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:
- The Only One I Can’t Live Without, Its You by Miraj Patel
- Tidy by Ralph Angel
- Sonnet To Mrs. Reynolds’s Cat poem – John Keats poems
- When Smoke Stood Up From Ludlow poem – A. E. Housman
- Song in the Manner of Housman poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Владимир Британишский – Молодой Толстой
- The Ancient Deception by Rixa White
- Валерий Брюсов – Фламандцам
- Валерий Брюсов – Город сестер любви видение
- A Prayer
- Haunted by you by Melissa Skelton
- on our conditioning by Raj Arumugam
- Both ways I lose by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Motto prefixed to the Author’s first Publication by Robert Burns
- Half-Man by Satish Verma
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
- Les Roses de Sâdi poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Johnnie Armstrang poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Jock O The Side poem – Andrew Lang poems
- In Ithica poem – Andrew Lang poems
- A Highly Valuable Chain Of Thoughts poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Gordon Of Brackley poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Edom O’ Gordon poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Double Ballade Of Primitive Man poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Before The Snow poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballades V – Of His Choice Of A Sepulchre poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballades IV – Of Life poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballades III – Of Blue China poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballades II – Of The Book-Hunter poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballades I – To Theocritus, In Winter poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of True Wisdom poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of The Summer Term poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of The Southern Cross poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of Sleep poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of The Royal Game Of Golf poem – Andrew Lang 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