by Aimé Césaire
As soon as I press the little pawl that I have under my tongue at a spot that escapes all detection all microscopic bombardment all dowser divination all scholarly prospecting beneath it triple layer of false eyelashes of centuries of insults of strata of madrepores of what I must call my niagara cavern in a burst of cockroaches in a cobra twitch a tongue like a cause for astonishment makes the leap of a machine for spitting a mouthful of curses a rising of the sewers of hell a premonitory ejaculation a urinary spurt a foul emission a sulfuric rhythm feeding an uninterruption of interjections—and then right there pushing between the paving stones the furious blue eucalypti that leave far behind them the splendor of veronicas, skulls smack in the delirium of dust like the jaboticaba plum and then right there started up like the loud buzzing of a hornet the true war of devolution in which all means are justified right there the passenger pigeons of the conflagration right there the crackling of secret transmitters and the thick tufts of black smoke that resemble the vaginal vegetation thrust into the air by rutting loins. I count. Obstructing the street a honey-colored armillaria lying dwarf-like on its side a church uprooted and reduced by catastrophe to its true proportions of a public urinal. I cross over collapsed bridges. I cross under new arches. Toboggan eye at the bottom of a cheek amidst woodwinds and well-polished brasses a house abutting an abyss with in cut-away view the violated virginity of the daughter of the house the lost goods and chattels of the father and the mother who believed in the dignity of mankind and in the bottom of a wool stocking the testicles pierced by the knitting needle of an unemployed workman from distant lands.
I place my hand on my forehead it’s a hatching of monsoons. I place my hand on my dick. It fainted in leaf smoke. All the deserter light of the sky has taken refuge in the red white and yellow heated bars of snakes attentive to the wasting away of this landscape sneered at by dog piss.
For what?
The planets are very fertile birds that constantly and majestically disclose their guano silos
the earth on its spit alternatively vomits grease from each of its facets
fistfuls of fish hook their emergency lights to the pilasters of stars whose ancient slippage crumbles away during the night in a thick very bitter flavor of coca.
Who among you has never happened to strike an earth because of its inhabitants’ malice? Today I am standing and in the sole whiteness that men have never recognized in me.
Aimé Césaire: The Collected Poetry
Copyright ©:
2010. Translated by Clayton Eshleman & A. James Arnold
A few random poems:
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Не касайся моих чертежей
- Winter Violets poem – Alfred Austin
- The Hock-cart, or Harvest Home by Robert Herrick
- The Key Note poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Ольга Берггольц – Церковь “Дивная” в Угличе
- J–K. Huysmans poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Day-Dream’s Reflection by William Allingham
- Eclogue:–Come And Zee Us In The Zummer by William Barnes
- Sonnet Ix
- Bearhug by Michael Ondaatje
- Жан де Лафонтен – Ссора Собак с Кошками и Кошек с Мышами
- Gethsemane by Rudyard Kipling
- Нина Воронель – Я не хочу опять вернуться в детство
- Федор Сологуб – Под холодною властью тумана
- Владимир Высоцкий – Давно, в эпоху мрачного язычества
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: The Prelude poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H. Obiit MDCCCXXXIII: 3. O Sorrow, cruel poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: Is it, then, regret for buried time poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 131. O living will that shalt endure poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 99. Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 95. By night we linger’d on the lawn poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 83. Dip down upon the northern shore poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 82. I wage not any feud with death poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 7. Dark house, by which once more I s poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 78. Again at Christmas did we weave poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 5. Sometimes I Hold it half a Sin poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 55. The wish, that of the living whol poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 54. Oh, yet we Trust that somehow Goo poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 45. The baby new to earth and sky poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 39. Old warder of these buried bones poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 2. Old Yew, which graspest at the sto poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 22. The path by which we twain did go poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 16. I Envy not in any Moods poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 15. To-night the winds begin to rise poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 126. Love is and was my Lord and King poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works