Best Pierre Poems

The flamboyant Pierre Elliot Trudeau,
Canada’s 15th Prime Minister, known for saying fuddle-duddle you know.
Also established the Charter of Rights and Freedom,
Wish he was still alive, we surely need him.



Written October 9, 2012
For Andrea Dietrich’s contest
“a fresh batch of Clerihews”...

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The Wedding Ceremony of the Dead, Part One, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Les Noces de la Mort by T. Wignesan

Orgy of stone !
I drank hate in your inferior parts
And bathed during a wild summer our green sepulchres
O ! death
and my animal mouth became distorted
on those...

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Hostages, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Otages* by T. Wignesan

This blood will never dry up on our land
and those felled will lie there exposed.
We’ll keep grinding our teeth for fear of blurting out
we’ll not cry over these crosses upturned.

But we’ll remember these laid low devoid of...

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The Unusual Ballad of Lily and Pierre

Feline Lily strolled one day
and behold who did she see,
Pierre, the Tom cat of her dreams 
under a cherry tree.

She gazed at him, he winked at her
from that day it was their plight,
they were destined for each other
it was...

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First Day of the Year, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Premier de l’an by T. Wignesan

Each moment of waking up is an act of giving birth
I use the iron tools myself on the mother
To death

Myself : Who is this myself ?
Am I somebody else  ...

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The Way barred, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Le sens clos by T. Wignesan

Every man has to confront his own night
If he wants to continue on his journey.
But Death takes it upon itself to meet him 
At the hour and the place it chooses
(The moment when...

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God ! God ! Why have you forsaken me ! Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani by T. Wignesan

Opening the eyes requires such an immense effort
As if the entire sky were their eyelids
And the forehead how to hold it up  raise the...

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Orphic consecration, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Dédicade d’Orphée by T. Wignesan

Here am I back from the other dubious bank
where Orpheus’s abandonned lyre laments
the wind down there fills my veins dizzy drunk
and my redoubled hangover numbs my senses.

After having used up my human resemblance
mauve moons of...

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Verbum Caro, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Verbum Caro by T. Wignesan

Glory to the resuscitated Lord
Incarnate cry of the Flesh becoming Verb
The body is not the place of death
Where the soul feels alright despite revulsion

He who holds his nose
While passing his house full of droppings
Whatever be...

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I was my hands of it all, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Je m’en lave les mains by T. Wignesan


And what could we have done in his place
Who in this century would dare to judge him
he belongs to you and you are me-myself
A tiny cogwheel
An average...

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Seven Years Rachel*, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Sept ans Rachel by T. Wignesan

For seven years Rachel remains sealed
By the kiss she received from Jacob
For seven years she keeps her eyelashes lowered
Under the impact of their unique encounter.

When he saw her on that one occasion
He was...

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Drogman*, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Drogman by T. Wignesan

My mother, illustrious in the kingdoms of the Orient
Is seated surrounded by water
The water forms a belt around her, a boat.
This’s the threshold of infancy
The step which leads into the past
Is filled up by the sea.

You’re accoutred...

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The crime is snowed over, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s  Il neige sur le crime

Are we buried under snow holding our silence
in what immense Cimmerian (collision) of terror ?
The mouth kept open in the shriek of interminable shade 
lips held fast in the frozen depths
we...

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Me the infant, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s L’Enfant moi by T. Wignesan

The infant a stranger to me who grew up poet
You whom he missed even in his sleep
He who had to disinter himself upon waking
Every day in his quest with increasing effort

He who had not...

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Follow me, Translation of Piere Emmanuel’s Suis-moi by T. Wignesan

Everything begins on a morning like just another but 
        which becomes its own following day.
The next day of a common event of which in an instant
	nothing will be...

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