I closed my eyes so as not to see
I closed my eyes to cry
from no longer seeing you.
Where are your hands and the hands of caresses
where are your eyes the four whims of the day
with everything to lose you are no longer there
to dazzle the memory of the nights.
With everything to lose I see myself live.
translated by Stuart Kendall
20th Century French poetry
poem XX by Paul Eluard
Dawn I love you I have the whole night in my veins
all night I watched you
I have everything to divine
I am sure of the darkness
giving me the power
to envelop you
to excite your desire for life
in the heart of my immobility
the power to reveal you
to liberate you to lose you
flame invisible by day.
If you go the door opens on the day
If you go the door opens on me.
translated by Stuart Kendall
from another poem of Paul Eluard
love chooses love without changing its face
translated by Stuart Kendall
poem IV by Paul Eluard
I told you for the clouds
I told you for the sea tree
for each wave for the birds in the leaves
for pebbles of noise
for the familiar hands
for the eye that becomes a face or a landscape
and the sleep that renders the sky from its color
for the entire drunken night
for the grid of the roads
for the open window for an uncovered face
I told you for your thoughts for your words
every caress every confidence endures.
translated by Stuart Kendall
from poem VII by Paul Eluard
Silence has in its breast
all the heart’s extinguished flames.
Among the starbursts of memory
the plains extend storms
and kisses multiply.
In the grand reflectors of dreams.
translated by Stuart Kendall
from a poem by Paul Eluard
I looked for you beyond waiting
beyond myself
and I love you so much that I no longer know
which of us is absent.
translated by Stuart Kendall
from The Candle by Francis Ponge
The candle, meanwhile, by the way its rays flicker on the book as it suddenly discharges its original gases urges the reader on–then bends over onto its plate and drowns in what has always fed it.
translated by Robert Bly
An old favorite of mine: The Beloved by Paul Eluard
She is standing on my eyelids
And her hair is inside mine,
She is the shape of my hand,
She is the color of my eyes,
She is surrounded by my shadows
Like a rock by the sky.
Her eyes always opened
She never lets me sleep
Her dreams in broad daylight
Make sunlight evaporate,
Make me laugh, cry and laugh,
Speak without a thing to say.
translated by Michael Benedikt
Bird-Catcher’s Song by Jacques Prevert
The bird that flies so sweetly
The bird red and warm as blood
The bird so tender the bird mocking
The bird that suddenly is afraid
The bird that suddenly hurts itself
The bird that would like to flee
The bird alone and enraged
The bird that would like to live
The bird that would like to sing
The bird that would like to cry
The bird red and warm as blood
The bird that flies so sweetly
It’s your heart pretty child
Your heart that beats for the wings so sadly
Against your breast so hard and white
translated by Mark Strand and Jean Ballard
Saltimbanques: for Louis Dumur by Guillaume Apollinaire
Across the field the traveling clowns
Go past beside the gardens
Before the doors of mist-enshrouded inns
Through churchless towns
Some children run out ahead of them
While others fall back dreaming
Each fruit-tree gladly resigns
Its burden when from far off they make their signs
The weights they bear are round or square
With tambourines and hoops gilt silver
Wise beasts the bear the monkey
Beg small coins along the way
translated by Michael Benedikt
Leonard Durso 