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I Know, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel S Poem, Je Sais By T Wignesan
I Know, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel S Poem, Je Sais By T Wignesan
I know, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s poem : Je sais by T. Wignesan
I have seen upon this earth the gangrene of mass graves
I have seen the sky foul up with human ashes
I have watched the breath of superb beings
Mist over with their blood the universe
I have seen how the hearts of the powerful decay on their
lips
I have seen men thought of as possessing wisdom
While they picked their way through pools of blood
I have seen the just in spirit breathe in massacres
As if the wide open spaces puffed up their lungs
I have seen the good at heart repulse God
And that brought on a tide of extermination
They were clothed in the white linen of words
To dissimulate the stains of blood
I opened my mouth God bear witness
I wanted to speak out
My heart unable to bear being human
Wanting to burst upon other men
Shrieking so as to cleave the sky
But the air thrust its fist down my throat
Out of my heart streaked words turned to lies
That I was unaware of
Those words were put into my mouth
And I pronounced them
I would rather have died than utter them
And (yet) I uttered them
In turn I have turned words into carrion
The human soul manufactures words
Which by fault of my own rot in the face of God
I have become the speaker
Who has been deprived of the meaning of Speech
My eyes are the mirror of lies
And my ears the echo of lies
And my mouth the melting-pot of lies
And my soul clogged up with lies
Froth on the lips of a dying God
Who proffers even a word without lying ?
Who dares to address crying out at the Cross :
Have I not murdered the Verb ?
I assassinated the Verb gifted by God
I am an assassin like everyone else
But not all know who’s put to death by them
Me
I do know it.
(from the collection : Visage nuage, 1955)
© T. Wignesan – Paris, September 29, 2014
Copyright © T Wignesan | Year Posted 2014
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