Michaël Glück
(France)
IN MY HAND
to Barry Wallenstein
1.
fewish jewish but
neither gold nor cut
anywhere anywhere
I leave every country
I’m just walking in verses
of a lost poem
no earth no sea
only plates and glasses
I eat I drink
with friends and She
the beloved
I leave every country
I just stay in the wind
in the few-worded wind
in the jew-worded wind
I stay I stay and
I sing
2.
just a rose in a glass
nothing else on a table
neither sand of sirocco
nor the stones of memory
then I sit and take a pen
which begins to enter chaos
3.
I dream do you dream
I dream you are
dreaming in my dream
do you dream I’m a dream in your dream
and drums
and a sax are shouting
in a daylight and drums
are dreams in a daylight
we play
far from frontiers of a war
have you seen a piano
which was sinking in blues
4.
a written word is soon a world
a wounded soldier cries
from our blind eyes
a man talks about his land
another says fatherland
while mothers are singing
some dead lulubies
so old and cold the ages
of humanity
nobody speaks
out of bloody landscapes
REST
(in the suite of days, 7 – translated by Rosanna Warren)
01.
let everything rest
the body
and the body’s
tools
let hunger rest
at the rim of the plate
water in the jug
thirst between lips
let your eyes rest
on night
let your skin rest
beyond its wrinkles
let the sheets hang
on the line
rest
let dust rest
among the words
let your hands rest
on the edges of the book
let
time rest on the chair
wear daylight’s clothes
down to threads
02.
let everything rest
the burning house
thirst
your penis
against your thigh
let your bones rest
under muscles
the knife
at the foot of the bed
let the book rest
let
let it rest
on the table
let sorrow rest
behind
your teeth
rancor
under honey
the coat
hangs in the closet
fatigue
sleeps in its pockets
let your forehead rest
against the sky
one word
withdraws
05.
let the pencil rest
in the margins
a vowel
between stones
the grain of the voice
under flour
let joy rest
on the threshold
let mourning rest
sadness
feel nothing
except
the approach of nothing
09.
let everything rest
what’s done
is done
has been
was
let rest
you exist no longer
in what you have made
let rest
let your possessions rest
throw away
open your hands
to what vanishes
10.
let day rest
let night rest
they are sheets
for your bed
cradle
coffin
another
comes
let everything rest
in shadow
sun or moon
let
don’t mend
the hem
re-open
the scar
time’s
praise
______________________
Michaël Glück is a French poet, prose-writer, playwright, and translator. He received the Prix de Créateurs in 1981 for La mémoire écorchée / Abbatoirs La Mouche (Editions Jean-Michel Place). Cette chose-là, ma mère (Editions J. Brémond) received the Prix Antonin Artaud. Glück, who studied philosophy with Emanuel Levinas, has evolved a distinctive Judaic vision within the context of modern French poetry.
Rosanna Warren, grande poète américaine, à découvrir sur remue.net, poezibao, terres de femmes) a traduit une grande parte de Le Repos; ses traductions sont parues dans l’America Poetry Review, Seneca review et la revue en ligne Agni review.