Zone

ZONE 


In the end you are tired of this ancient world 
Shepherd oh Eiffel Tower the herd of bridges is bleating this morning 

You've had enough of living in Greek and Roman antiquity 

Here even the cars look antique 
Only religion has stayed new religion 
Has stayed simple like the hangars at Port-Aviation 

You alone in Europe are not ancient oh Christianity 
The most modern European is you Pope Pius X 
And shame keeps you whom the windows are watching 
From entering a church and going to confession this morning 
You read the flyers catalogues posters that shout out 
There's the morning's poetry and as for prose there are the newspapers 
There are 25 cent tabloids full of crimes 
Celebrity items and a thousand different headlines 

This morning I saw a pretty street whose name I forget 
New and clean it was the sun's herald 
Executives workers and beautiful stenos 
Cross it four times a day from Monday morning to Saturday evening 
In the morning the siren moans three times 
An angry bell barks at noon 
The inscriptions on the signs and walls 
The billboards the notices squawk like parrots 
I love the charm of this industrial street 
In Paris between the Rue Aumont-Thiéville and the Avenue des Ternes 

There's the young street and you're still just a little boy 
Your mother dresses you only in blue and white 
You're very pious and along with your oldest friend René Dalize 
You like nothing better than the rituals of the Church 
It is nine o'clock the gas is low and blue you sneak out of the dormitory 
You pray all night in the school's chapel 
While in eternal adorable amethyst depths 
The flaming glory of Christ revolves forever 
It's the beautiful lily we all cultivate 
It's the torch with red hair the wind can't blow out 
It's the pale rosy son of the grieving mother 
It's the tree always leafy with prayers 
It's the paired gallows of honor and eternity 
It's the star with six branches 
It's God who dies on Friday and comes back to life on Sunday 
It's Christ who climbs to the sky better than any pilot 
He holds the world record for altitude 

Apple Christ of the eye 
Twentieth pupil of the centuries he knows how to do it 
And changed into a bird this century like Jesus climbs into the air 
Devils in their depths raise their heads to look at him 
They say he's copying Simon Magus in Judea 
They shout if he's so good at flying let's call him a fugitive 
Angels gyre around the handsome gymnast 
Icarus Enoch Elijah Apollonius of Tyana 
Hover around the first airplane 
They scatter sometimes to let the ones carrying the Eucharist pass 
Those priests that are forever ascending carrying the host 
Finally the plane lands without folding its wings 
And the sky is full of millions of swallows 
Crows falcons owls come in full flight 
Ibises flamingos storks come from Africa 
The Roc Bird made famous by storytellers and poets 
Soars holding in its claws Adam's skull the first head 
The eagle swoops screaming from the horizon 
And from America the little hummingbird comes 
From China the long agile peehees have come 
They have only one wing and fly in pairs 
Now here's the dove immaculate spirit 
Escorted by the lyre-bird and the spotted peacock 
The phoenix that self-engendering pyre 
For an instant hides all with its burning ash 
Sirens leaving the dangerous straits 
Arrive singing beautifully all three 
And all eagle phoenix peehees from China 
Hang out with the flying Machine 

Now you're walking in Paris all alone in the crowd 
Herds of buses amble by you mooing 
The anguish of love tightens your throat 
As if you were never going to be loved again 
If you lived in the old days you would enter a monastery 
You are ashamed when you catch yourself saying a prayer 
You make fun of yourself and your laughter crackles like the fire of Hell 
The sparks of your laughter gild the abyss of your life 
It is a painting hung in a dark museum 
And sometimes you go look at it close up 

Today you're walking in Paris the women have turned blood-red 
It was and I wish I didn't remember it was at the waning of beauty 
Surrounded by fervent flames Our Lady looked at me in Chartres 
The blood of your Sacred Heart drenched me in Montmartre 
I am sick from hearing blissful phrases 
The love I suffer from is a shameful sickness 
And the image that possesses you makes you survive in insomnia and anguish 
It is always near you this image that passes 

Now you're on the shores of the Mediterranean 
Under the lemon trees that are in flower all year long 
You go boating with some friends 
One is from Nice there's one from Menton and two from La Turbie 
We look with dread at the octopus of the deep 
And among the seaweed fish are swimming symbols of the Savior 

You are in the garden of an inn just outside of Prague 
You feel so happy a rose is on the table 
And you observe instead of writing your story in prose 
The Japanese beetle sleeping in the heart of the rose 

Terrified you see yourself drawn in the agates of Saint Vitus 
You were sad enough to die the day you saw yourself 
You look like Lazarus thrown into a panic by the daylight 
The hands on the clock in the Jewish district go counter-clockwise 
And you too are going slowly backwards in your life 
Climbing up to Hradcany and listening at night 
To Czech songs being sung in taverns 

Here you are in Marseilles in the middle of watermelons 

Here you are in Coblenz at the Giant Hotel 

Here you are in Rome sitting under a Japanese medlar tree 

Here you are in Amsterdam with a young woman you think is beautiful she is ugly 
She is engaged to a student from Leyden 
There they rent rooms in Latin Cubicula Locanda 
I remember I spent three days there and just as many in Gouda 

You are in Paris getting interrogated 
They're arresting you like a criminal 

You made some miserable and happy journeys 
Before you became aware of lies and of age 
You suffered from love at twenty and at thirty 
I've lived like a madman and I've wasted my time 
You don't dare look at your hands anymore and all the time I want to cry 
Over you over the women I love over everything that's terrified you 

Your tear-filled eyes watch the poor emigrants 
They believe in God they pray the women breast-feed the children 
They fill the waiting-room at the St.
 Lazaire station with their smell 
They have faith in their star like the Magi 
They hope to earn money in Argentina 
And go back to their country after making their fortune 
One family is carrying a red eiderdown the way you carry your heart 
The eiderdown and our dreams are equally unreal 
Some of these emigrants stay here and put up at the 
Rue des Rosiers or the Rue des Ecouffes in hovels 
I've seen them often at night they're out for a breath of air in the street 
And like chess pieces they rarely move 
They are mostly Jews the wives wearing wigs 
Sit still bloodless at the back of store-fronts 

You're standing in front of the counter at a sleazy bar 
You're having coffee for two sous with the down-and-out 

At night you're in a big restaurant 

These women aren't mean but they do have their troubles 
All of them even the ugliest has made her lover suffer 

She is a Jersey policeman's daughter 

Her hands that I hadn't seen are hard and chapped 

I feel immense pity for the scars on her belly 

I humble my mouth now to a poor hooker with a horrible laugh 

You are alone morning is approaching 
Milkmen clink their cans in the streets 

Night withdraws like a half-caste beauty 
Ferdine the false or thoughtful Leah 

And you drink this alcohol burning like your life 
Your life that you drink like an eau-de-vie 

You walk towards Auteuil you want to go home on foot 
To sleep surrounded by your fetishes from the South Seas and from Guinea 
They are Christs in another form and from a different creed 
They are lower Christs of dim expectations 

Goodbye Goodbye 

Sun neck cut 

  


from Alcools, 1913 

Translation copyright Charlotte Mandell 

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