Peonies

paraphrase from the Italian of Corrado Govoni

Peony, exaggerate rose, rose
Dionysiac, rose in crinolines
Rose proud as a princeling
Posing in the mirror

Odalisque bathing nude
And voluptuous, between mirrors
In precious majolica vases
Impassive as a Grand Eunuch

Rose pregnant with red (O
Dimpled womb of ecstasy!) your faint scent
Spreads like the fresh, cool feeling

Of a languid twilight, roseate
After the rain, when a cock crows;
Or of a placid crystal mirror.

--DTH

again Tzara again

the great la-
ment of my
obscurity one

cold whirlpool zigzag of blood
i have no soul cascade with no
friends no talents lord
i don't always receive
my mother's letters
which must pass through Russia
through Norway and through England
memories in red spirals
burn my brain on the rows
of the amphitheatre
and like a luminous advertisement
of my soul, misfortune gushed from
the sphere
tower of light teeming ring
of blue ants
nimbus searing drought of
afflictions

come close to me so the prayer
won't annoy you it descends in
the earth like diving suits
yet to be invented
then iron obscurity will change
to wine and salt
simplicity lightning rod of our
plants take care
lightning rods that form
a spider
thus i become the crown of an
enormous christ
formless land voltaic arc

snow eagles will come
to feed the rock
where deep clay will become
milk
and the milk will trouble the night the
chains will ring
the rain will make heavy
chains
will form wheels in space
rays
the sceptre in the middle among
branches
old newspapers tapestries
a paralytic
nimbus drought
teeming ring of blue ants
lord golden finger furnace
sphingerie
why strangle it why
after the thunderclap the military
march will burst out
my despair tinny iron tube
but why oh why?
thus thus always but the road
you must be my rain my
obscurity my metal my
circuit my pharmacy weep
no more weep no more
if you wish

TRANSLATION DTH 24MAY08

from Vingt-Cinq Poèmes de Tristan Tzara

the leprous white

giant of the landscape

salt groups itself in constellation

of birds on the tumour of wadding

in its lungs starfish and

drawing pins balance

microbes crystallize in

palm trees of muscles seesaws

hello without a cigarette tzantzantza

ganga

bouzdouc zdouc nfoùnfa mbaah

mbaah nfoùnfa

macrocystis perifera to embrace the

boats surgeon of boats

clean humid scar

idleness of brilliant lights

the boats nfoùnfa nfoùnfa

nfoùnfa

i force candles into his

ears gangànfah helicon and

boxer on the balcony the violin

of the hotel in baobabs of flames

the flames develop in

sponge formation

the flames are sponges

ngànga and strike

the ladders climb like

blood gangà

the ferns toward the woolen

steppes my chance toward the cas-

cades

the flames sponges of glass the
mattresses wounds mattresses
the mattresses fall wancanca
aha bzdouc the butterflies
the scissors the scissors the scissors
and the shadows
the scissors and the clouds the sci-
ssors the ships
the thermometer considers the ultra-
red gmbabàba
berthe my education my tail
is cold and monochromatic
nfoua loua la
the mushrooms oranges and the
family of sounds beyond the starboard
in the beginning in the beginning the triangle
and the tree of voyagers in the beginning

my brains depart for hy-
perbole
the kaolin swarms in its cranial
box
dalibouli obok and tòmbo and tòmbo
his belly is a big cashbox
here intervene the drum major
and the clapper
for there are zigzags on his
soul the reader begins to shout
he begins to shout begins to
shout then in the shout there are
flutes that multiply - some
corals
the reader wants to die perhaps
or dance and begins to shout
he's a skinny dirty idiot he doesn't un-
derstand my verse he shouts
he's one-eyed
he has zigzags on his soul
and lots of rrrrrrr
nbaze baze look at the submarine
tiara that unravels in golden
seaweeds
hozondrac trac

nfoùnda nbabàba nfoùnda tatan

babàba


TRANSLATION DTH 30APR08