poetry meme
Oct. 19th, 2004 01:23 pmput a poem in your livejournal after reading this one!
THE POET’S GREAT DAYS
The disciples of light have never invented anything but a not very opaque darkness.
The river rolls the small body of a woman and that means the end is near.
The widow in her wedding dress heads the wrong procession; we all will arrive late
at our graves. A ship of flesh gets stuck on a narrow beach. The helmsman asks the passengers to be quiet.
The waves are waiting impatiently closer my Lord to Thee. The helmsman asks the waves to speak. They speak. The night
seals its bottles with stars and makes a fortune exporting them. Large counters are built to sell nightingales. But they can't satisfy the Queen
of Siberia's desires, who wants white nightingales. A British commodore swears they won't ever take him out again at night to pick sage
between the feet of salt statues. Upon this, a little saltcellar Cerberus gets on his thin hind legs with difficulty. He
empties into my plate what is left of my life. What to salt the Pacific Ocean with? You'll put a life saver on my grave. Because one never knows.
Robert Desnos, translated by Johannes Beilharz
(doublespacing by me, as some of the lines are too long to fit properly)
THE POET’S GREAT DAYS
The disciples of light have never invented anything but a not very opaque darkness.
The river rolls the small body of a woman and that means the end is near.
The widow in her wedding dress heads the wrong procession; we all will arrive late
at our graves. A ship of flesh gets stuck on a narrow beach. The helmsman asks the passengers to be quiet.
The waves are waiting impatiently closer my Lord to Thee. The helmsman asks the waves to speak. They speak. The night
seals its bottles with stars and makes a fortune exporting them. Large counters are built to sell nightingales. But they can't satisfy the Queen
of Siberia's desires, who wants white nightingales. A British commodore swears they won't ever take him out again at night to pick sage
between the feet of salt statues. Upon this, a little saltcellar Cerberus gets on his thin hind legs with difficulty. He
empties into my plate what is left of my life. What to salt the Pacific Ocean with? You'll put a life saver on my grave. Because one never knows.
Robert Desnos, translated by Johannes Beilharz
(doublespacing by me, as some of the lines are too long to fit properly)