by Aime Cesaire
I have had occasion in the bewilderment of cities to search for the right animal to adore. So I worked my way back to the first times. Undoing cycles untying knots crushing plots removing covers killing hostages I searched.
Ferret. Tapir. Uprooter.
Where where where the animal who warned me of floods
Where where where the bird who led me to honey
Where where where the bird who revealed to me the fountainheads
the memory of great alliances betrayed great friendships lost through our fault exalted me
Where where where
Where where where
The word made vulgar to me
O serpent sumptuous back do you enclose in your sinuous lash the powerful soul of my grandfather?
Greetings to you serpent through whom morning shakes its beautiful mango mauve December chevelure and for whom the milk-invented night tumbles its luminous mice down its wall
Greetings to you serpent grooved like the bottom of the sea and which my heart truly unbinds for us like the premise of the deluge
Greetings to you serpent your reputation is more majestic than their gait and the peace their God gives not you hold supremely.
Serpent delirium and peace
over the hurdles of a scurrilous wind the countryside dismembers for me secrets whose steps resounded at the outlet of the millenary trap of gorges that they tightened to strangulation.
to the trashcan! may they all rot in portraying the banner of a black crow weakening in a beating of white wings.
Serpent
broad and royal disgust overpowering the return in the sands of deception
spindrift nourishing the vain raft of the seagull
in the pale tempest of reassuring silences you the least frail warm yourself
You bathe yourself this side of the most discordant cries on the dreamy spumes of grass
when fire is exhaled from the widow boat that consumes the cape of the echo’s flash
just to make your successive deaths shiver all the more—green frequenting of the elements—your threat.
Your threat yes your threat body issuant from the raucous haze of bitterness where it corrupted the concerned lighthouse keeper and that whistling takes its little gallop time toward the assassin rays of discovery.
Serpent
charming biter of womens’ breasts and through whom death steals into the maturity in the depths of a fruit sole lord lord alone whose multiple image places on the strangler fig’s altar the offering of a chevelure that is an octopodal threat a sagacious hand that does not pardon cowards
Aime Césaire: The Collected Poetry
Copyright ©:
2010. Translated by Clayton Eshleman & A. James Arnold
A few random poems:
- Calypso by W H Auden
- The Lesson by Maya Angelou
- WATER LILLIES AND ADVICE by PEGGY AYLSWORTH
- An Ode, On Reading Mr. Richardson’s History Of Sir Charles Grandison by William Cowper
- Олег Бундур – Певец Александр Серов
- Sonet 36 by William Alexander
- Days and Nights by Murali Sivaramakrishnan
- Macer : A Character poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Новелла Матвеева – Художник, незнакомый с поощреньем
- A Dream by William Allingham
- Child by Sylvia Plath
- The Queen’s Marie poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Memory
- Шекспир – С любовью связан жизненный мой путь – Сонет 92
- Ballad on Mr. Heron’s Election—No. 3 by Robert Burns
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
- You Say You Love poem – John Keats poems
- Written In The Cottage Where Burns Was Born poem – John Keats poems
- Woman! When I Behold Thee Flippant, Vain poem – John Keats poems
- What The Thrush Said. Lines From A Letter To John Hamilton Reynolds poem – John Keats poems
- Two Sonnets. To Haydon, With A Sonnet Written On Seeing The Elgin Marbles poem – John Keats poems
- Two Sonnets On Fame poem – John Keats poems
- Two Or Three poem – John Keats poems
- Translated From A Sonnet Of Ronsard poem – John Keats poems
- To The Ladies Who Saw Me Crowned poem – John Keats poems
- To Some Ladies poem – John Keats poems
- To George Felton Mathew poem – John Keats poems
- To Charles Cowden Clarke poem – John Keats poems
- The Gadfly poem – John Keats poems
- The Eve Of Saint Mark. A Fragment poem – John Keats poems
- The Devon Maid: Stanzas Sent In A Letter To B. R. Haydon poem – John Keats poems
- The Cap And Bells; Or, The Jealousies: A Faery Tale — Unfinished poem – John Keats poems
- Teignmouth: “Some Doggerel,” Sent In A Letter To B. R. Haydon poem – John Keats poems
- Stanzas To Miss Wylie poem – John Keats poems
- Stanzas. In A Drear-Nighted December poem – John Keats poems
- Staffa poem – John Keats 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
