La Tordue - Lola

Year: 1998

During the free-for-all²
I've placed your hand in my paw
And gripped so hard
Against my palm your heart beats
The wind of madness
Slowly towards the river
Pushes me into its bed
The folds of the sheet are the sea
Where from waves to foam
My vague heart fills itself with her
When the yards at the topmast
Beat the sky with their wings
- And while rounding Good-Hope
It's again
It's Lola from Valencia
It's her body
Which is dancing in my head

In this loneliness
Populated with so many stars
The heart obsolete
And the hands on the canvas
This song is coming back to me
From the country I come from
It's a nameless country
It's your heart on mine
This song it's Lola
Who sang it to me one evening
In the hollow of that ear here
Which does not recover since
It's again
It's Lola from Valencia
It's her body
Which is dancing in my head

It's crazy how poetry
Can take us for a ride
Towards incredible port of alls
Where the ink of the words throws us
The flowers of evil a page
Having invited me to the journey
It's your perfumes I'm picking up
Sailor on the sly in your blouse
And I pinch myself to know
When I wake up by your side
If that pink and black jewel
Was just a dream washed ashore
But it's your turn to wake up
My lady of heart my beauty
Did you sleep well, my love?
Oh you my Lola for real.

² little play on words with "grabbing/fist fighting event/chaos" in french

La Tordue - War

Original Title: "La guerre"
Year: 1998

Rot war machines!
Tons and tons of iron
Stored ready to roar
Ready to redden
the earth

Fellows against idiots
Generates a rhyme ending in 's'
Yet Prévert had told it to us
"What bullshit
War!"

Nuclear slyness
Hip pocket submarine
Napalm candies chemical taste
Outfit of panic-sapper
Imagination can't be stopped
In order to blow our own head off.
A hundred time what's necessary to get some
What's necessary to shoot the sun down
What's necessary to turn off
The sky

I am the stronger nananère
What a hiding we gave you
Tons and tons of iron
In the enemy's flesh

But shake my hand dear colleague
You weren't bad yourself
This time it's the very last one
Before next one of course
The big wigs go away while signing
First-rate treaties
After having bled white
Share land and money
Draw phoney
borders

Secrets of our pitiful states
Money is king and marches
Tambourine, underling* and moneyboxes
1,2,1,2,1,2 and 3
On 4 we fire
Into the crowd

Rot war machines
In the warehouses of memory
That's enough let's stop crossing swords
No more slaughter, nor more slaughterhouse
Now we are going to lower the blinds
Forget about stupidity
There are no more amateurs for that sport
Noone under the banners
Why not have the pretty utopy
Make a professional assessement
A successful redeployment
Beat it, go over the wall
Enlist in the party
Which makes war to war Get your nose out of the khaki
There are tons of things to do
With your equipment and your engineering
In order to do earth up
Put your awful toys away
Share the peace pipe
And leave us in peace.

*Pun made which would also mean under-fife

La Tordue - You

La Tordue means the crazy woman, woman with a twisted mind.
Original Title: "Toi"
Year: 2000

The moon is beautiful and I notice
that it looks like you like a drop of silk
Fallen at the deepest of the soul
Oh my A, my love, my soul

Heart down in the hold, I set sails
I set sails toward a star
Constellation which bears your name
Constellation which bears your name

Your heart, your arms, in my arms are
At the heart of my deep love
Whole you delighted me
You brought me back to life

Your love is a bottomless well
Where comes sparkle in the evening
Thousand sitars which sing your name
Thousand sitars which sing your name

I kiss the nape of your neck and the night
of your dark hair follows me
Like a perfume filled with infite
Where I drown myself madly

A secret ocean of ink
In the den of your jet-black eyes
Where I plunged to pick up your name
Where I plunged to pick up your name

La Tordue - Moon

Original Title: "Lune"
Year: 1998

You have the age of your craters
Oh old moon
Midwife² of the universe
If there is one
You rule over the flow of the seas
And over Neptune
What are you hiding in your behinds?
Some fortune?
Be wary of those who planted
Into your dunes
Their warlike banners
Brothel with feathers
The vanity of worms
Inopportune
Of those big beer drinking feet
Without any embarrassment in the slightest

Let the one who said
Idiot like the moon
Go to hell.
And if to each one his own
It's you I prefer
I like at night and without costume
Of sea bathing
To swim in your reflections of foam
In your light
As if I was flying at
a loved one
Made of an enchantment of lagoons
of winter circuses

Burning with hopes to see your mists
That are thirst-quenching
The nectar of the wine we inhale
When comes brumaire
My soul stroll in there as a
Deleterious funambulist
That the song free like the air of an
Ephemeral rose
In curls of incense which smoke
in the skies
To you, muses among all, Oh moon
Let it be offered to you

Let the one who said
Idiot like the moon
Go to hell.
And if to each one his own
It's you I prefer

² in french midwife is the said "Wise-woman"

La Tordue - I.N.R.I.

Year: 1995

't is because of you all that
't is because of you
All those who go to you
don't come back

Talkin' about you dude
Talkin' about you
Don't duck out like that
Don't duck out

Here there are no false start
No false start
Three days later and is coming back
and is coming back

We only die once, our lot
We only die once
No great act pal
No great act

We are just falling asleep
We say nothing no more
It's those around
who are sad

We are asleep stupidly
In a stone bed
No relations oh no
At mister Peter's

We go down without service
toward those who already
We are not all sons
to your dad

Stay on your cross I'm telling you
Stay on your cross
The holy spirit here
It won't work

What is better in the other world
I ask you just like that
And even would we go up
Better live well down here

If by ill luck
I arrive at your place
If by ill luck
If by mistake
I find myself in the blue
By mistake if
Then I beg you
Damn good lord
Once
is not an habit
If by mistake
I take the wrong digs
If by ill luck
I end up at your place
Then I beg you
One last time

Send me to hell

Live version:

La Tordue - Aragon - The rose and the reseda

Modified translation from http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/aragon100210.html (by Yoshie Furuhashi)


Original Title: "La rose et le réséda"
Text: Louis Aragon (1943)
Year: 1995

The one who believed in heaven
The one who didn't
Both loved the beauty
Imprisoned by soldiers
Which climbed the ladder?
And which stood guard below?

The one who believed in heaven
The one who didn'?
What matters the name of
This light on their steps?
that one was of the church
And the other balked from it?

The one who believed in heaven
The one who didn't
Both were faithful
with their lips, heart, arms
And both said that she will
live, time will tell

The one who believed in heaven
The one who didn't
When the wheat is under the hail
Fool who is fussy
Fool who think of his little quarrels
In the heart of the common combat?

The one who believed in heaven
The one who didn't
From the height of the citadel
The sentinel shot
Twice and one staggers
the other falls who will die

The one who believed in heaven
The one who didn't
They are in prison
Who has the sadest pallet
Who freezes more then the other
Who prefers the rats?

The one who believed in heaven
The one who didn't
A rebel is a rebel
Two sobs make a single knell
And when the cruel dawn arrives
They pass on

The one who believed in heaven
The one who didn't
Repeating the name of the beauty
Neither of the two betrayed
And their blood runs red
Same color same vividness

The one who believed in heaven
The one who didn't
It runs, and runs, and mingles
Into the earth it loved
So in the new season
Muscat grapes would ripen

The one who believed in heaven
The one who didn't
One runs and the other flies
From Brittany or Jura
And raspberries or plums
Crickets will sing again
Flute or cello, tell the story of
This double love that burnt
The lark and the swallow
The rose and the reseda

The poem said by Aragon himself:

All poems written by Louis Aragon