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.