greatpoetry | Inspired to Post Reverdy

GALLERIES

Night twists in an immense funnel
       Tatters fall off every few minutes
From the lights going out in the distance
                 All pale
   Dawn
   Newborn sun
   A ball hardly round
   On the screen
A horizontal line stretches out
             The air starts to throb
             You had to wait
The voices come back from far off
        Calling you back to life
But the road back is too long
The familiar voices too sad
Sinister eyes watch you
        You can't go on
All the doors are shut
Behind them somebody is listening flattened against the wall
        And the curtain trembles
                           drops again
He resembles you
           The center shifts
Inclined walls make the sky bigger
         The shadow overflows
           The head nods
It's a sick man's
              And the only one alive
              A star comes unnailed
          Very near
The hand lifts slowly
The wrinkled brow dissipates its dream
And everything that happened behind it
           Only once
           in gathering time
You don't look
           It's got to start again
But when can we return
To the moment when it all can end
           Our whole life is at stake
Constantly
We pass elegantly along the void
                   and don't fall
But something in us makes everything tremble
And the world ceases         
           Our eyes are tricked
You don't hear the same sound anymore
The same voice
Behind the universe itself you can see
      A dancing silhouette
The series of portraits recalls nothing
        Of those you never knew
These people who stare at you
           Shiny frames preserve them
In the midst of those immobile faces
The only one alive
                 Seems the calmest
He leaves never to return
To the room where the walls begin to smile
Nothing anymore but night rising to leave
    A footstep echoing on the flagstone
It grows cold
Your eyes lift to the stars

Pierre Reverdy -translated by Kenneth Rexroth