This one I love.
“When you are under this influence, you cannot get caught up in the misery of the world”
~ *Simonne
Poetry, and love, won’t allow escape from the intimacy of presence…
Sur la route de San Romano
by Andre Breton
translated by Simonne Guillerm Allen
Poetry is made like love in a bed
Its undone sheets are the beginning of things
Poetry is done in the woods
It has the space it needs
Not this one but the one that depends
On the eyes of the hawk
The dew on the snake-grass
The fogged souvenir of a bottle of Gewürztraminer on a silver tray
A high stem of tourmaline over the sea
And the road of mental adventure
Which rises up abruptly
One pause and she is mixed up right away.
It is not screamed on the rooftop
It is unproper to leave the door open
Or call witnesses
The school of fish the hedge of chickadees
The rail and the entrance of a great station
The reflection from two banks
The furrows in the bread
The bubble of the brook
The days of the calendar
The St. John’s Wort
The act of love and the act of poetry
Are not compatible
With the reading of the newspaper loudly.
The direction of the ray of the sun
The blue light of the return of the blow of the axe of the woodcutter
The thread of the kite shaped like a heart or a fish keep-net
The beating in rhyme of the tail of the beaver
The diligence of the lightning
The throw of the sugar coated pill from the top of the steps
The avalanche
The chamber of prestigious things
No sir, it is not the eighth chamber
Nor the vapor of the bedroom on a Sunday evening
The dancing figures executed transparently above the palms
The delineation of the outline of the body of a woman from the throw of daggers against the wall
The light undulation of the smoke
The curls of your hair
The curve of the sponge from the Philippines
The snares of the coral snake
The entrance of ivy in the ruins
She has all of time in front of her.
The poetic embrace like the fleshy one
As long as it lasts
Forbids all escape on the misery of the world.
*For more about Simonne see:
https://deniseporterkemp.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/translation/
https://deniseporterkemp.wordpress.com/2014/03/24/imprint/
deniseporterkemp 