Sunday

Translations (1986-2026)


Jack Ross: The Britney Suite (2001)


  1. Pierre de Ronsard - Cassandre (1989):
    1. Gilt, rich in raiment, falling on my love (12/7/89)
    2. It's quite a metaphor (imagine this (13/7/89)
    3. Freed from Right Reason, turn'd to Passion's slave (14/7/89)
  2. Je donne à mon espoir (10/3/99)
  3. A Photograph of the Poet (after Jorge Accamé) (4/2-13/2/2000)
  4. Before Exodus – The Elders (after Karl Wolfskehl) (17-21/2/04)
  5. Foundry (8/4-20/9/09)
  6. Orpheish (20/4-13/8/09)
  7. Dark Night Reading in Titirangi (1/8/11)
  8. The Nightingale (after Marie de France) (31/10/11-14/1/12)
  9. [Guillaume Apollinaire]: Poèmes à Lou, XXII: Poème du 9 février 1915 (2012)
  10. Hunting Horns (after Apollinaire) (22/3/98-23/12/2017)
  11. Christchurch, 15th March 2019 (19/3-14/4/19)
  12. Insomnia. Homer. Reefed sails ... (after Mandelstam) (24-27/12/22)
  13. Amerika (after Goethe) (14-15/5/24)
  14. I came to visit the poet (after Anna Akhmatova) (26/2-10/5/97)
  15. [with Sasha Loukine] Osip Mandelstam: The Stalin Ode (25/5/34 / 23/1-12/3/01)
  16. Rilke: The Panther (23/2-2/3/26)
  17. Celan: Corona (17/8/2006-15/4/26)
  18. Dawn Chorus (2026):
    1. Morning Song (23-25/4/26)
    2. Dawn Chorus (after Quasimodo) (23-24/4/26)
    3. And the hardworking bees ... (25-27/7/26)
  19. Giuseppe Ungaretti / Umberto Saba (1996):
    1. Saba: Ulysses (28/7-12/8/26)
    2. Saba: The Goat (28/7-12/8/26)
    3. Ungaretti: Dawn (24-25/7/26)
    4. Ungaretti: Soldiers (26/7-12/8/26)
    5. Ungaretti: Vigil (26/7-12/8/26)
  20. Aimé Césaire / Saint-John Perse (1996):
    1. Perse: Song (1-10/9/26)
    2. Perse: Scrawled on the Door (2-11/9/26)
    3. Perse: from Celebrating Childhood (2-9/9/26)
    4. Césaire: from Return to My Mative Land (2-11/9/26)
    5. Césaire: Voodoo Ceremony for St.-John Perse (2-10/9/26))
    6. Césaire: When Naked Monks Climb Down the Himalayas in the Heat (2-10/9/26))




Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585)

Pierre de Ronsard:

Cassandre

(1989)

Pierre de Ronsard: Les Amours de Cassandre (1945)




I



Je vouldroy bien richement jaunissant
    En pluye d'or goute à goute descendre
    Dans le beau sein de ma belle Cassandre,
    Lors qu'en ses yeulx le somme va glissant.
Je vouldroy bien en toreau blandissant
    Me transformer pour finement la prendre,
    Quand elle va par l'herbe la plus tendre
    Seule à l'escart mille fleurs ravissant.
Je vouldroy bien afin d'aiser ma peine
    Estre un Narcisse, & elle une fontaine
    Pour m'y plonger une nuict à sejour:
Et vouldroy bien que ceste nuict encore
    Durast toujours sans que jamais l'Aurore
    D'un front nouveau nous r'allumast le jour.
    
– Pierre de Ronsard, Les Amours (1552): XX



Gilt, rich in raiment, falling on my love
    To reign there both as bridegroom & as dower
    (A trifle sordid, yes, this 'golden shower'
    Tho' sanctioned by the precedent of Jove)
Were but one transformation – she, aloof,
    Strays sometimes from the path to pick a flower;
    I'd be the bull that waits within the bower
    To cozen her to live with me above.

Sometimes I wish her melted to a spring
    That I might lie the whole night pondering
    My pain – self-mirrored there, Narcissus;
&, like a star, desire an endless night
    To watch her, & that never morning's light
    Should come to drown the fountain's sweet susurrus.


(12/7/89)


•





Ha, seigneur dieu, que de graces écloses
Dans le jardin de ce sein verdelet,
Enflent le rond de deus gazons de lait,
Où des Amours les fléches sont encloses!
    Je me transforme en cent metamorfoses,
Quand je te voi, petit mont jumelet,
Ains du printans un rosier nouvelet,
Qui le matin bienveigne de ses roses.
    S'Europe avoit l'estomac aussi beau,
De t'estre fait, Jupiter, un toreau,
Je te pardonne.  Hé, que ne sui-je puce!
    La baisotant, tous les jours je mordroi
Ses beaus tetins, mais la nuit je voudroi
Que rechanger en homme je me pusse.

– Pierre de Ronsard, Les Amours (1553): XLI



It's quite a metaphor (imagine this,
Lord God!) – her verdant breasts are like a garden
Fenced by Love's arrows; when the nipples harden
The grass swells up with milk and ... ambergris.
    I'd go through any metamorphosis
To mouth those mammaries – I even pardon
That bugger Jove who tried to put his yard in
Europa, if her belly gave such bliss.

    Down there, like all trained shrubs, she welcomes spring
With flowers; plays Miss Coy while birdies sing.
Perhaps I'll ask to be the flea that sucks
    Her tits (I'll bite them. kiss them, cause her pain)
If every night I can turn back again –
So when she feels the itch it's me she fucks.


(13/7/89)

Publications:
  • Spin 29 (1997): 31.



•





Franc de raison, esclave de fureur,
    Je voys chassant une Fére sauvage,
    Or sur un mont, or le long d'un rivage,
    Or dans le boys de jeunesse & d'erreur.
J'ay pur ma lesse un cordeau de malheur,
    J'ay pour limier un trop ardent courage,
    J'ay pour mes chiens, & le soing, & la rage,
    La cruaulté, la peine, & la douleur.
Mais eulx voyant que plus elle est chassée,
    Loing loing devant plus s'enfuit eslancée,
    Tournant sur moy la dent de leur effort,
Comme mastins affamez de repaistre,
    A longz morceaux se paissent de leur maistre,
    Et sans mercy me traisnent à la mort.
    
– Pierre de Ronsard, Les Amours (1552): LXXXIX



Freed from Right Reason, turn'd to Passion's slave
    All day I hunt a hart through the dark wood
    Of Error – 'Youth will have its fling' – well, good;
    Through rocks & streams & valleys, rant & rave?
'My hounds are bred out of ...' – Down, sir!  Behave!
    Hate, rage & cruelty's their livelihood;
    I'd leash them in from madness if I could
    But their huntsman's mad to kill (it's meat they crave

& every minute see it fast receding
    The more they run).  They're tired, their feet are bleeding
    & logic rules them inescapably:
I haven't fed them for too long ... Don't look
    At me like that, I'm not the bloody cook ...
    – They tear my flesh to shreds & feast on me.


(14/7/89)


•




(after Apollinaire)


I give for hope my eyes semi-precious stones
I give for hope my hands victory palms
I give for hope my feet supermarket carts
I give for hope my mouth this kiss
I give for hope my nostrils sampling spring flowers
I give for hope my heart keeping its promise
I give for hope the future flickering like a candle
        far off in the forest


(10/3/99)

Publications:
  • Poèmes à Lou [Chantal] – after Guillaume Apollinaire, Poèmes à Lou [Ombre de mon amour] (1915) xxxi & xlix. (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999).
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Takahe 56 (2005): 20.
  • Je donne à mon espoir. Auckland: Pania Press, November 23, 2008.
  • Poetry Specials: 2008-2018. Papyri (28/12/2017)

Notes:
  • Je donne à mon espoir mes yeux ces pierreries
    Je donne à mon espoir mes mains palmes de victoire
    Je donne à mon espoir mes pieds chars de triomphe
    Je donne à mon espoir ma bouche ce baiser
    Je donne à mon espoir mes narines qu’embaument les fleurs de la mi-mai
    Je donne à mon espoir mon cœur en ex-voto
    Je donne à mon espoir tout l’avenir qui tremble comme une petite lueur au loin dans la forêt     …
    – Guillaume Apollinaire, “L'amour, le dédain et l'espérance,” from Poèmes à Lou [Ombre de mon amour] XLIX (1915).
    Text from Guillaume Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques. Ed. Marcel Adéma & Michel Décaudin. Préface d’André Billy. 1956. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 121 (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1966): 465.



•





Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) 

Jorge Accamé:
Fotografía de poeta


Es una mujer joven en la foto,
detrás de Pessoa.
Camina apurada sobre los adoquines,
vuelve la cabeza.
Me pregunto qué habrá sido de ella.
Seguramente iba a la feria a comprar
un poco de pescado, ignorando
que la retrataron junto a él.

Habrá muerto, o tal vez no.
Tendrá nietos, jamás se habrá interesado en poesía
y no sospechará que la he descubierto.
Creo que Pessoa no la vio nunca / tampoco
parece conocida de la señora mayor que surge
al costado izquierdo del poeta,

ni del hombre pensativo de más atrás.


¿Dónde fue la hermosa joven
esa mañana?
Acaso un automóvil la esperaba en una esquina
para atropellarla.


Sólo sé que es conmovedora
esa imagen inútil capturada hace casi sesenta años,
un organismo vivo perdido en alguna ciudad
de Portugal, inconsciente de su propia presencia.

Ni siquiera tendría un buen motivo para estar allí.




There’s a girl
behind Pessoa.  Hurrying over
the paving stones, she
turns her head.  I wonder

what happened?  No doubt
she was off to market
for a few bits of fish, not knowing
she’d be snapped.  She’ll be dead

now.  Maybe not.  She’ll have
grandchildren, never have cared about poetry
and won’t suspect she’s been found
out.  I doubt Pessoa saw her

coming, no friend to the looming
woman on the poet’s left –
and as for the thoughtful man
further back….

Where did the girl end up
that morning?  Perhaps a car
idling around the corner
knocked her

down.  It worries me, this
image from sixty years ago,
a tricked-out self
in a Portuguese town.  What’s the good

of being here?


– translated with David Howard


(4/2-13/2/2000)

Publications:



•





Vor Ausfahrt – Die Alten

Schattend, unser Aug ist matt,
Heben wir die Hände:
Lass uns schauen tränensatt,
Herr, Dein hehr Gelände.

Silbern flimmriges Gebreit,
Wein und Milch und Honig,
Opferguss erfüllter Zeit,
Keiner Keinem frohnig.

Morgen, Herr, ist Erntegang,
Endet alles Darben,
Doch wirstehn und schauern lang,
Wie vergessne Garben.

Uns zerbrach die arge Qual
Harrens in der Leere.
Gruss Dir, Land der Gotteswahl,
Vor der letzten Kehre!

Segen eurem tapfern Schritt,
Wir sind wandermüder.
Unsre Herzen nehmt ihr mit,
Mit ins Land, ihr Brüder!

– Karl Wolfskehl


Shading eyes from glare
we cup a hand:
Lord, let these tears disclose
Your promised land.

Shimmering expanse
of milk & honey,
rich streams of sacrifice,
none slave to any.

That harvest-day
must be tomorrow.
Forsaken sheaves,
we cradle sorrow.

Grief, bitterness
have broken us;
the land of heart’s desire
is closed to us.

Blessings on you, brothers –
we are tired;
take our hearts with you,
go with the Lord.


(17-21/2/04)

Publications:
  • Golden Weather: North Shore Writers Past and Present. Poems edited by Jack Ross / Prose edited by Graeme Lay. ISBN 0-908561-96-2. Auckland: Cape Catley, 2004. 209-10.



•





Gefunden

Ich ging im Walde
So für mich hin,
Und nichts zu suchen,
Das war mein Sinn.

Im Schatten sah ich
Ein Blümchen stehn,
Wie Sterne leuchtend
Wie Äuglein schön.

Ich wollt es brechen,
Da sagt' es fein:
Soll ich zum Welken,
Gebrochen sein?

Ich grubs mit allen
Den Würzeln aus,
Zum Garten trug ichs
Am hübschen Haus.

Und pflanzt es wieder
Am stillen Ort;
Nun zweigt es immer
Und blüht so fort.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1813)



I went for a walk
in my lunch-hour
not looking for anything
in particular

I found a wild briar
undermining the wall
of an old foundry
bright as steel

I knelt down beside it
although it looked
as if it were saying
Why should I be plucked

just to wither for you?
but I broke off a shoot
& carried it back
replanted it

by the beat-up gate
to my backyard
which it’s spreading all over
like a noxious weed


(8/4-20/9/09)

Publications:
  • “Three Texts from Other Texts.” All Together Now: A Digital Bridge for Auckland and Sydney / Kia Kotahi Rā: He Arawhata Ipurangi mō Tamaki Makau Rau me Poihākena (March-September 2010).



•




[after Heinrich Heine]


Es gab den Dolch in deine Hand
Ein böser Dämon in der bösen Stunde –
Ich weiß nicht, wie der Dämon hieß –
Ich weiß nur, daß vergiftet war die Wunde.


There was a dagger in your hand
a demon in an idle hour
I never knew the demon’s name
I only felt his stabbing power

In stillen Nächten denk ich oft,
Du solltest mal dem Schattenreich entsteigen
Und lösen alle Rätsel mir
Und mich von deiner Unschuld überzeugen. 


On quiet nights I lie & think
you should come up from where you are
& answer all these doubts for me 
confirm to me you were a whore

Ich harre dein – o komme bald!
Und kommst du nicht, so steig ich selbst zur Hölle,
Daß ich alldort vor Satanas
Und allen Teufeln dich zur Rede stelle. 


I’m waiting now                
You’d better show
If you won’t come I’ll track you down
& there in front of everyone
conduct my cross-examination

Ich komme, und wie Orpheus einst
Trotz ich der Unterwelt mit ihren Schrecken –
Ich finde dich, und wolltest du
Im tiefsten Höllenpfuhle dich verstecken.


gliding like some bright Orpheus
across an underworld of fears
I’ll find you in the deepest ditch
dug out by centuries of tears

Hinunter jetzt ins Land der Qual,
Wo Händeringen nur und Zähneklappen –
Ich reiße dir die Larve ab,
Der angeprahlten Großmut Purpurlappen –


& in that land of tortured dreams
where sinners pay for what they did
I’ll cut off the last shreds of skin
the trappings of your girlish pride

Jetzt weiß ich, was ich wissen wollt,
Und gern, mein Mörder, will ich dir verzeihen;
Doch hindern kann ich nicht, daß jetzt
Schmachvoll die Teufel dir ins Antlitz speien. 


& when I’ve found out what I need to
I’d like to pardon you, you know
but how can I stop TV scum
from vomiting all over you?


(20/4-13/8/09)

Publications:
  • "Orpheish". The Imaginary Museum (18/8/2009)



•




Reading in Titirangi                      La noche oscura
                                        


The song of some souls who felt          Canciones del alma que      
pretty chuffed to have reached           se goza de haber llegado
that high state of perfection            al alto estado de la
which consists of being asked            perfección, que es la
(& paid!) to read out your own           unión con Dios, por el
poetry in public, then have it           camino de la negación
reprinted in a special limited-          espiritual.
edition chapbook ...     


In the late afternoon                    En una noche oscura,
anxious about rush-hour traffic          con ansias en amores inflamada,
(not to mention the parking!)            (¡oh dichosa ventura!)
we drove off to Devonport                salí sin ser notada,
to pick up Michele Leggott               estando ya mi casa sosegada.

Fortunately she was ready                A oscuras y segura,
already & even agreed                    por la secreta escala disfrazada,
to leave Olive behind                    (¡oh dichosa ventura!)
since there was so little room           a oscuras y en celada,
in the car for a guide-dog               estando ya mi casa sosegada.

On the motorway                          En la noche dichosa,
no-one noticed                           en secreto, que nadie me veía,
as I chose the wrong turn-off            ni yo miraba cosa,
& had to go round again                  sin otra luz ni guía 
to find the right exit                   sino la que en el corazón ardía.

Bronwyn was determined                   Aquésta me guïaba
to check out the exhibitions             más cierta que la luz del mediodía,
in the Lopdell House Gallery             adonde me esperaba
I’d set my sights                        quien yo bien me sabía,
on Murray Gray’s bookshop                en parte donde nadie parecía. 

O Café that welcomed us!                 ¡Oh noche que me guiaste!,
O waiter who made such a song & dance    ¡oh noche amable más que el alborada!,
over pouring out wine!                   ¡oh noche que juntaste
O elegant curly fries                    amado con amada,
& soft, buttery loaves!                  amada en el amado transformada!

When we finally roused ourselves         En mi pecho florido,
to tool off to the venue                 que entero para él solo se guardaba,
in the ramshackle old lift               allí quedó dormido,
we found half the punters                y yo le regalaba,
flushed & loud on mulled wine            y el ventalle de cedros aire daba.

The musicians on stage                   El aire de la almena,
were strumming & bashing                 cuando yo sus cabellos esparcía,
their drums & guitars                    con su mano serena
so we settled in                         en mi cuello hería,
for a bit of a siege                     y todos mis sentidos suspendía.

I found after a while                    Quedéme y olvidéme,
I was starting to enjoy it               el rostro recliné sobre el amado,
even after the crowd heckled             cesó todo, y dejéme,
my attempts                              dejando mi cuidado
to speak French                          entre las azucenas olvidado.

In the late evening                      En una noche oscura,
avoiding the rush                        con ansias en amores inflamada,
from the Lopdell House carpark           (¡oh dichosa ventura!)
we drove back from Titirangi             salí sin ser notada,
to drop off Michele                      estando ya mi casa sosegada.

We got back to the flat                  A oscuras y segura,
more dead than alive                     por la secreta escala disfrazada,
to find the cat yawning                  (¡oh dichosa ventura!)
(unaware we’d been gone!)                a oscuras y en celada,
so we turned off the lights              estando ya mi casa sosegada.

& crawled straight into bed              – San Juan de la Cruz
                                                (1577-78)


(1/8/11)


•




(after Marie de France)


The story that I’ll tell today
the Bretons made into a lay:
Laüstic they called the tale
French rossignol – or nightingale.
   By Saint Malo there was a town
famed far and wide, of great renown.
Two knights lived there in luxury:
fine houses, servants, horses, money.
One had married a lady fair
wise, discreet and debonair
(she kept her temper wonderfully
considering her company).
The other was a bachelor
well known among the townsfolk there
for his courage and his courtesy
and for treating people honourably.
   He went to all the tournaments,
(neglecting solider investments)
and loved the wife of his neighbour.
He begged so many boons from her
she felt he had to be deserving
and loved him more than anything –
as much for the good he’d done before
as for the fact he lived next door.
   Wisely and well they loved each other
avoiding undue fuss and bother
by keeping everything discreet.
This was the way they managed it:
because their houses stood side by side
there wasn’t much they couldn’t hide
behind those solid walls of stone.
The lady, when she was alone,
would go to the window of her room
and lean across to talk to him.
They swapped small tokens of their love:
he from below, she from above.
   Nothing interfered with them.
No-one noticed, or poked blame.
However, they could not aspire
to reach the peak of their desire
because there was so strict a guard
on all her movements. It was hard,
but still they had the consolation
of leaning out in any season
to exchange sighs across the gap.
No-one could stop that access up.
   They loved each other for so long
that summer came – green buds, birdsong:
the orchards waxed into full bloom
bringing amorous airs with them,
and little birds carolled their joy
from the tip of every spray.
The knight and lady of whom I speak
felt their resistance growing weak –
when love wafts out from every flower
it’s no surprise you feel it more!
   At night, when the moon shone outside,
she’d leave her husband sleeping, glide
wrapped only in a mantle, till
she fetched up at the window sill.
Her lover did the selfsame thing,
sat by his window pondering,
and there he’d watch her half the night.
This simple act gave them delight.
   So often did she do it that
her husband started to smell a rat.
He asked her where she went at night
and why she rose before first light.
   “Sir,” the lady said to him,
“It’s more than just a passing whim.
I hear the nightingale sing
and have to sit here listening.
So sweet his voice is in the night
to hear it is supreme delight,
the joy it gives me is so deep
I can’t just close my eyes and sleep.”
   Her husband heard this glib reply
and laughed once: coarsely, angrily.
He thought at once of thwarting her
by catching the bird in a snare.
his serving men were rounded up
and put to work on net and trap
to hang on every single tree 
in his entire property.
   They wove so many strings and glue
the bird was caught without ado.
When the nightingale was caught
they brought it living to the knight.
This exploit pleased him mightily;
he went at once to see his lady.
   “Lady,” said he, “where are you?
Come here; this concerns you too.
I’ve snared that little bird, whose song
has been keeping you awake so long.
Now you can sleep the whole night through,
Rest easy: he won’t bother you.”
   When the lady heard him speak,
she felt crestfallen and heart-sick.
She asked a favour of her lord,
if she could have the little bird.
At that he did something macabre,
snapped its neck in front of her,
and threw the body at her dress
to bloody it above the breast.
Then he stalked out of her door. 
   The lady picked it from the floor,
and sobbing, called a living curse
on those who’d made her prison worse 
by hanging nets in every tree
to snare the bird who set her free.
   “Alas,” said she, “I am undone!
I can no longer rise alone
and sit by the window every night
to watch my lover, my sweet knight.
There is one thing I’m certain of:
He will believe he’s lost my love
unless I tell him what’s occurred.
By sending him the little bird
I’ll warn him of what’s befallen me.”
   She wrapped it in embroidery
and cloth of gold, and asked a page
to deliver this last little package
to her friend who lived next door.
   The page walked over to their neighbour, 
saluted him on her behalf,
and gave what he’d been asked to give:
the bird’s body, the lady’s message.
   When he understood the damage
his love had done to this lady
the young man did not take it lightly.
He had a cup made out of gold,
studded with precious stones, and sealed
against the corrosive outer air.
He put the nightingale in there,
then shut it in its little tomb
and took it everywhere with him.
   The tale could not be hidden long
so it was made into a song.
Breton poets tell the tale;
they call it “The Nightingale.”


(31/10/11-14/1/12)

Publications:



•





Guillaume Apollinaire: Calligramme (1915)


Reconnais-toi	                              Recognise yourself
cette adorable personne c’est toi    this adorable person is you
sous le grand chapeau caroline	      under the big Carolina hat
oeil	                                                     eye
nez	                                                    nose
la bouche	                                           mouth
voici l’ovale de la figure	   here is the oval of your face
ton cou	                                               your neck
et puis	                                                and then
un peu plus bas	                                a bit lower down
c’est ton coeur qui bat	              there’s your beating heart
ni	                                                     nor
ci confus	                           should we mix with it
l’impure	                                      the impure
par le mirage	                              through the mirage
de ton buste adoré	                    of your loved breast
un comma	                                         a comma
à travers un nuage	                         through a cloud

- trans. Jack Ross (2012)



Publications:



•





William-Adolphe Bouguereau: "Ann of Oxford Street" (1889)

Cors de chasse

Notre histoire est noble et tragique
Comme le masque d'un tyran
Nul drame hasardeux ou magique
Aucun détail indifférent
Ne rend notre amour pathétique

Et Thomas de Quincey buvant
L'opium poison doux et chaste
A sa pauvre Anne allait rêvant
Passons passons puisque tout passe
Je me retournerai souvent

Les souvenirs sont cors de chasse
Dont meurt le bruit parmi le vent.

- Guillaume Apollinaire (1913)


•	


Our story's noble and tragic
like the deathmask of a tyrant
no drama sparked by chance or magic
no insignificant detail
can render love like this unreal

and Thomas de Quincey drinking
the sweet chaste poison of opium
dreamt all along of his poor Anne
pass on pass on everything passes
but I'll return here often

memories are hunting horns
whose sound dies softly in the wind


(22/3/98-23/12/2017)

Publications:



•





Du mußt dein Leben ändern
    – Rainer Maria Rilke



Do we have to feel that pixilated head
burning behind our eyes?    the media
keep broadcasting a manacled muscular 
torso signalling triumph over the dead

his fingers cocked to a smirk    the score
perhaps    Jacinda Ardern’s noble face
caught in a rictus of grief can’t quite displace
the bluntness of his semaphore

on this darkest of days it feels like our worst fears
were always justified    our impotence 
out in the open for all to see    our pain

trumped by the old familiar reptile brain
but scrolling down those flowers those faces those tears 
I can’t see them as nothing    aren’t they us?


(19/3-14/4/19)

Publications:



•





Бессоница, Гомер, тугие паруса ...

Бессоница, Гомер, тугие паруса.
Я список кораблей прочел до середины ...
Сей длинный выводок, сей поезд журавлиный,
Что над Элладою когда-то поднялся.

Как журавлиный клин в чужие рубежи
На головаx царей божественная пена ...
Куда плывете вы? Когда бы не Элена,
Что Троя вам одна, аxейские мужи??

И море и Гомер все движимо любовью..
Куда же деться мне? И вот, Гомер молчит..
И море Черное витийствуя шумит
И с страшным гроxотом подxодит к изголовью ...

- Осип Мандельштам (1915)


•	


Insomnia. Homer. Reefed sails.
I've read halfway through the ship catalogue;
this inbred tribe, this siege of cranes
which once took flight from Hellas.

A wedge of cranes into foreign shores
drenching your kings with spray ...
Where are you going? If not for Helen,
what would Troy matter to you, men of Achaea?

The sea and Homer are moved by love.
Where should I turn? Homer is silent.
The Black Sea roars,
booms up the beach to my bed.


(24-27/12/22)

Publications:



•





Den Vereinigten Staaten

Amerika, du hast es besser
Als unser Kontinent, der alte,
Hast keine verfallenen Schlösser
Und keine Basalte.
Dich stört nicht im Innern,
Zu lebendiger Zeit,
Unnützes Erinnern
Und vergeblicher Streit.

Benutzt die Gegenwart mit Glück!
Und wenn nun Eure Kinder dichten,
Bewahre sie ein gut Geschick
Vor Ritter-, Räuber- und Gespenstergeschichten.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1831)


•	


America you're better off
than our continent    the old one
you've got no fallen castles
no ruins to build on
your inner life
is free
of futile strife
and fruitless memory

live in the moment    good luck to you
and when your kids write poetry
try to keep them well away
from robbers ghosts and chivalry


(14-15/5/24)

Publications:



•





Александру Блоку

Я пришла к поэту в гости.
Ровно полдень. Воскресенье.
Тихо в комнате просторной,
А за окнами мороз.

И малиновое солнце
Над лохматым сизым дымом...
Как хозяин молчаливый
Ясно смотрит на меня!

У него глаза такие,
Что запомнить каждый должен;
Мне же лучше, осторожней,
В них и вовсе не глядеть.

Но запомнится беседа,
Дымный полдень, воскресенье
В доме сером и высоком
У морских ворот Невы.

- Анна Ахматова (1914)


•	


(after Anna Akhmatova)


I came to visit the poet
On Sunday, at high noon.
It was quiet in the dusty chamber,
He hummed an Irish tune

As I tried not to meet his glance,
Return the pressure of his eyes;
A raspberry-coloured sun
Blew wood-smoke over the rise.

But the talk is what I remember
From that long-ago Sunday,
In the poet’s sea-green house
By the sea-gates of Herne Bay.


(26/2-10/5/97)

Publications:

Notes:
  • In early 1997 I wrote a short story called "The Great New Zealand Vortex," which purported to be a reconstruction of the life and work of an imaginary Kiwi Vorticist named Walter E. Clarke.

    In its original form, the story included extensive quotations from the preface to A World Away, a collection of Clarke's literary remains edited in 1947 by a certain Winifred Cannon. Much of this was pruned away before the story first saw print - first in two issues of local journal evasion 2 (4) & (5) (2003)], and subsequently in my short fiction collection Monkey Miss Her Now (Auckland: Danger Publishing, 2004).

    One of the sections which was cut included an adaptation to local conditions of Akhmatova’s poem:
    ... she concludes her remarks on this first visit [to Clarke, with whom she "may well have been romantically involved"} by quoting from some verses she wrote about it (apparently an imitation of Akhmatova’s famous tribute to Aleksandr Blok).
    It is hard to guess what precisely is meant by “the sea-gates of Herne Bay” until one remembers that Akhmatova’s poem closes with a evocation of her own poet’s house “by the sea-gates of the Neva”.

    Herne Bay (2015)



•





Мы живем, под собою не чуя страны ...

Мы живем, под собою не чуя страны,
Наши речи за десять шагов не слышны,
А где хватит на полразговорца,
Там припомнят кремлевского горца.
Его толстые пальцы, как черви, жирны,
И слова, как пудовые гири, верны,
Тараканьи смеются глазища
И сияют его голенища.

А вокруг него сброд тонкошеих вождей,
Он играет услугами полулюдей.
Кто свистит, кто мяучит, кто хнычет,
Он один лишь бабачит и тычет.
Как подкову, дарит за указом указ —
Кому в пах, кому в лоб, кому в бровь, кому в глаз.
Что ни казнь у него — то малина
И широкая грудь осетина..

- Осип Мандельштам (November, 1933)


•	


We live, not knowing the land beneath us,
our speeches are inaudible ten feet away,
but where there’s enough for half a conversation –
there we remember the Kremlin mountain-man.
His fat fingers are as slimy as worms,
but his words as reliable as forty-pound weights.
His cockroach moustache laughs,
and his leather boot-tops shine.

Around him presses a pack of thick-skinned bosses,
he toys with the favours of such submen.
One whistles, one meows, another one whimpers,
He alone points at us in thunder.
Tossing off decree after decree like horseshoes –
one in the groin, one in the head, one in the brow, one in the eye.
For him, every killing is – a raspberry
and the Ossetian’s chest is wide.


(8/9/22-3/2/24)

Publications:

Notes:
  • When I tried my hand at translating Mandelstam's Stalin epigram with my friend Sasha Loukine in 2001, I had in mind a dual-text, with a transparent copy of the poet's original manuscript from the KGB files on top, and our own literal version showing through underneath. On the facing page I was planning to print a poem of praise for Ceaușescu, who seems to have inspired more bad verse than virtually any other dictator since Stalin.

    Alas, that didn't happen. I still hope it's a useful crib to measure some of the more artful versions against, though. You can see it here in its original context as part of the longer sequence Ancestral Voices (2001).

Osip Mandelstam: Manuscript copy (1934)



•




in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris


Der Panther ...

Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.

Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf -. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille -
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.

- Rainer Maria Rilke (1903)


•	


His eyes have grown so tired of watching
bars they can’t see anything 
beyond them    bars    a thousand bars
no world no rest outside him nothing

the narrow circle of his steps
carries him around again
dancing to the silent beat
that pins his will inside this pen

once in a while the pupils open
take a snapshot    pass it through 
the shuttered stillness of his body
to the heart it answers to


(23/2-2/3/26)

Publications:

Notes:
  • This is what I wrote about the poem on Paula Green's blog:

    Some thoughts on Rilke’s ‘Panther‘

    Rainer Maria Rilke, a young Czech-German poet, moved to Paris in 1902. He worked there for a while as the great sculptor Auguste Rodin’s secretary. It was a difficult time for Rilke, a time he later tried to recreate in his autobiographical novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, about a Danish student adrift in the immense, alien city. Rilke, too, was dissatisfied with most of the work he’d done to date, but couldn’t yet settle on a new direction for his poetry.

    Paris, in the early 1900s, was a hotbed of Modernism. Exposure to these new ideas had both a stimulating and a paralysing effect on Rilke. At Rodin’s atelier he met artists and writers of all kinds, but their own certainties only left him more in doubt.

    One day (or so the story goes) he was bemoaning his fate to his boss Rodin – in particular his inability to write anything of substance. Rodin replied, “Why don’t you do what I do? When I get stuck on something, I go for a walk with my sketchbook, then just sit down and draw something. You should try it.”

    “But I’m a poet,” complained Rilke. “Poets don’t do sketches. We wait for inspiration to come, then write a poem.” Rodin shrugged his shoulders. “Why wait? Go out and sketch something with words.”

    What did he have to lose? Why not give it a go? Rilke, already – in his late twenties – a bit set in his ways, reluctantly agreed to go out with a pad and pencil, and try to find something to describe.

    Eventually he found his way into the Jardin des Plantes, the zoological gardens. The first cage he sat down in front of held a panther. This was the result:

    Der Panther
The Panther

Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris
In the Botanical Gardens, Paris

Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe
His gaze is from the passing of the bars
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
grown so tired, that it can hold no more.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
It seems to him, as if there were a thousand bars
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.
and behind the thousand bars no world.

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
The soft passing of supple strong strides
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
which draw him in the smallest of circles
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
is like a dance of might around a centre
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.
in which a great will stands stunned.

Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
Only sometimes does the curtain of the pupil
sich lautlos auf –. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
lift itself silently – then a picture enters,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille –
passes through the tense stillness of the limbs –
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.
and comes to an end in the heart.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903
[literal version: Jack Ross]
    It may well be the most famous poem Rilke ever wrote. The intensity with which he described the panther’s frustration at being locked up in such a narrow space, with no possible escape, pacing round and round forever, must surely have had something in it of his own feelings at being penned in a foreign city, unable to write, unable to form real connections, at a complete loss.

    After that, he went out every day and wrote down descriptions of what he saw. There was no more waiting at home for inspiration. The result, eventually, was a collection called simply Neue Gedichte [New Poems], which helped to revolutionise not only his own poetry, but European poetry in general.

    But, through it all, that sense of imprisonment, of melancholy, of the need to escape from confinement still speaks through his poem. There are many translations of it, in many languages. Some reproduce the original rhymes and pentameter lines precisely; others take a freer approach: concentrating on what they themselves can draw from the poem, how it intersects with their own lives.

    I, too, have been a stranger in a strange land, have felt that sense of loneliness, confinement, and loss. But the suffering of the Panther dwarfs all that, putting it in brutal perspective.

    Here’s my own attempt to get across something of Rilke’s poem:



•

NASA Science: The Sun's Corona (2017)





Aus der Hand frißt der Herbst mir sein Blatt: wir sind Freunde.
Wir schälen die Zeit aus den Nüssen und lehren sie gehn:
die Zeit kehrt zurück in die Schale.

Im Spiegel ist Sonntag,
im Traum wird geschlafen,
der Mund redet wahr.

Mein Aug steigt hinab zum Geschlecht der Geliebten:
wir sehen uns an,
wir sagen uns Dunkles,

wir lieben einander wie Mohn und Gedächtnis,
wir schlafen wie Wein in den Muscheln,
wie das Meer im Blutstrahl des Mondes.

Wir stehen umschlungen im Fenster, sie sehen uns zu von der Straße:
es ist Zeit, daß man weiß!
Es ist Zeit, daß der Stein sich zu blühen bequemt,
daß der Unrast ein Herz schlägt.
Es ist Zeit, daß es Zeit wird.

Es ist Zeit.

- Paul Celan (1948)


•	


Autumn gnaws its leaves from my hands    
                        we're friends
we crack time from nutshells till it runs free
time returns to its shell

in the mirror it's Sunday
in dreams it's sleep
we mouth our truth

my eye goes down to my lover's sex
we look at each other
darkly we mutter

we love each other like poppy and memory
we sleep like wine in mussel shells
like the sea in the blood moon
we hug in windows
           they watch from the street

it's time they knew
it's time the stone burst into flower
the heart beat unrest
it's time it were time

It's time


(17/8/2006-15/4/26)

Publications:



•

Jack Ross: Dawn Chorus (2026)



(2026)


Dawn Chorus: A Recycled Poem from the Ancient Greek Tebtunis Papyri. Trans. Salvatore Quasimodo & Jack Ross. Artwork by Béatrice Carlson. “Where We Meet: Four Artists. Four Poets. Four Collaborations”. Curated by Pippa Mothersole. Angela Morton Room, Aug 23-Sep 27. Auckland: Takapuna Library, 2026. 8 pp.





ΠΟΜΟΣ ΟΡΘΡΙΟΣ

ξουθὰ δὲ λιγύφων᾽ ὄρνεα δι᾽ ἐφετᾶν ἔρημον
δρίος ἄκροις ἐπὶ κλωσὶ πίτυος ἥμεν᾿ ἐμινύριζ ἐτιττύβιζεν
κέλαδον παντομιγῆ, καὶ τὰ μὲν ἄρχετο, τ[ὰ δ᾽ ἔμ] ελλεν, τὰ δ᾽ ἐσίγα,
τὰ δὲ βωστρεύοντ᾽ ἀν᾿ ὄρη λαλεῦσι φωναῖς, φιλέρημος δὲ νάπαις λάλος ἀνταμείβετ᾽ ἀχώ

    – Anon. (c 1st-3rd century BCE)

•


    Canto Mattutino

    Dorati uccelli dall'acuta voce, liberi
    per il bosco solitario in cima ai rami di pino
    confusamente si lamentano; e chi comincia,
    chi indugia, chi lancia il suo richiamo verso i monti:
    e l'eco che non tace, amica dei deserti,
    lo ripete dal fondo delle valli.

        – trans. Salvatore Quasimodo (1940)

    •


        Morning Song

        Bright birds with their sweet voices freely
        through the lonely forest on pine branches
        sing their sorrows one starts off
        another takes it up some cry to the hills
        until the burbling echo friend of emptiness
        replays them in the hidden valley

            – trans. Jack Ross


(23-25/4/26)

Publications:
  • Dawn Chorus: A Recycled Poem from the Ancient Greek Tebtunis Papyri. Trans. Salvatore Quasimodo & Jack Ross. Artwork by Béatrice Carlson. Takapuna Library: Angela Morton Room, 2026. [3].
  • Dawn Chorus (1). Papyri (5/1/2026)



•




(after Quasimodo)


Native birds with raucous voices
cry from our backyard

for food    or love
or just to say they’re there

echoing outward
through the bay

up to the hilltop
rush-hour traffic


(10-11/3/26)

Publications:
  • Dawn Chorus: A Recycled Poem from the Ancient Greek Tebtunis Papyri. Trans. Salvatore Quasimodo & Jack Ross. Artwork by Béatrice Carlson. Takapuna Library: Angela Morton Room, 2026. [4].
  • Dawn Chorus (2). Papyri (3/1/2026)



•




E le docili api laboriose
dall’ali gialle, dal viso schiacciato,
le folte operaie dell’estate
che lasciano le pungiglione cupamente ronzando,
le costruttrici dagli amori luttuosi,
indifese succhiano il soave nettare
dal quale si ricava il miele.


    And the hardworking bees
    yellow wings and pinched faces
    busy all summer long
    buzz as they plant their stings
    in the labyrinths of love
    sipping the clear sweet nectar
    from which the honey comes

    – trans. Jack Ross


(25-27/7/26)

Publications:
  • Dawn Chorus: A Recycled Poem from the Ancient Greek Tebtunis Papyri. Trans. Salvatore Quasimodo & Jack Ross. Artwork by Béatrice Carlson. Takapuna Library: Angela Morton Room, 2026. [5].
  • Dawn Chorus (3). Papyri (1/1/2026)

Notes:
  • The poem this collaboration was based on was discovered among the Tebtunis papyri sometime in the early twentieth century. These papyri fragments were (according to Wikipedia):
    … written in either Demotic Egyptian or Koine Greek and were found during a single expedition led by Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, two British papyrologists in the winter of 1899/1900 at the village of ancient Tebtunis (near modern Umm-el-Baragat), Egypt. The papyri can be divided into three groups based on their provenance: texts from the crocodile mummies, the town and from the temple of Soknebtunis, and the cartonnage of human mummies. A total of 1093 fragments of the Tebtunian papyri are registered ...
    Most of them have been dated to sometime between the 3rd and 1st century BCE.

    This particular piece was translated into Italian by poet and classicist – and future Nobel Prize winner – Salvatore Quasimodo, and included in his wartime collection Lirici Greci [Greek Lyrics] (1940):
    Salvatore Quasimodo. Lirici Greci: Testo Greco a fronte. 1940. Saggio di Luciano Anceschi. 1944. Biblioteca Moderna Mondadori clxxxix. Verona: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1951. pp. 152-53.
    It originally formed the final section of a longer poem, which Quasimodo includes in full in his notes (pp.164-65).




    •

    Giuseppe Ungaretti: Vita d'un uomo: Tutte le Poesie (1888-1970)

    Giuseppe Ungaretti / Umberto Saba

    (2026)

    Umberto Saba: Tutte le poesie (1883-1957)








    
Mattina

M'illumino
d'immenso

- Giuseppe Ungaretti (1917)

    
•	


enlighten me
immensity


    (24-25/7/26)

    Publications:



    •




    
Soldati

Si sta come
d'autunno
sugli alberi
le foglie

- Giuseppe Ungaretti (1917)

    
•	


like
leaves
on autumn
trees


    (26/7-12/8/26)

    Publications:



    •




    
Veglia

Un'intera nottata 
buttato vicino 
a un compagno
massacrato
con la sua bocca
digrignata
volta al plenilunio
con la congestione
delle sue mani
penetrata
nel mio silenzio
ho scritto
lettere piene d'amore

Non sono mai stato
tanto 
attaccato alla vita

- Giuseppe Ungaretti (1917)

    
•	


a whole night
laid beside
a battered
comrade
fish mouth
gaping at the moon
with the touch
of his hands
upon
my silence
I scribbled
letters
full of love

I’ve never felt
so close
to life


    (26/7-12/8/26)

    Publications:






    
Ulisse

Nella mia giovinezza ho navigato
lungo le coste dalmate. Isolotti
a fior d'onda emergevano, ove raro
un uccello sostava intento a prede,
coperti d'alghe, scivolosi, al sole
belli come smeraldi. Quando l'alta
marea e la notte li annullava, vele
sottovento sbandavano più al largo,
per fuggirne l'insidia. Oggi il mio regno
è quella terra di nessuno. Il porto
accende ad altri i suoi lumi; me al largo
sospinge ancora il non domato spirito,
e della vita il doloroso amore.

- Umberto Saba (1946)

    
•	


When I was young I sailed down
the Dalmatian coast    rock-reefs stood out 
above the waves    slick with algae
emerald-green    an occasional raptor 
hovering there    intent on prey    
but when high tide and darkness 
swallowed them    my leeward sails 
would steer us out to the open sea 
away from danger    today my kingdom
is that no-man’s land    the harbour
lights its lamps for others    my love
of life    painful at times    my perverse soul
chase me out from every shelter


    (28/7-12/8/26)

    Publications:



    •




    
La capra

Ho parlato a una capra
Era sola sul prato, era legata.
Sazia d'erba, bagnata
alla pioggia, belava.

Quell'uguale belato era fraterno
al mio dolore. Ed io risposi, prima
per celia, poi perchè il dolore è eterno,
ha una voce e non varia.
Questa voce sentiva
gemere in una capra solitaria.

In una capra dal viso semita
sentiva querelarsi ogni altro male,
ogni altra vita.

- Umberto Saba (1909-10)

    
•	


I talked to a goat
she was tied up alone on the lawn
sick of grass    wet with rain
she baa’d

that baa matched exactly how I felt
so I replied
first as a joke    then because 
pain’s endless
it has a voice and never shuts up
I heard it in that lonely goat

in a goat with a long semitic face
I heard the moan of every pain
in every life


    (28/7-12/8/26)

    Publications:





    •

    Aimé Césaire: Poésie, théâtre, essais et discours (1913-2008)

    Aimé Césaire / Saint-John Perse

    (2026)

    Saint-John Perse: Oeuvres complètes (1887-1975)





    •

    Aimé Césaire: Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (1947)




    
Cahier d'un retour au pays natal

1
    Au bout du petit matin bourgeonnant d’anses frêles les 
Antilles qui ont faim, les Antilles grêlées de petite vérole,
les Antilles dynamitées d’alcool, échouées dans la boue de 
cette baie, dans la poussière de cette ville sinistrement 
échouées.

2
    Au bout du petit matin, l’extrême, trompeuse désolée 
eschare sur la blessure des eaux ; les martyrs qui ne 
témoignent pas ; les fleurs du sang qui se fanent et 
s’éparpillent dans le vent inutile comme des cris de 
perroquets babillards  ; une vieille vie menteusement 
souriante, ses lèvres ouvertes d’angoisses désaffectées ; 
une vieille misère pourrissant sous le soleil, 
silencieusement ; un vieux silence crevant de pustules 
tièdes 

3
    l’affreuse inanité de notre raison d’être.

4
    Au bout du petit matin, sur cette plus fragile épaisseur 
de terre que dépasse de façon humiliante son grandiose avenir 
– les volcans éclateront, l’eau nue emportera les taches mûres 
du soleil et il ne restera plus qu’un bouillonnement tiède 
picoré d’oiseaux marins – la plage des songes et l’insensé 
réveil. 

5
Au bout du petit matin, cette ville plate – étalée, trébuchée 
de son bon sens, inerte, essouflée sous son fardeau géométrique 
de croix éternellement recommençante, indocile à son sort, 
muette, contrariée de toutes façons, incapable de croître selon 
le suc de cette terre, embarrassée, rognée, réduite, en rupture 
de faune et de flore. 

- Aimé Césaire (1939)

    
•	

1
    in the wee hours budding with frail coves the hungry 
Antilles    Antilles pockmarked with smallpox     Antilles
dynamited by alcohol    stranded in the mud of this bay 
in the dust of this city     malevolently stranded

2 
    in the wee hours the extreme deceptive desolate scab
on the wound of the waters the martyrs who can’t bear 
witness the flowers of blood that wither and scatter in 
the wind useless like the prating of parrots an old life
lying through smiles its lips open with anxieties
disaffected an old misery rotting under the sun
in silence old silences bursting with tepid pustules

3
    the dreadful inanity of our reasons for being alive

4
    in the wee hours on this most fragile weight of earth
whose grandiose future humiliatingly overtops the volcanoes
will erupt the naked water will carry away the ripe spots 
of the sun and all that will remain is a tepid bubbling 
pecked by seabirds the beach of dreams and inchoate awakening

5
    in the wee hours these city wastes sprawling stumbling 
over their own common sense inert breathless under their 
geometric weight of crosses eternally recurrent defiant of 
their fate mute relentlessly thwarted incapable of growth 
through the sap of this land hampered clipped diminished 
deprived of fauna and flora


    (2-11/9/2026)

    Publications:

    Notes:
    • Aimé Césaire supplied a new opening stanza of the 1947 Parisian edition of his poem:

      
Au bout du petit matin ...

Va-t’en, lui disais-je, gueule de flic, gueule de vache, 
va-t’en je déteste les larbins de l’ordre et les hannetons 
de l’espérance. Va-t’en mauvais gris-gris, punaise de moinillon. 
Puis je me tournais vers des paradis pour lui et les siens 
perdus, plus calme que la face d’une femme qui ment, et là, 
bercé par les effluves d’une pensée jamais lasse je nourrissais 
le vent, je délaçais les montres et j’entendais monter de l’autre 
côté du désastre, un fleuve de tourterelles et de trèfles de la 
savane que je porte toujours dans mes profondeurs à hauteur 
inverse du vingtième étage des maisons les plus insolentes et par 
précaution contre la force putréfiante des ambiances crépusculaires, 
arpentée nuit et jour d’un sacré soleil vénérien.

      
•	
 
feck off I told him flat-foot arse-licker feck off
I hate grovelling toadstools obsequious cockroaches
feck off bad juju bedlice of a monk    then turned
to paradises lost for him and his loved ones calmer than 
the face of a lying woman and there lulled by the effluvia 
of a nagging maggot I fed the wind untied the monsters and
heard rising from the other side of the disaster the river of
doves and savannah pollen which I still hold in my inverse 
depths as high as the twentieth floor of the most insolent 
houses as a charm against the putrefying force of twilight 
air patrolled night and day by a dose from the cursed 
sun



    •

    Andre Normil: Vodou Ceremony (2010)




    
Cérémonie Vaudou pour Saint-John Perse ...

celui qui balise l’aire d’atterissage des colibris
celui qui plante en terre une hampe d’asclépias de Curaçao
pour fournir le gîte aux plus grands monarques du monde
qui sont en noblesse d’exil et papillons de pasage

celui pour qui les burseras de la sierra
suant sang et eau et plus de sang que d’eau et pelés
n’en finissent pas de se tordre les bras
grotesques dans leur parade de damnés

celui qui contemple chaque jour la première leerte génétique
qu’il est superflu de nommer
jusqu’à parfait rougeoiement
avec à recueillir le surplus de forces hors du vide historique

le chercheur de sources perdues
le demèleur de laves cordées

celui qui calcule l’étiage de la colère
dans les terres de labour et de mainbour
celui quid u sang reencontré la roue du temps et du contretemps
mille fois plus gémissante que norias sur l’Oronte

celui qui remplace l’asphodèle des prairies infernales
par – sacrale - la belle coiffure afro de l’haemanthus
-Angela Davies de ces lieux- riche de toutes les épingles
    de nos sangs hérissés

(le vit-il le vit-il l’Etranger
Plus rouge pourtant que le sang de Tammouz
et nos faces décebales
le vit-il le vit-il l’Etranger?)

phlégréennes
oiseaux profonds
tourterelles de l’ombre et du grief
et que l’arc s’embrase
et que l’un à l’autre océan
les magmas fastueux en volcans se répondent pour
de toutes gueules de tous fumants sabords honorer
en route pour le grand large
l’ultime Conquistador en son dernier voyage

- Aimé Césaire (1976)

    
•	

he    who marks out the hummingbird landing strip
who plants a stalk of Curaçao milkweed in the earth
guarding the world's most gaudy monarchs
nobility in exile    errant butterflies

he    for whom the aromatic tree resin of the Sierra
sweating blood and water    more blood than water 
never ceases to writhe its grotesque stump
in a blind parade of the damned

he    who meditates day by day on that first genetic letter
superfluous to name
till history stains it red
with the excess force excreted by the void

      the seeker of lost springs
      the disentangler of ropy lava

he    who reckons the low point of rage in the ploughed lands
and measures the wheel of time and anti-time
in domains a thousand times more harsh
than the man-trodden waterwheels of the Orontes

he    who replaces the asphodel of the infernal meadows with
the sacred consecrated Afro of the haemanthus
Angela Davis of the underworld    rich with the pricks
of our inflected blood

      did he see it    did he see the Stranger
      redder than Tammuz’ blood
      and our Dacian decebalic faces
      did he see it    did he see the Stranger?

Phlegraean lava fields
knee-deep in birds
doves of shadow and grief
that the bow ignites
and from one sea to the other
the mater magma in volcanoes answers to
honour each mouth    each smoking pothole
on the way to the open ocean
the ultimate Conquistador on his last voyage


    (2-10/9/2026)

    Publications:






    
A L'heure ou dans la Chaleur les Moines Nus Descendent de L'himalaya

Très fort pendant les moustiques montés des volutes 
chargées à mitraille des maremmes joli cœur de la brutalité 
à la patte moricaude des bouges de sangliers

Très fort pendant les grands fleuves qui à la vermine 
débranchent leurs cuisses très immondes lèvres bleues 
giclant un rire cru de vagin

Très fort pendant la face molle des pollens s'écrasant 
dans la conspiration du vent et les cheminées qui fument 
sous le tunnel des épaules des fauves en escarboucles d'yeux
plus tendres que leur alentour de graminées

Très fort monstre contre monstre

le tien dont le corps est une statue de suc de bois rouge

dont le crachat est un pissat de fofa

le mien dont la sueur est un jet de bile de caïman

que je les sorte enfin comme une nuit pluvieuse de 
cris d'alouates de ma poitrine si tendre de fausse oronge

- Aimé Césaire (1946)

    
•	

very strong    	mosquitoes rising from the swirls
loaded with shrapnel from the marsh    smart heart of brutality
in the swarthy paw of the wild boars' den

very strong    	great rivers disconnect
their soiled thighs from vermin   blue lips
disgorge a raw laugh of vagina

very strong    	the soft mask of pollen crushing
conspiracies of the wind    the smoking chimneys
under the tunnel of the wild beasts’ shoulders    carbuncled eyes
sweeter than the surrounding grass

very strong    	monster against monster

yours	        whose body is a statue of redwood sap

                whose spittle is a spurt of piss

mine 	        whose sweat is a jet of caiman bile

till I whip them out at last like a rainy night of lark’s 
cries from my breast so soft in their mock orange


    (2-10/9/2026)

    Publications:



    •

    St.-John Perse: Anabase (1924)




    
Anabase: Chanson

Il naissait un poulain sous les feuilles de bronze. Un homme 
mit des baies amères dans nos mains. Etranger. Qui passait. 
Et voici qu’il est bruit d’autres provinces à mon gré... 
« Je vous salue, ma fille, sous le plus grand des arbres
de l’année. »

*

  Car le soleil entre au Lion et l’Etranger a mis son doigt 
dans la bouche des morts. Etranger. Qui riait. Et nous parle 
d’une herbe. Ah ! tant de souffles aux provinces ! Qu’il est 
d’aisance dans nos voies ! que la trompette m’est délice, et 
la plume savante au scandale de l’aile !... « Mon âme, grande 
fille, vous aviez vos façons qui ne sont pas les nôtres. »

*

  Il naquit un poulain sous les feuilles de bronze. Un homme 
mit ces baies amères dans nos mains. Etranger. Qui passait. 
Et voici d’un grand bruit dans un arbre de bronze. Bitume et 
roses, don du chant ! Tonnerre et flûtes dans les chambres ! 
Ah ! tant d’aisance dans nos voies, Ah ! tant d’histoires 
à l’année, et l’Etranger à ses façons par les chemins de toute 
la terre !... « Je vous salue, ma fille, sous la plus belle robe 
de l’année. »

- St.-John Perse (1924)

    
•	

A foal was born under the bronze leaves    a man put bitter 
bay leaves in our hands    a stranger passing by    now 
pleasing rumours from distant provinces    greetings 
daughter    under the grandest tree of the year

*

The sun enters Leo   the stranger thrusts his hand
in the mouths of the dead    a stranger laughing
telling us of a herb    so many winds cross the
provinces    how easy our ways    how the trumpets 
ring    pens peddle scandal under its wing
daughter of my soul your ways were not ours

*

A foal was born under bronze leaves    a man pressed 
bitter bay leaves in our hands    a stranger    passing by
now the bronze tree resounds    tar and roses 
the gift of song    thunder and flutes in the rooms
so easy our ways    so many stories told throughout 
the year   the stranger traversing the ways of the earth
greetings daughter    in your brightest dress of the year


    (1-10/9/2026)

    Publications:



    •

    Éloges (1911 / 1967)




    
Éloges: Écrit sur la porte

J'ai une peau couleur de tabac rouge ou de mulet,
  j'ai un chapeau en moelle de sureau couvert de toile 
blanche.
  Mon orgueil est que ma fille soit très-belle quand elle 
commande aux femmes noires;
  ma joie, quelle découvre un bras très-blanc parmi ses 
poules noires ;
  et qu'elle n'ait point honte de ma joue rude sous le poil, 
quand je rentre boueux.

⁂

  Et d'abord je lui donne mon fouet, ma gourde et mon chapeau.
  En souriant elle m'acquitte de ma face ruisselante; et 
porte à son visage mes mains grasses d'avoir
  éprouvé l'amande de kako, la graine de café.
  Et puis elle m'apporte un mouchoir de tête bruissant; 
et ma robe de laine; de l'eau pure pour rincer mes dents 
de silencieux :
  et l'eau de ma cuvette est là; et j'entends l'eau du 
bassin dans la case-à-eau.

⁂

  Un homme est dur, sa fille est douce. Qu'elle se 
tienne toujours
  à son retour sur la plus haute marche de la maison 
blanche,
  et faisant grâce à son cheval de l'étreinte des 
genoux,
  il oubliera la fièvre qui tire toute la peau du 
visage en dedans.

⁂

  J'aime encore mes chiens, l'appel de mon plus fin cheval,
  et voir au bout de l'allée droite mon chat sortir de 
la maison en compagnie de la guenon...
  toutes choses suffisantes pour n'envier pas les voiles 
des voiliers
  que j'aperçois à la hauteur du toit de tôle sur la mer 
comme un ciel.

- St.-John Perse (1911)

    
•	

My skin’s red as tobacco     or a mule
my dusty pith helmet’s white
my daughter’s fair as she bosses around 
     the black women
I’m glad that she preens her white arms
    against the black hens
and that she’s not ashamed to feel my rough cheeks 
    under the stubble
when I come home flecked in mud

⁂

    first I give her my whip    my flask    
and my hat    she smiles in my sweaty face
puts her face in my hands    
stained brown by cocoa and coffee beans
    then she wraps my head in a bandanna
brings me my dressing gown
water to rinse my teeth
the water in the basin feels cool
I can hear the waters below us in the cistern

⁂

a man is hard    his daughter soft    she comes out
to welcome him on the top step of our blank house
the horse is glad to be free of the grip of his knees
he forgets the pain that tightens the skin of his face

⁂

I love my dogs    the neigh of my horse
seeing at the end of the straight path my cat step out 
    of the house beside the monkey ...
plenty of things here to stop me longing for the winged ships
I can glimpse from the tip of the tin roof on that sea 
    blue like the sky


    (2-11/9/2026)

    Publications:






    
Éloges: Pour fêter une enfance, II

Et les servantes de ma mère, grandes filles luisantes ...
Et nos paupières fabuleuses ... O
  clartés! ô faveurs!
  Appelant toute chose, je récitai qu'elle était grande, 
appelant toute bête, qu'elle était belle et bonne.
  O mes plus grandes
  fleurs voraces, parmi la feuille rouge, à dévorer 
tous mes plus beaux 
  insectes verts! Les bouquets au jardin sentaient le cimetière 
de famille. Et une très petite soeur était morte: j'avais eu, 
qui sent bon, son cercueil d'acajou entre les glaces de trois 
chambres. Et il ne fallait pas tuer l'oiseau-mouche d'un caillou
... Mais la terre se courbait dans nos jeux comme fait la servante,
  celle qui a droit à une chaise si l'on se tient dans la maison.

  ... Végétales ferveurs, ô clartés ô faveurs ! ...
  Et puis ces mouches, cette sorte de mouches, vers le dernier 
étage du jardin, qui étaient comme si la lumière eut chanté!

  ... Je me souviens du sel, je me souviens du sel que la nourrice 
jaune dut essuyer à l'angle de mes yeux.
  Le sorcier noir sentenciait à l'office: «Le monde est comme une 
pirogue, qui, tournant et tournant, ne sait plus si le vent voulait 
rire ou pleurer ...»
  Et aussitôt mes yeux tâchaient à peindre
  un monde balancé entre des eaux brillantes, connaissaient le mât 
lisse des fûts, la hune sous les feuilles, et les guis et les 
vergues, les haubans de liane,
  où trop longues, les fleurs
  s’achevaient en des cris de perruches.

- St.-John Perse (1911)

    
•	

    And my mother's maids    tall lustrous girls
our eyelids open wide    O
lights    O gifts
reaching for everything around me I testified     
that it was great
    naming each creature
that it was beautiful and good

chief among them the
voracious flowers    hidden in the red leaves 
    devouring the most beautiful of my
green insects    but the bouquets in the garden 
    smelled of the family graveyard  
a very little sister had died   I felt her fragrant 
    mahogany coffin poised between
the mirrors of three rooms     nor should you kill 
    the hummingbird with a pebble
the earth bent over our games as the maid does
the one who’s allowed to sit down when you’re 
    in the house

green excess    O lights    O gifts

and then those flies    that kind of fly
    in the dizzy heights of the garden
which felt as if the light had sung

I remember the salt   I remember that salt scurf
    the yellow nurse had to wipe
from the corners of my eyes
the black magician prophesied    the world is like a canoe
it spins around    no longer knows 
if the wind wants to laugh or cry
and at once my eyes could see
a world poised between bright planes
of water   I felt the smooth heft of the barrels
the crow's nest under the leaves
the spars and yards    the shrouds of vines
where the flowers run out at last
in the calls of the parakeets


    (2-9/9/2026)

    Publications:





    •

    Renee Bevan: The World is a Giant Pearl
    [Photograph: Caryline Boreham]


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