals are wonderful
I envy their candour their inexperience
Your inexperience on the bed of waters
Finds the road of love without bowing
By the road of ways
and without the talisman that reveals
your laughter at the crowd of women
and your tears no one wants.
As Far As My Eye Can See In My Body's Senses
All the trees all their branches all of their leaves
The grass at the foot of the rocks and the houses en masse
Far off the sea that your eye bathes
These images of day after day
The vices the virtues so imperfect
The transparency of men passing among them by chance
And passing women breathed by your elegant obstinacies
Your obsessions in a heart of lead on virgin lips
The vices the virtues so imperfect
The likeness of looks of permission with eyes you conquer
The confusion of bodies wearinesses ardours
The imitation of words attitudes ideas
The vices the virtues so imperfect
Love is man incomplete
Barely Disfigured
Adieu Tristesse
Bonjour Tristesse
Farewell Sadness
Hello Sadness
You are inscribed in the lines on the ceiling
You are inscribed in the eyes that I love
You are not poverty absolutely
Since the poorest of lips denounce you
Ah with a smile
Bonjour Tristesse
Love of kind bodies
Power of love
From which kindness rises
Like a bodiless monster
Unattached head
Sadness beautiful face.
In A New Night
Woman I've lived with
Woman I live with
Woman I'll live with
Always the same
You need a red cloak
Red gloves a red mask
And dark stockings
The reasons the proofs
Of seeing you quite naked
Nudity pure O ready finery
Breasts O my heart
Fertile Eyes
Fertile Eyes
No one can know me more
More than you know me
Your eyes in which we sleep
The two of them
Have cast a spell on my male orbs
Greater than worldly nights
Your eyes where I voyage
Have given the road-signs
Directions detached from the earth
In your eyes those that show us
Our infinite solitude
Is no more than they think exists
No one can know me more
More than you know me.
I Said It To You
I said it to you for the clouds
I said it to you for the tree of the sea
For each wave for the birds in the leaves
For the pebbles of sound
For familiar hands
For the eye that becomes landscape or face
And sleep returns it the heaven of its colour
For all that night drank
For the network of roads
For the open window for a bare forehead
I said it to you for your thoughts for your words
Every caress every trust survives.
It's The Sweet Law Of Men
It's the sweet law of men
They make wine from grapes
They make fire from coal
They make men from kisses
It's the true law of men
Kept intact despite
the misery and war
despite danger of death
It's the warm law of men
To change water to light
Dream to reality
Enemies to friends
A law old and new
That perfects itself
From the child's heart's depths
To reason's heights.
The Curve Of Your Eyes
The curve of your eyes embraces my heart
A ring of sweetness and dance
halo of time, sure nocturnal cradle,
And if I no longer know all I have lived through
It's that your eyes have not always been mine.
Leaves of day and moss of dew,
Reeds of breeze, smiles perfumed,
Wings covering the world of light,
Boats charged with sky and sea,
Hunters of sound and sources of colour
Perfume enclosed by a covey of dawns
that beds forever on the straw of stars,
As the day depends on innocence
The whole world depends on your pure eyes
And all my blood flows under their sight.
Liberty
On my notebooks from school
On my desk and the trees
On the sand on the snow
I write your name
On every page read
On all the white sheets
Stone blood paper or ash
I write your name
On the golden images
On the soldier's weapons
On the crowns of kings
I write your name
On the jungle the desert
The nests and the bushes
On the echo of childhood
I write your name
On the wonder of nights
On the white bread of days
On the seasons engaged
I write your name
On all my blue rags
On the pond mildewed sun
On the lake living moon
I write your name
On the fields the horizon
The wings of the birds
On the windmill of shadows
I write your name
On each breath of the dawn
On the ships on the sea
On the mountain demented
I write your name
On the foam of the clouds
On the sweat of the storm
On dark insipid rain
I write your name
On the glittering forms
On the bells of colour
On physical truth
I write your name
On the wakened paths
On the opened ways
On the scattered places
I write your name
On the lamp that gives light
On the lamp that is drowned
On my house reunited
I write your name
On the bisected fruit
Of my mirror and room
On my bed's empty shell
I write your name
On my dog greedy tender
On his listening ears
On his awkward paws
I write your name
On the sill of my door
On familiar things
On the fire's sacred stream
I write your name
On all flesh that's in tune
On the brows of my friends
On each hand that extends
I write your name
On the glass of surprises
On lips that attend
High over the silence
I write your name
On my ravaged refuges
On my fallen lighthouses
On the walls of my boredom
I write your name
On passionless absence
On naked solitude
On the marches of death
I write your name
On health that's regained
On danger that's past
On hope without memories
I write your name
By the power of the word
I regain my life
I was born to know you
And to name you
LIBERTY
Ring Of Peace
I have passed the doors of coldness
The doors of my bitterness
To come and kiss your lips
City reduced to a room
Where the absurd tide of evil
leaves a reassuring foam
Ring of peace I have only you
You teach me again what it is
To be human when I renounce
Knowing whether I have fellow creatures
Ecstasy
I am in front of this feminine land
Like a child in front of the fire
Smiling vaguely with tears in my eyes
In front of this land where all moves in me
Where mirrors mist where mirrors clear
Reflecting two nude bodies season on season
I've so many reasons to lose myself
On this road-less earth under horizon-less skies
Good reasons I ignored yesterday
And I'll never ever forget
Good keys of gazes keys their own daughters
in front of this land where nature is mine
In front of the fire the first fire
Good mistress reason
Identified star
On earth under sky in and out of my heart
Second bud first green leaf
That the sea covers with sails
And the sun finally coming to us
I am in front of this feminine land
Like a branch in the fire.
Our Life
We'll not reach the goal one by one but in pairs
We know in pairs we will know all about us
We'll love everything our children will smile
At the dark history or mourn alone
Uninterrupted Poetry
From the sea to the source
From mountain to plain
Runs the phantom of life
The foul shadow of death
But between us
A dawn of ardent flesh is born
And exact good
that sets the earth in order
We advance with calm step
And nature salutes us
The day embodies our colours
Fire our eyes the sea our union
And all living resemble us
All the living we love
Imaginary the others
Wrong and defined by their birth
But we must struggle against them
They live by dagger blows
They speak like a broken chair
Their lips tremble with joy
At the echo of leaden bells
At the muteness of dark gold
A lone heart not a heart
A lone heart all the hearts
And the bodies every star
In a sky filled with stars
In a career in movement
Of light and of glances
Our weight shines on the earth
Glaze of desire
To sing of human shores
For you the living I love
And for all those that we love
That have no desire but to love
I'll end truly by barring the road
Afloat with enforced dreams
I'll end truly by finding myself
We'll take possession of earth
Index of First Lines
I speak to you over cities
Easy and beautiful under
Between all my torments between death and self
She is standing on my eyelids
In one corner agile incest
For the splendour of the day of happinesses in the air
After years of wisdom
Run and run towards deliverance
Life is truly kind
What's become of you why this white hair and pink
A face at the end of the day
By the road of ways
All the trees all their branches all of their leaves
Adieu Tristesse
Woman I've lived with
Fertile Eyes
I said it to you for the clouds
It's the sweet law of men
The curve of your eyes embraces my heart
On my notebooks from school
I have passed the doors of coldness
I am in front of this feminine land
We'll not reach the goal one by one but in pairs
From the sea to the source
Logo
SEARCHCONTACTABOUTHOME
Paul Eluard
Sixteen More Poems
Contents
First Line Index
Download
Home
Contents
The Word
Your Orange Hair in the Void of the World
Nusch
Thus, Woman, Principle of Life, Speaker of the Ideal
'You Rise the Water Unfolds'
I Only Wish to Love You
The World is Blue As an Orange
We Have Created the Night
Even When We Sleep
To Marc Chagall
Air Vif
Certitude
We two
'At Dawn I Love You'
'She Looks Into Me. . . '
A Single Smile
Index of First Lines
The Word
I have an easy beauty one that is happy.
I glide on the surface of winds.
I glide on the surface of seas
I have grown sentimental
I no longer know the guide
I no longer move silk over ice
I am diseased flowers and stones
I love the most chinese of nudes
I love the most naked lapses of wings
I am old but here I am beautiful
And the shadow that flows from the deep windows
Each evening spares the dark heart of my stare.
Your Orange Hair in the Void of the World
Your orange hair in the void of the world
In the void of these heavy panes of silence
Shade where my bare hands seek your image.
The shape of your heart is chimerical
And your love resembles my lost desire.
O sighs of amber, dreams, glances.
But you were not always here. My memory
Is still obscured by seeing your coming
And going. Time consumes words, like love.
Nusch
The sentiments apparent
The lightness of approach
The tresses of caresses.
Without worry or suspicion
Your eyes confide in what they see
Seen by what they gaze at.
Confidence of crystal
Between two mirrors
At night your eyes are lost
To fuse waking to desire.
Thus, Woman, Principle of Life, Speaker of the Ideal
Would you see
The dark form of the sun
The contours of life
Or be truly dazzled
By the fire that fuses all
The flame conveyer of modesties
In flesh in gold that fine gesture
Error is as unknown
As the limits of spring
The temptation prodigious
All touches all travels you
At first it was only a thunder of incense
Which you love the more
The fine praise at four
Lovely motionless nude
Violin mute but palpable
I speak to you of seeing
I will speak to you of your eyes
Be faceless if you wish
Of their unwilling colour
Of luminous stones
Colourless
Before the man you conquer
His blind enthusiasm
Reigns naively like a spring
In the desert
Between the sands of night and the waves of day
Between earth and water
No ripple to erase
No road possible
Between your eyes and the images I see there
Is all of which I think
Myself inderacinable
Like a plant which masses itself
Which simulates rock among other rocks
That I carry for certain
You all entire
All that you gaze at
All
This is a boat
That sails a sweet river
It carries playful women
And patient grain
This is a horse descending the hill
Or perhaps a flame rising
A great barefooted laugh in a wretched heart
An autumn height of soothing verdure
A bird that persists in folding its wings in its nest
A morning that scatters the reddened light
To waken the fields
This is a parasol
And this the dress
Of a lace-maker more seductive than a bouquet
Of the bell-sounds of the rainbow
This thwarts immensity
This has never enough space
Welcome is always elsewhere
With the lightning and the flood
That accompany it
Of medusas and fires
Marvellously obliging
They destroy the scaffolding
Topped by a sad coloured flag
A bounded star
Whose fingers are paralysed
I speak of seeing you
I know you living
All exists all is visible
There is no fleck of night in your eyes
I see by a light exclusively yours.
'You Rise the Water Unfolds'
You rise the water unfolds
You sleep the water flowers
You are water ploughed from its depths
You are earth that takes root
And in which all is grounded
You make bubbles of silence in the desert of sound
You sing nocturnal hymns on the arcs of the rainbow
You are everywhere you abolish the roads
You sacrifice time
To the eternal youth of an exact flame
That veils Nature to reproduce her
Woman you show the world a body forever the same
Yours
You are its likeness.
I Only Wish to Love You
I only wish to love you
A storm fills the valley
A fish the river
I have made you the size of my solitude
The whole world to hide in
Days and nights to understand
To see no more in your eyes
Than what I think of you
And a world in your image
And days and nights ruled by your eyelids.
The World is Blue As an Orange
The world is blue as an orange
No error the words do not lie
They no longer allow you to sing
In the tower of kisses agreement
The madness the love
She her mouth of alliance
All the secrets all the smiles
Or what dress of indulgence
To believe in quite naked.
The wasps flourish greenly
Dawn goes by round her neck
A necklace of windows
You are all the solar joys
All the sun of this earth
On the roads of your beauty.
We Have Created the Night
We have created the night I hold your hand I watch
I sustain you with all my powers
I engrave in rock the star of your powers
Deep furrows where your body's goodness fruits
I recall your hidden voice your public voice
I smile still at the proud woman
You treat like a beggar
The madness you respect the simplicity you bathe in
And in my head which gently blends with yours with the night
I wonder at the stranger you become
A stranger resembling you resembling everything I love
One that is always new.
Even When We Sleep
Even when we sleep we watch over each other
And this love heavier than a lake's ripe fruit
Without laughter or tears lasts forever
One day after another one night after us.
To Marc Chagall
Donkey or cow, cockerel or horse
On to the skin of a violin
A singing man a single bird
An agile dancer with his wife
A couple drenched in their youth
The gold of the grass lead of the sky
Separated by azure flames
Of the health-giving dew
The blood glitters the heart rings
A couple the first reflection
And in a cellar of snow
The opulent vine draws
A face with lunar lips
That never slept at night.
Air Vif
I looked in front of me
In the crowd I saw you
Among the wheat I saw you
Beneath a tree I saw you
At the end of my journeys
In the depths of my torment
At the corner of every smile
Emerging from water and fire
Summer and winter I saw you
All through my house I saw you
In my arms I saw you
In my dreams I saw you
I will never leave you.
Certitude
If I speak it's to hear you more clearly
If I hear you I'm sure to understand you
If you smile it's the better to enter me
If you smile I will see the world entire
If I embrace you it's to widen myself
If we live everything will turn to joy
If I leave you we'll remember each other
In leaving you we'll find each other again.
We two
We two take each other by the hand
We believe everywhere in our house
Under the soft tree under the black sky
Beneath the roofs at the edge of the fire
In the empty street in broad daylight
In the wandering eyes of the crowd
By the side of the foolish and wise
Among the grown-ups and children
Love's not mysterious at all
We are the evidence ourselves
In our house lovers believe.
'At Dawn I Love You'
At dawn I love you I've the whole night in my veins
All night I have gazed at you
I've all to divine I am certain of shadows
They give me the power
To envelop you
To stir your desire to live
At my motionless core
The power to reveal you
To free you to lose you
Invisible flame in the day.
If you go out the door opens on daylight
If you go out the door to myself stands open.
'She Looks Into Me. . . '
She looks into me
The unknowing heart
To see if I love
She has confidence she forgets
Under the clouds of her eyelids
Her head falls asleep in my hands
Where are we
Together inseparable
Alive alive
He alive she alive
And my head rolls through her dreams.
A Single Smile
A single smile disputes
Each star with the gathering night
A single smile for us both
And the blue of your joyful eyes
Against the mass of night
Finding its flame in my eyes
I have seen by needing to know
The deep night create the day
With no change in our appearance.
Index of First Lines
I have an easy beauty one that is happy.
Your orange hair in the void of the world
The sentiments apparent
Would you see
You rise the water unfolds
I only wish to love you
The world is blue as an orange
We have created the night I hold your hand I watch
Even when we sleep we watch over each other
Donkey or cow, cockerel or horse
I looked in front of me
If I speak it's to hear you more clearly
We two take each other by the hand
At dawn I love you I've the whole night in my veins
She looks into me
A single smile disputes
Translated by A. S. Kline (C) Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.
We use cookies to enhance user experience. Continued use of this site implies consent to that usage. Please see our Privacy Policy.
(C) Copyright 2000-2016 A. S. Kline, All Rights Reserved
Design by ADKline.
Thus, Woman, Principle of Life, Speaker of the Ideal
Would you see
The dark form of the sun
The contours of life
Or be truly dazzled
By the fire that fuses all
The flame conveyer of modesties
In flesh in gold that fine gesture
Error is as unknown
As the limits of spring
The temptation prodigious
All touches all travels you
At first it was only a thunder of incense
Which you love the more
The fine praise at four
Lovely motionless nude
Violin mute but palpable
I speak to you of seeing
I will speak to you of your eyes
Be faceless if you wish
Of their unwilling colour
Of luminous stones
Colourless
Before the man you conquer
His blind enthusiasm
Reigns naively like a spring
In the desert
Between the sands of night and the waves of day
Between earth and water
No ripple to erase
No road possible
Between your eyes and the images I see there
Is all of which I think
Myself inderacinable
Like a plant which masses itself
Which simulates rock among other rocks
That I carry for certain
You all entire
All that you gaze at
All
This is a boat
That sails a sweet river
It carries playful women
And patient grain
This is a horse descending the hill
Or perhaps a flame rising
A great barefooted laugh in a wretched heart
An autumn height of soothing verdure
A bird that persists in folding its wings in its nest
A morning that scatters the reddened light
To waken the fields
This is a parasol
And this the dress
Of a lace-maker more seductive than a bouquet
Of the bell-sounds of the rainbow
This thwarts immensity
This has never enough space
Welcome is always elsewhere
With the lightning and the flood
That accompany it
Of medusas and fires
Marvellously obliging
They destroy the scaffolding
Topped by a sad coloured flag
A bounded star
Whose fingers are paralysed
I speak of seeing you
I know you living
All exists all is visible
There is no fleck of night in your eyes
I see by a light exclusively yours.
'You Rise the Water Unfolds'
You rise the water unfolds
You sleep the water flowers
You are water ploughed from its depths
You are earth that takes root
And in which all is grounded
You make bubbles of silence in the desert of sound
You sing nocturnal hymns on the arcs of the rainbow
You are everywhere you abolish the roads
You sacrifice time
To the eternal youth of an exact flame
That veils Nature to reproduce her
Woman you show the world a body forever the same
Yours
You are its likeness.
I Only Wish to Love You
I only wish to love you
A storm fills the valley
A fish the river
I have made you the size of my solitude
The whole world to hide in
Days and nights to understand
To see no more in your eyes
Than what I think of you
And a world in your image
And days and nights ruled by your eyelids.
The World is Blue As an Orange
The world is blue as an orange
No error the words do not lie
They no longer allow you to sing
In the tower of kisses agreement
The madness the love
She her mouth of alliance
All the secrets all the smiles
Or what dress of indulgence
To believe in quite naked.
The wasps flourish greenly
Dawn goes by round her neck
A necklace of windows
You are all the solar joys
All the sun of this earth
On the roads of your beauty.
We Have Created the Night
We have created the night I hold your hand I watch
I sustain you with all my powers
I engrave in rock the star of your powers
Deep furrows where your body's goodness fruits
I recall your hidden voice your public voice
I smile still at the proud woman
You treat like a beggar
The madness you respect the simplicity you bathe in
And in my head which gently blends with yours with the night
I wonder at the stranger you become
A stranger resembling you resembling everything I love
One that is always new.
Even When We Sleep
Even when we sleep we watch over each other
And this love heavier than a lake's ripe fruit
Without laughter or tears lasts forever
One day after another one night after us.
To Marc Chagall
Donkey or cow, cockerel or horse
On to the skin of a violin
A singing man a single bird
An agile dancer with his wife
A couple drenched in their youth
The gold of the grass lead of the sky
Separated by azure flames
Of the health-giving dew
The blood glitters the heart rings
A couple the first reflection
And in a cellar of snow
The opulent vine draws
A face with lunar lips
That never slept at night.
Air Vif
I looked in front of me
In the crowd I saw you
Among the wheat I saw you
Beneath a tree I saw you
At the end of my journeys
In the depths of my torment
At the corner of every smile
Emerging from water and fire
Summer and winter I saw you
All through my house I saw you
In my arms I saw you
In my dreams I saw you
I will never leave you.
Certitude
If I speak it's to hear you more clearly
If I hear you I'm sure to understand you
If you smile it's the better to enter me
If you smile I will see the world entire
If I embrace you it's to widen myself
If we live everything will turn to joy
If I leave you we'll remember each other
In leaving you we'll find each other again.
We two
We two take each other by the hand
We believe everywhere in our house
Under the soft tree under the black sky
Beneath the roofs at the edge of the fire
In the empty street in broad daylight
In the wandering eyes of the crowd
By the side of the foolish and wise
Among the grown-ups and children
Love's not mysterious at all
We are the evidence ourselves
In our house lovers believe.
'At Dawn I Love You'
At dawn I love you I've the whole night in my veins
All night I have gazed at you
I've all to divine I am certain of shadows
They give me the power
To envelop you
To stir your desire to live
At my motionless core
The power to reveal you
To free you to lose you
Invisible flame in the day.
If you go out the door opens on daylight
If you go out the door to myself stands open.
'She Looks Into Me. . . '
She looks into me
The unknowing heart
To see if I love
She has confidence she forgets
Under the clouds of her eyelids
Her head falls asleep in my hands
Where are we
Together inseparable
Alive alive
He alive she alive
And my head rolls through her dreams.
A Single Smile
A single smile disputes
Each star with the gathering night
A single smile for us both
And the blue of your joyful eyes
Against the mass of night
Finding its flame in my eyes
I have seen by needing to know
The deep night create the day
With no change in our appearance.
Index of First Lines
I have an easy beauty one that is happy.
Your orange hair in the void of the world
The sentiments apparent
Would you see
You rise the water unfolds
I only wish to love you
The world is blue as an orange
We have created the night I hold your hand I watch
Even when we sleep we watch over each other
Donkey or cow, cockerel or horse
I looked in front of me
If I speak it's to hear you more clearly
We two take each other by the hand
At dawn I love you I've the whole night in my veins
She looks into me
A single smile disputes
Translated by A. S. Kline (C) Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved
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