Apart (Les Separes)

I found this little gem by Louis Simpson and Marceline Desbordes-Valmore today and it kind of spoke to me. Some of the language seems a bit overdone, but then there are some very nice moments in this poem too, so why not share? Here it is in both the original French and the English translation.

PS I hate you blogspot for always screwing up the formatting.

Apart (Les Séparés)

by Louis Simpson and Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

Do not write. I am sad, and want my light put out.
Summers in your absence are as dark as a room.
I have closed my arms again. They must do without.
To knock at my heart is like knocking at a tomb.
Do not write!

Do not write. Let us learn to die, as best we may.
Did I love you? Ask God. Ask yourself. Do you know?
To hear that you love me, when you are far away,
Is like hearing from heaven and never to go.
Do not write!

Do not write. I fear you. I fear to remember,
For memory holds the voice I have often heard.
To the one who cannot drink, do not show water,
The beloved one's picture in the handwritten word.
Do not write!

Do not write those gentle words that I dare not see,
It seems that your voice is spreading them on my heart,
Across your smile, on fire, they appear to me,
It seems that a kiss is printing them on my heart.
Do not write!

Les SéparésN'écris pas. Je suis triste, et je voudrais m'éteindre.
Les beaux étés sans toi, c'est la nuit sans flambeau.
J'ai refermé mes bras qui ne peuvent t'atteindre,
Et frapper à mon coeur, c'est frapper au tombeau.
N'écris pas!
N'écris pas. N'apprenons qu'à mourir à nous-mêmes.
Ne demande qu'à Dieu . . . qu'à toi, si je t'aimais!
Au fond de ton absence écouter que tu m'aimes,
C'est entendre le ciel sans y monter jamais.
N'écris pas!
N'écris pas. Je te crains; j'ai peur de ma mémoire;
Elle a gardé ta voix qui m'appelle souvent.
Ne montre pas l'eau vive à qui ne peut la boire.
Une chère écriture est un portrait vivant.
N'écris pas!
N'écris pas ces doux mots que je n'ose plus lire:
Il semble que ta voix les répand sur mon coeur;
Que je les vois brûler à travers ton sourire;
Il semble qu'un baiser les empreint sur mon coeur.
N'écris pas!

Charles Jensen

I just discovered a poet named Charles Jensen and I am completely enamored of his writing. Insightful and rather dark, this guy is going places. I first read his work in The Collagist and then went in search of more. The poems in The Collagist are from an Jensen's book Nanopedia: The Smallest American Reference and I definitely encourage you to seek out the book or at least the excerpts included in The Collagist. The poem I have posted here, "Flowers," is from his book Living Things and first appeared in No Tell Motel. I hope you enjoy his work as much as I do!

Flowers
By Charles Jensen

Every room fills with buds
sprung open like snake heads.

The big, dumb eyes of the chrysanthemums
look jaundiced and sick.

The lilies
have nothing more to give and drop their petals
like small gloves.

Their sweet smell grows more fetid.
My head stays dizzy and numb.

Each day the house
takes on more death, more dying; more doomed flowers
go to pieces.

I want to know whose idea this was,
filling up death
with hundreds of smaller deaths.

Eight Ball

"Eight Ball" is from Claudia Emerson's 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning book, Late Wife. This book was published by the LSU Press (my alma mater), and from what I understand had very few copies printed prior to winning the Pulitzer. It is an amazing collection though. Emerson writes with stark, crisp imagery. It's both accessible and smart. I highly suggest picking up a copy if you can find one.

Eight Ball
by Claudia Emerson

It was fifty cents a game
beneath exhausted ceiling fans,

the smoke's old spiral. Hooded lights
burned distant, dull. I was tired, but you

insisted on one more, so I chalked
the cue--the bored blue--broke, scratched.

It was always possible
for you to run the table, leave me

nothing. But I recall the easy
shot you missed, and then the way

we both studied, circling--keeping
what you had left me between us.