from Guêpier de Diamants (1923) [“Diamond Vespiary”]
Translated from the French by Henry Cole Smith
The Velvet of Space
The chirping of tears ceases
in the cup brimming with winter orgy
Soul—heart—mind
In search of the last rose
Break the ice of the fabulous orchestra
That spins in mists stained with love
And miracle-sufferings
Even so the roofs cry their icicles
over my hands evaporated with love
And the lunar rain transfigures and blinds me
O dangerous indolence of frosts…
Beyond the summits the climbing plants
Weave their secrets in a virgin wheel
Wheel of imaginary loves fluctuating like climates
Elevator of hearts on the point of deliverance
How long does it take to arrive at sunny eternity…
Marvelous gazes have eviscerated the full moon
Which births a burning rain of sobs
Over my peeled heart…
Winter perfumes with its approach
The trembling of splendid and suffering stars
Which sink to the bottom of time under a veil of dew
In the houses it’s summer, nebulous and melancholy
And the chimneys jeer at winter
Me, I traipse my tragic rags
Through the unreal velvet of space and time
But my shameless youth covers me with song
Inverse winter is littered with woodpeckers
And I look like the fairy of remorse…
But despite the death of bindweeds and their bewitched
twittering
Winter sordid and chaste
Before ruining me with your contemptuous breath
Bend down over my pains melting with the snow
Renew your promise of last year
Open to me your tepid arms blurred by the wheel of secrets…
The fabulous orchestra humbles itself at my feet
Persian Bindweed
The gallant festival of scarabs accelerates the pace of the comedic wheel of space; but the parched clay lifts its merciful guillotine over the misery of love.
Piously night spreads the waters of its mystical diamond over the city which fades in the too-even breathing of lights. If the wind makes its rounds on the bridge escaping in hypocritical complaints, the Seine bares its breast perfumed by lunar furrows.
A burning thirst seizes me when the water invokes legends. My lips close like eyes unloved, like the final hour of the condemned, where crimes whisper, crowd, dance rocking on the rumbling lights.
Suddenly a stranger sounds the ancient clappers: “Get out”. In his steel coat made of seahorse scales the fires of the city sound their sirens. Lovers frighten each other on an isolated barge; the approach of the leper isolates their hearts and for the first time they desire immortality. I burn my hands on his coat, despite the fright that haloes them, but my fingers flower mysteriously.
So the man throws his phosphorescent coat on the receding night, trailing behind the kisses of the extinguished stars in the hand of dawn. Swans’ necks twist under the curses of the unknown. But day withers the mysteries.
Laborers still intoxicated with sleep trip over fish scales; the trams disclose expectant blue eyes and enchant the workers. The Seine covers its nudity with a garland of tugboats and the moon arrives modernized in the cage of an airplane.
It was in a cafe at dawn that I drank a liqueur which unwound its spiral and halo around my forehead. A passing ragpicker draped in the last rays of the moon was playing a clever tune on a violin and the morning townspeople, the streets, the cars, all danced before me in a cyclops fairytale. I heard the flying hours of a clock chime, and the silence devoured the enormous hustle-and-bustle. It was then that the violinist made the sign of immortality on our foreheads, and painted a Persian bindweed on my cheek.
Enamel Suffering
Devouring thirst that descends in moonlight on the ostensory-lagoon to the rhythm of the tides! There we found the inundation of the celestial harlequinade in boats of frost, the inevitable fairy drama in unsatisfied gestures, and a boat green with moonlight.
We are free and yet our chains follow the wall of pride in a procession of sorceries; fascinated by the prayer of the half-shut hatchlings we bend the underlying ladder in monumental regret.
Deep down in my sadness, great movements of chiaroscuro and clerestory-joy collide.
Guitars prick ears to the mysteries of our palaces, and player pianos iridesce the silky cabins—altars of silkworms.
The sky sends its pearlescent messenger sliding up the scale of my sorrow, towards the paradise of blackcurrants and scalding cocktails ravenous like wounds.
O the immensity of these descents of mist we disguise with lies to intoxicate our fantasies! The abolition of a whole lineage of featherbrained silkworms! Their music, crumpled into architectural melodies quilted like nests of sardonyx, tickles our sentiments.
But when the glowworms, with nerves shredded by the breeze of hearts, wave their diamond collars over the sleeping dissolution of spirits, night besieges the city with its regiment of archers. The houses fall asleep in the shadow of passers-by; little by little the lights rise in moonlight, nervous and obedient, then the universal snore dies away in an adagio of dance—the city has inserted its ebony mute.
Dawn surprises me each time, interrogating the sleepwalkers whose hearts are wounded by rays of mist—my nocturnal life ends by harvesting the peril and suffering of enamel.
Glowworms stretch and die on my song.
The Silk of Love
I would like to be a song of volubility
Transmarine song heavy with gravitation
Crossing the expanse of your thoughts
By sounds and lights
And sink myself at the feet of the fabulous orchestra
Across the water the haggard wind
Transports the unicorn that drills with its horn
The mystery of lips closed on my song
In the crevice of the ship-wrecking wave
Chimes the amethyst eyelid of the departed…
And from her corsage diamonds fly
At the feet of the fabulous orchestra
Across my thoughts
Errant inspiration becomes a fiery wheel
Immobility of my life…
O diamond domain—suspend your curse
My heart is an iridescent fishnet scarf
My hands are bound with the silk of love
My eyes blinded by a lucid dust
And torrents of rings around my imagination
Throw me down and prostrate my life
At the feet of the fabulous orchestra
A dream-ring opens on the suspension of the sky
And my hands are heavy with sorrows
Fan—marble beak—flute or flying-ghost
Supernatural love on my shifting breezes
Sole key to the tomb and key to repentance
At your feet I ruin my temple
Guitar of my forgiveness
Broken at the feet of the fabulous orchestra
Céline Arnauld (1885-1952) was a Romanian-born French poet. She was affiliated with the Paris Dada group in the 1920s, participated in their periodicals and performances, and edited her own magazine Projecteur which ran for one issue. By the mid 1920s, while many of her peers became Surrealists, she swore off group affiliations but continued to publish her self-described “ultra-modern” poetry in the little magazines and small presses of the international European avant-garde. Her writing crosses genres, including verse and prose poetry, dialogues and dramatic pieces, and a poetic novella.
Henry Cole Smith is a poet and translator based in New York. He is an editor at Mouse Magazine and sporadically publishes his own magazine, Censer. He is currently pursuing master’s degrees in English and library science at NYU and LIU, with a focus on American poetry and special collections. His chapbook Clank of Light is forthcoming from Mouse Editions.
World Poetry Review 