‘Royalty’ by Arthur Rimbaud, trans. John Ashbery

First published in 1886, Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations, the work of a poet who had abandoned poetry before the age of twenty-one, changed the language of poetry. Hallucinatory and feverishly hermetic, it is an acknowledged masterpiece of world literature, still unrivaled for its haunting blend of sensuous detail and otherworldly astonishment. In Ashbery's translation of this notoriously elusive text, the acclaimed poet and translator lends his inimitable voice to a venerated classic.

Royauté

Un beau matin, chez un peuple fort doux, un homme et une femme superbes criaient sur la place publique. «Mes amis, je veux qu’elle soit reine!» «Je veux être reine!» Elle riait et tremblait. Il parlait aux amis de révélation, d’épreuve terminée. Ils se pâmaient lun contre l’autre.

En effet ils furent rois toute toute une matinée où les tentures carminées se relevèrent sur les maisons, et toute l´après-midi, où ils sávancérent du côté des jardins de palmes.

Royalty

One fine morning, in the country of a very gentle people, a magnificent man and woman were shouting in the public square. “My friends, I want her to be queen!” “I want to be queen!” She was laughing and trembling. He spoke to their friends of revelation, of trials completed. They swooned against each other.

In fact they were regents for a whole morning as crimson hangings were raised against the houses, and for the whole afternoon, as they moved toward the groves of palm trees.

Source: Rimbaud, Arthur, and John Ashbery. Illuminations. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012, pp. 52-53.

Poem after Personals in The New York Review of Books (Soumettre à une Interrogation)

Wikipedia Poem, No. 798

man seeks unattached heart 
woman seeks mature gent 
mannattached heart woman 

seek/soumettre

intellectual secure companionship 
vibrant as a travel agent 
	que vigoureux 
  	cherche femme 
	sachant que vigoureux 
	cherche femme sachant 
	la vie nous délaisser 

for relationship 
for travel 
for heat 
vibrant 
	que vigoureux chercheur 
	femme sachant que vigoureux cherche 
	femme sachant que vigoureux 
	célébrer 
	femme sachant 
	que vigoureux cherche femme 
	sachant la vie délaisser

active kind 
	avocat new yorkais 
	soixante dix 

ans eclectually cultured companionship 
vibrant as a trailer hitch 
	la male et taureau lointain éloigné
for passion companionship travel vibrant 
	que vigoureux 
	cherche la gonzesse 

la la la
	whoa whoa whoa
		la vie nous quitte

Superficial Missus

Wikipedia Poem, No. 494

“at least I would like to think so” John Ashbery

aluminum ice pix
too big how exotic
your shoulders your nose
how big too exotic
in this picture you’re stock art
when is too big or how is exotic

your nose in this shot
connects to its hips
you’re using to click

the internet has something to tell you
its hip its using your lips
in the women du prix
where you shoulder your nose
in this picture they ski down for clicks
i have something to plick

i’ve got your nose
and your womanly hips
the picture’s too big

how erotic
your shoulders
so nordic
wipes their nostradamus
completely sephardic
another howling mountain épique

isn’t that funny
your body eclipses
your liberal hip sis

‘Another variation of formlessness’

“Isn’t the most profound education the one that was afforded me at my childhood elementary school, the one that divides the ink sharply between thought become Letter and drive turned into splotches and blots? How will those who begin with the darkish gray on the palish gray of computer screens manage? Without the slightest inkblot? Won’t they think that thought is just another variation of formlessness, that the intellect is just a thin additional coat of gray over the gray of drive, and drive a mere stripping of the gray of the intellect?

Everything in the world is the result of a creative and careful dosing of black as it is projected onto the formidable invariability of white. Anyone who hasn’t experienced this, and sooner rather than later, will never learn anything.”

— from the essay “Chalk and Markers” in Alain Badiou’s “Black”.

Wikipedia Poem, No. 399

What else are poets for?



impressionner
من 
باید به شما 
        تحت تاثیر قرار دادن
          debo impresionarte
     باید به 
      شما تحت تاثیر قرار 
          دادن
debo impresionare
   je dois vous impresionarte
 
          dois 
vous impresionner
      من باید به شما تحت تاثیر قرار دادن
      debo impresionarte
o 
      impress 
         you 
       
      devo impresionare
je 
    dois vous impresionarte
o impress you 
devo impresionarte
o impresionner
من باید به شما تحت 
تاثیر قرار 
        دادن
  debo 
         impresionarte
   o impressionare
          je dois vous 
   impresionarte
باید به شما تحت 
   تاثیر قرار 
دادن
  debo impress 
you 
     devo impresionarte
o impress 
you 
      
       devo impresionarte
       dois vous impress you 
devo 
      impresionarte
       
         dois vous impress you 
          devo impress you 
devo 
impressionarte
o impresionarte
          باید به 
شما تحت تاثیر قرار 
دادن
     debo impress you 

       devo 
impresionarte
    o 
      impresionarte
         باید 
      به شما تحت تاثیر قرار دادن
  debo impresionner
من باید به شما تحت تاثیر قرار دادن
       debo 
          impresionare
je 
dois vous 
    impresionarte
 dois vous impress you 
     
devo impressionarte
o impress you 
      
       devo impress you 
        devo impress you 

     devo 
      impress 
  you 
          devo impresionarte
باید به شما تحت 
تاثیر 
     قرار دادن
       debo impressionner
       من باید به شما تحت تاثیر قرار دادن
debo 
    impresionarte
 dois vous 
impress 
you 
devo impresionner
من باید به شما تحت تاثیر قرار دادن
debo impress 
         you 
         devo impresionare
     je dois vous 
  impresionarte
    dois vous impresionner
          من باید به 
شما تحت تاثیر قرار دادن
         debo 
   impressionarte
          dois vous impress you 
devo 
impress you 
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          impress 
      you 
          devo impressionarte
          
dois vous impresionarte
          dois 
vous 
     impresionare
je 
        dois vous 
    impresionare
    je dois vous impresionarte
      باید به شما تحت تاثیر قرار دادن
debo impresionarte
باید به شما تحت 
تاثیر 
         قرار دادن
debo impress you 
devo impress you 
         
devo impresionare
         je dois vous impresionare
     je dois 
       vous impressionare
je dois 
      vous 
impresionarte
o 
impress you 
       
devo 
       impressionare
je dois vous 
      impressionarte
       o impresionare
je 
dois 
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impresionarte
باید به 
شما تحت تاثیر قرار 
دادن
    debo 
impresionarte
o impress 
you 
      devo impress 
      you 
  devo impress you 
devo 
     impresionner
      من 
   باید 
به شما 
        تحت تاثیر 
قرار 
          دادن
  debo impresionarte
    dois 
vous impresionarte
       باید به شما تحت 
تاثیر قرار دادن
   debo impresionare
je 
         dois vous impresionner
        من باید به شما 
  تحت تاثیر قرار 
   دادن
      debo impressionarte
 dois 
    vous impress 
you 
    devo impresionare
         je dois vous impresionarte
ionare
je dois vous impressionarte
باید به شما تحت 
          تاثیر 
         قرار دادن
        debo impressionarte

“The Struggles of Words”, 1928, by Pierre Reverdy

Torment wanders into the light beyond the roof. At midday, without sunlight. The walls are covered with snow, against a gray background. The eye stops and vainly seeks a better path.

They’ve rubbed away the designs that gave life to the crumbling walls. Some words raise themselves affirmatively. And the flood, too high, carries off the shore where the grass smooths the bank into well-combed hair. And while across the bluish rays turbulences whirl and slowly rise, silence falls heavily on the ground, without breaking.

— Pierre Reverdy (1889-1960), trans. Michael Benedikt

Wikipedia Poem, No. 330

“eventually / even scorched earth goes green though beneath it // the dead might still luxuriate in their rage my ancestor / was a dervish saint” Kaveh Akbar

 

luxure obsolete
from the whistling verb
float

rather the 1660s relay
reluctance lasting and
first attested sometime around

1661 lather reluctantly wrestle
stains see related lasciviousness
lust 1520 screams obsolescence

the verb first fury related
which attests sometime
in 1660 the king burns grace

which is reluctance latin relates
60 pounds of cake perhaps shake
shares a common origin with the greek lygos

pliant twig luxurie debauchery
dissoluteness lust 12c modern french
luxurie debauchery dislocated

arm relate the 1660s relate
14c lasciviousness leathered up
in reluctant magnificence

Excerpt from Kaveh Akbar’s “River of Milk” used without permission, but with unconditional love, from the Poetry Foundation.

wikipedia poem, no. 37 [study of “The Raft of the Medusa” for a larger work]

 ONE

in the 
coast of the colony the 
        diving ceremony and 
    founding 
   survivors 1816 Méduse 
      first nights 
black bough
of inept navigation 
and one Arguin
         General Doom bank of the towering above 
  the text 
         the Britains still 
promotion received 
on 
   the 
Napoleonic Nymphe 
          forced by the colonel 
      Julien-Désiré 
Schmaltz Medusa 
the coast Africault's softening 
           146 
    men wander
helped at 
    Sea 
          by 1816 sauvage naufrage de la frigates
Hauled away 
      We've 
been frigates
      Jump up 


TWO

to be a political
   philosopher 
      
studies force converse 
define
at Sea 
by the fast of 
their 
    own fate ac-competent an aground guilt incided to fear 
Jump up 
 Bank of Oceans width and the 
text 
    day once (Die 
    Ästheticism passens d’abord)

Global master 
remaining to 
became 
     named
Balkan
Under long 
Medusa
Impressions
         in 1818 over the
Senatomic
      book part of a spring 
ceremony aboard 
archaeological 
legends
Three-tonnes


THREE

      read, 	From Bucephalus
		Through five winds
    		Discount to frigation
the modern-day Senatomic book 
semitones 
to the death there 
       based rapidly
      at 
Sea by the dangers 
       at Surabaya then reappeared
      on the edited horizon
    
the gun deck 
& 
fort in the Medusa film
          The Écho 
tows 13 days
  the first on board 
    a painting of Écho hovers above The Écho
      
        The ships 
builder		part of the portrayals 
    to deglaze and immediate 
to 
     retake 
out. Three-tonnes
to sea

      Contact 
with 
  the word