by
T Wignesan
for Léon Vanier*
(The texts I use for my translations are from: Yves-Alain Favre, Ed. Paul Verlaine: Œuvres Poétiques Complètes. Paris: Robert Laffont,1992, XCIX-939p.)
Some few in all this Paris:
We live off pride, yet flat broke we’re
Even if with the bottle a bit too free
We drink above all fresh water
Being very sparing when taken with hunger.
With other fine fare and wines of high-estate
Likewise with beauty: sour-tempered never.
We are the writers of good taste.
Phoebé when all the cats gray be
Highly sharpened to a point much harsher
Our bodies nourrished by glory
Hell licks its lips and in ambush does cower
And with his dart Phoebus pierces us ever
The night cradling us through dreamy waste
Strewn with seeds of peach beds over.
We are the writers of good taste.
A good many of the best minds rally
Holding high Man’s standard: toffee-nosed scoffer
And Lemerre* retains with success poetry’s destiny.
More than one poet then helter-skelter
Sought to join the rest through the narrow fissure;
But Vanier at the very end made haste
The only lucky one to assume the rôle of Fisher*.
We are the writers of good taste.
ENVOI
Even if our stock exchange tends to dither
Princes hold sway: gentle folk and the divining caste.
Whatever one might say or pours forth the preacher,
We are the writers of good taste.
*One of Verlaine’s publishers who first published his near-collected works at 19, quai Saint-Michel, Paris-V.
* Alphonse Lemerre (1838-1912) , one of Verlaine’s publishers at 47, Passage Choiseul, Paris, where from 1866 onwards the Parnassians met regularly.
*Vanier first specialised in articles for fishing as a sport.
© T. Wignesan – Paris,2013
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by
T Wignesan
Words uttered in a subdued voice in order to constitute a dedication,
Translation of Carlos Bousono’s poem :Palabras dichas en voz baja para
formar una dedicatoria
(To Ruth, so young, from another age)
(It’s quite probable that this poem commemorates and addresses Bousono’s
wife, Ruth, and as such the interest in the poem must underlie the intimate and/or
private candidness of tone, rather than the less than pretentious art form. T.
Wignesan)
I
This isn’t exactly wine that you and I drain to the last drop
with such slowness at this hour,
the neat truth. It’s not wine,
it’s love.
In any case, it’s not a question of an awaited
celebration, a noisy fiesta,
raised on gold.
It’s not a canticle of the mountains.
It’s only a whistling sound : flower, less than this :
whisper, lacking in weight.
II
And all this began some time back. We joined hands
very hurriedly to be able to remain by ourselves, alone,
both jointly and separately in order to walk on the neverending
pathway
interminably.
And in this manner, we move forward together on the
pathway
tenaciously. The same direction, the self-same golden instant
and despite it all, you walked without being in doubt,
always very far away, far behind, lost in the distance,
in the brightness, diminshed, yet wanting me,
in another station where flowers burgeoned,
in another time and in another pure space.
And from the secluded spot in the woods, from the sandy
indignity
of mature lateness, from where I contemplated
your eagerness to be ahead of time,
I saw you slow down, once and all over again,
without raising your head in your remote garden,
though being held back, obstinate-
ly,
and so unjustly !
pluck in joy
roses for me.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013
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