for Louis Dumur
Across the plain the mountebanks
Slip away past garden walls
Past the doors of smoky taverns
Through villages without churches
And the children lead the way
The others follow dreaming
The fruit trees give in one by one
When they beckon them from afar
They carry barbells and dumbbells
Drums and gilded hoops
The bear and the monkey wise beasts
Beg small change along the way
Apollinaire
translation by Jack Hayes © 2010
The sun on that day swelled like a maternal
Belly bleeding slowly through the sky
The light is my mother O bloody light
The clouds flowed like menstrual flux
At the crossroads where only a thornless
Compass rose flourished in winter
Merlin kept watch on life and the eternal cause
Making the universe die then be born anew
An old woman green mantled on a mule
Followed the riverbank downstream
And ancient Merlin on the deserted plain
Beat his breast and cried out Rival
O my frozen being whose fate overwhelms me
Whose flesh-sun shivers do you wish to see
My Memory my twin coming to love me
To see that fine unfortunate son I long to hold
His gesture toppled the upheavals’ pride
The dancing sun stirred its own navel
And suddenly the springtime of love & valor
Led a young April day by the hand
The roads from the west were strewn with
Bones with weeds thick with fate and flowers
With memorials trembling by green carrion
While the winds conveyed down and misfortune
Dismounting her mule his lover stepped forward lightly
With a light touch the breeze smoothed her finery
Then the pale lovers joined their mad hands
The knot of their fingers formed the space of their love
She dangled miming a rhythm of existence
She cried I hoped for your call for a hundred years
The stars of your life held sway over my dance
Morgana watched from Mount Gibel’s summit
Ah, it’s sweet to dance when a mirage of singing
Breaks out and the winds of horror
Feign the hilarious moon’s laughter
And frighten the ghostly forerunners
I fashioned white gestures in the desert
Lemurs swarmed through my nightmares
My whirling expressed the bliss
That is nothing but the Art’s pure effect
I only plucked the hawthorn’s blooms
At springtime's end when they wished to be deflowered
When birds of prey proclaimed their ravaging
Of stillborn lambs and child gods doomed to death
I have aged you see while you live I dance
But I would soon have wearied and hawthorn blossoms
This April would have kept a poor secret
The corpse of an old woman who died miming sorrow
And their hands rose like a bright flock of doves
That night fell upon like a vulture
Then Merlin moved to the east saying May he rise
Memory’s son Love’s peer
Whether he rises from muck or may be man’s shadow
He is indeed my son my immortal work
His brow haloed with fire on the road to Rome
He will walk alone watching heaven
The lady who awaits me is named Vivian
And when springtime comes with new sorrows
Lying amongst the marjoram and coltsfoot
I will last interminably under the hawthorn
Apollinaire
Translation © Jack Hayes 2010
The hotel door smiles terribly
What has this done to me mother
Being the clerk for whom alone nothing exists
Pi-mus fish moving coupled through deep sad water
Fresh angels disembarked at Marseilles yesterday morning
I hear a distant song dying and dying again
Humble as I am who am worth nothing
Child I've given you what I had labor
Apollinaire
translation © Jack Hayes 2010
If John the Baptist might smile once again
Sire I would dance better than seraphim
Tell me mother what makes you grieve
Attired as a countess at the Dauphin’s side
My heart throbbed it throbbed at his words
As I danced through the fennel listening
And embroidered lilies across a pennant
To flutter at last from the tip of his staff
Tell me for whom I’ll embroider them now
His staff blooms anew on the banks of Jordan
King Herod when your soldiers led him away
All the lilies shriveled in my garden
Come with me everyone under the quincunx
Don’t cry delightful jester
Take this head as your cap and bells and dance
Don’t touch his brow mother it has grown cold
Sire lead the procession let the guard follow
We’ll dig a hole and bury it
We’ll plant flowers and dance in a ring
Till the hour I lose my garter
The king his snuffbox
The princess her rosary
The priest his breviary
Apollinaire
translation © Jack Hayes 2010
I plucked this sprig of heather
Autumn’s dead remember this
We’ll see each other no more on earth
Scent of time sprig of heather
And remember I await you
Apollinaire
translation © Jack Hayes 2010
July 13 1909
Seeing the flags this morning I didn’t tell myself
Behold the rich garments of the poor
Or democratic modesty wants to veil its sorrow
Or honoring liberty now makes us imitate
Leaves o vegetable liberty o sole earthly liberty
Or the houses are ablaze because we’ll leave never to return
Or these restless hands will labor tomorrow for us all
Or even they’ve hanged those who couldn’t make the most of life
Or even they’ve renewed the world by recapturing the Bastille
I know it’s only renewed by those grounded in poetry
Paris is decked out because my friend André Salmon’s getting
married there
We used to meet up in a damned dive
When we were young
Both of us smoking and shabbily dressed waiting for sunrise
Smitten smitten with the same words whose meanings will have
to be changed
Deceived deceived poor kids and we still didn’t know how to laugh
The table and two glasses became a dying man who cast us
Orpheus’ last glance
The glasses fell shattered
And we learned how to laugh
We parted then pilgrims of perdition
Across streets across countries across reason
I saw him again on the bank of the river where Ophelia was floating
Who still floats white amongst the water lilies
He went off amongst wan Hamlets
Playing the airs of madness on his flute
I saw him near a dying muzhik counting his blessings
While admiring the snow that looked like naked women
I saw him doing this or that in honor of the same words
That change children’s expressions and I’m saying these things
Recollection and Expectation because my friend André Salmon is
getting married
Let’s rejoice not because our friendship has been the river that
made us fertile
River lands whose abundance is the nourishment all hope for
Or because our glasses cast once more Orpheus’ dying glance
Or because we’ve grown so large that many people confuse our
eyes with stars
Or because flags flap at the windows of citizens who’ve been
content these hundred years to have life and trifles to defend
Or because grounded in poetry we have the right to words that
form and unmake the
Universe
Or because we can weep without being absurd and because we
know how to laugh
Or because we’re smoking and drinking as in the old days
Let’s rejoice because the director of fire and poets
Love filling like light
All the solid space between stars and planets
Love wishes that my friend André Salmon get married today
Apollinaire
translation © Jack Hayes 2010
Angels the angels in the skies
One’s dressed up like an officer
One’s dressed up like a chef
And the others are singing
Comely officer color of the skies
Long long after Christmas gentle spring
Will decorate you with a shining sun
With a shining sun
The chef plucks the geese
Ah! let the snow fall
And fall if only I held
My beloved in my arms
Apollinaire
translation © Jack Hayes 2010
