from “Je parlafin” [“Irewind”],
in Métamorphiques (2024) [“Metamorphics”]
Translated from the French by Patrick Durgin
No trace of having dreamtthis morning. I hear acrows enchanting song I ponder the notionof human shortcomings. Of having nothingup my sleeve. Birdsong ends with the daylight. Extraneous tome the night past speaks to recall to suggest anaffect like acalendar. Oddity of anew year I did not celebrate. My hands are nimble my faceat the ready my muzzlea jigsaw.
I can’t wait forthe combinations the possible contacts configured by new languages unleashed by puzzles that love wouldsolve loosened released thefleshs capacity. The masks are crooked asthey pass before the face. If the rubber missesits mark if the leather isundone. At carnivalsend. When the millennial institutions languages do not complacently reiteratea worlds regulations.
Actually itsa solitary bird singing outof sync with the closeofday. In this regard myerroneous equating of the two cessations reminds me that theends mean lessan agreement than a direction. The vacuity of the immediate goal has returnedas a boundless dimension. While theidea of stopping had been denounced categorically. Whats morewith hardly any excitation.
Ears open wide cant domuch about it. Anabsent song even metamorphosed in arhythmic sonorous wavelengths. Orrather the latter forming alistening beamed beneaththe surroundings or missingits mark vanishing ignorant of theact or ofits reach. Its outright intermittence tells me that between the momentary character ofahalt and finality indifference resides.
Aftera day laboring away the framework of aledger clocking inmy hours evaporates ofits own accord. By dint of not being omitted from the time I occupyeven in my thoughts the colorsof the spectrum diminishin total. The sudden upshot the lackof sensitized surface theabsence of an iridescent film obliterates the forces relation. Itseems quite difficult not to giveit allup.
If it were possible to feebly press on. Orin exploring the skeleton. For example theinterior motion of my right hip downwardwhile recoiling along the same vertical planeas the foot below my shoulder. The feel of aninternal interval merges with a vivid astonishment revealsan unknown mobility. This empirical data hasits condition something like retrieving time thathad alreadybeen pilfered.
The minds representations are constituted of asuccession of stacksthat shrink with everynightly interruption. A diagram depicts the phenomenon. Each stack begins witha start. Judging from their height the slopeof the series tends asymptotically toward zero. The start takenas a beginning consistsin repetition but repetition of itsown extinction withdrawing each stack from itself.
Negation is not mental but undoubtedly figurable although its figures are innumerable whichfigures hardly compel us to depict thembut instead scour clean the screen upon which alife course is projected. I note that affirmationis permanently reconfigured as ameans of tempering our conduct. To me this shocking observation is no laughing matter nordo I fantasize about assuming anoffice in thecosmos.
In theformof flyers of various sizes dangling in the air as thoughhung vertically despite the unseen mechanism affixing them there. Theirpresence opens channels barrierspavea way. Their plied edges instaggered segments lend a kindof plasticity to the gathering. I read nowriting. One flat tonality. I have to wonder ifits really flush with thebase where hollow volumes flatten.
Theimages in the minds eye offer only acircumscribed duplicitous mobility reversible mentality. Something like animpregnable cloister that reconstitutes its limitswith my every attempt to puncturethem. Silence functions asacall. I descend into darkness by earnavigating the hall of funhouse mirrors. Anequally internal and external orientation.
The direction of timehad changed several timesover the course ofthe account given. The beginning resemblingsomething begun. Andsoan event had called to mind a memory that preexisted its recurrence. Reminding me I had dealt myself a dud hand ofthree cardmonte. If only to prolongthe continuous presentthe face off Iignored a soundtrack that coincided withits playback.
I went ahead and listened this time I set foot outsidethe line thatat that moment was in play that I lose. The tempos of reading are modified. Whilemy attention carries through with precise timing tothe tick ofeach second bustling boundless depththat makesas if to twist and return to itself. I descend a few paces in pursuit I reach a landinga gravelpath that I promptly cross. I guessat what along it the diffusion designates.
Translator’s Note:
Luc Bénazet writes mainly prose poetry, and these excerpts come from a very long serial poem whose notable formal features include the elision of words. As in the title, Je parlafin, one hears “parle” (to speak) and “afin” (in order to or until the end), so that the phrase is a complicated play on words. It evokes: I talk until the end, I speak of ends, and where “par” means “by” I according to the end. In the original French, this creates evocative phonemic collisions that slightly warp or prolong the dawning of sense for readers, and it’s a result of subtle and efficient omissions, such as apostrophes. The poem’s emblematic statement is inspired by Russian Futurist Alexei Kruchenykh’s concept of “worldbackwards, “Limportant était cette temporalité que lecalendrier nerègle plus.” Past and future are unmoored from the calendar as the sounds are riveted together in the sentence.
These translated excerpts from Je parlafin appear with the kind permission of Éditions P.O.L.
Je parlafin in Métamorphiques © P.O.L Editeur, 2024
Luc Bénazet is a poet based in Paris, where he edits the magazine niqui causse. His most recent books, all from P.O.L., are Soleils d’artifice, Métamorphiques, and La Masse forêt. In 2023, his album Le Tonsu was released in France on the no lagos musique label (and on Bandcamp worldwide). He is also active as a translator and has published numerous translations and books of his own, often hybrid formats with Eric Pesty and Nous, including a book of experimental poetry for children called Rainal ! Bénazet is the first to have translated the work of Hannah Weiner into French, excerpts of which will appear in his collective project, forthcoming from P.O.L., called Dire je est une solidarité (Saying I Is a Solidarity).
Patrick Durgin wrote a book with Jen/Eleana Hofer in the waning years of the 20th century called The Route, which was published by Atelos. His poets theater script PQRS was published in 2013 and shortly after he published three artists books, and excerpts from his forthcoming collection of poetry called Tournament. A limited edition of the chapbook French Unpublished Poems & Facsimile 1958-1960, by Miyó Vestrini, her early work written in French, was published with Durgin’s English translations by Letra Muerta in 2021. Durgin teaches in the Visual And Critical Studies program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.