Login
|
Join PoetrySoup
Home
Submit Poems
Login
Sign Up
Member Home
My Poems
My Quotes
My Profile & Settings
My Inboxes
My Outboxes
Soup Mail
Contest Results/Status
Contests
Poems
Poets
Famous Poems
Famous Poets
Dictionary
Types of Poems
Quotes
Short Stories
Articles
Forum
Blogs
Poem of the Day
New Poems
Resources
Syllable Counter
Anthology
Grammar Check
Greeting Card Maker
Classifieds
Member Area
Member Home
My Profile and Settings
My Poems
My Quotes
My Short Stories
My Articles
My Comments Inboxes
My Comments Outboxes
Soup Mail
Poetry Contests
Contest Results/Status
Followers
Poems of Poets I Follow
Friend Builder
Soup Social
Poetry Forum
New/Upcoming Features
The Wall
Soup Facebook Page
Who is Online
Link to Us
Member Poems
Poems - Top 100 New
Poems - Top 100 All-Time
Poems - Best
Poems - by Topic
Poems - New (All)
Poems - New (PM)
Poems - New by Poet
Poems - Random
Poems - Read
Poems - Unread
Member Poets
Poets - Best New
Poets - New
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems Recent
Poets - Top 100 Community
Poets - Top 100 Contest
Famous Poems
Famous Poems - African American
Famous Poems - Best
Famous Poems - Classical
Famous Poems - English
Famous Poems - Haiku
Famous Poems - Love
Famous Poems - Short
Famous Poems - Top 100
Famous Poets
Famous Poets - Living
Famous Poets - Most Popular
Famous Poets - Top 100
Famous Poets - Best
Famous Poets - Women
Famous Poets - African American
Famous Poets - Beat
Famous Poets - Cinquain
Famous Poets - Classical
Famous Poets - English
Famous Poets - Haiku
Famous Poets - Hindi
Famous Poets - Jewish
Famous Poets - Love
Famous Poets - Metaphysical
Famous Poets - Modern
Famous Poets - Punjabi
Famous Poets - Romantic
Famous Poets - Spanish
Famous Poets - Suicidal
Famous Poets - Urdu
Famous Poets - War
Poetry Resources
Anagrams
Bible
Book Store
Character Counter
Cliché Finder
Poetry Clichés
Common Words
Copyright Information
Grammar
Grammar Checker
Homonym
Homophones
How to Write a Poem
Lyrics
Love Poem Generator
New Poetic Forms
Plagiarism Checker
Poetics
Poetry Art
Publishing
Random Word Generator
Spell Checker
Store
What is Good Poetry?
Word Counter
Email Poem
Your IP Address: 3.145.44.40
Your Email Address:
Required
Email Address Not Valid.
To Email Address:
Email Address Not Valid.
Required
Subject
Required
Personal Note:
Poem Title:
Poem
Nothing to hide*, Translation of a poem: “A coeur ouvert” by (René) Etiemble For Jeannine (Later in life, Etiemble suppressed his first name, ostensibly on account of the accented “é” ending his first name and preceding the accented “é” of his surname. The poem is dedicated to his second wife: Jeannine Kohn who taught literature at the University of Tours and survived the world-renowned Sorbonne comparatist in 2002. See my poem on Etiemble, titled: “Front door, side door, back door: Which door might the Confucian take?” in PoetrySoup.com, PoemHunter.com, OccupyPoetry.net, ZCommunications.org, etc. This poem, one of a dozen or less which have survived a “fire”, according to the poet in a 1988 video-interview with the famous literary journalist: Bernard Pivot, is from his only poetry collection: le Coeur et la cendre: soixante ans de poésie.) The steps taken close to you in the forests, the steps mounted thanks to you even higher in me, have at last enabled me to descend into my true self far from the summits and peaks where I strained to reach the sublime and the eternal snow: delusional eternity, as much as in these books, where out of my essence only the waste I let go, and where I couldn’t free myself of infantile fantasies safe for the pitiably only end in order to somewhat survive. Today more than in days gone by, fodder of this deaf existence! What matters to me is to live with you: only with you. A thousand glory years of mine – of a sudden – I’ll exchange for just a day longer in your hands, in your eyes, in your hair: and through these the sweet scent of stew! For you will have yet for the upteenth time taught me that true love never resembles l’Hâmour*; that it draws us to the earth and flings us into the sea; that it cultivates lowlinesses, illnesses, that the cries of sufferance and those of voluptuousness mix by rustling in the darkness of our days; that the cross to bear matters to lovers that we are, a married couple, in this waking dream far more than the affected smile of “White teeth”! If by chance their eternity were to exist, I’d make little of them by cursing myself to death and in this way to have you betrayed after fifteen years, of bodies, of spirit, of loyal hearts, but of a love and of ill-chosen words which plastered you with wounds which made me suffer far more than if I were inflicted with abscesses and ulcers, a love that I enjoyed better by far than follies which I had inanely sublimated into wisdom epicurean. In fact that of eternity: the void. I will therefore never have the time to punish myself for this lapse in my love: by my death. (at Broussais, 1977) * “A Coeur ouvert”: literally “Open heart”. * Hâmour: A French surname and/or a select brand of tea and coffee. I must confess I can’t quite make out its connotations, if any, in its comparison with “true love” in the same line unless of course the comparison is made to stand out against something of ephemeral value. © T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
CAPTCHA Preview
Type the characters you see in the picture
Required