It's a beating shutter
It's a a light tear
On the sheet where recently
You laid your arm
While downstairs
The street talks alone
Someone is selling mandarins
A marine blue lady
Takes her goddaughter for a walk
The absence, here it is
The absence
Of a child, of a love
The absence is the same
Once we have said "I love you"
One day...
The silence is the same
It's a falling night
It's a poetry as well
Where the doves were passing
One night of jealousy
A book is open
You touched that page
You cracked that glass
When you got back from a long trip
The luggages are remaining
The absence, here it is
The absence
Of a child, of a love
The absence is the same
Once we have said "I love you"
One day...
The silence is the same
It's a beating shutter
It's, on a calendar, the cross
Of an old date
Where we were saying "you" to one another
The vases are empty
Where we would have put the bouquets
And the miror is getting wrinkles
Where the past is on the lookout
I hear the noise of a footstep
The absence, here it is
The absence
Of a child, of a love
The absence is the same
Once we have said "I love you"
One day...
The silence is the same
Original Title: "Je vous vois encore"
Text: Paul Verlaine
Year: 1964
I still see you! In a summer dress
white and yellow with curtain's flowers.
But you didn't have anymore the wet cheerfulness
Of the most delirious of our short futures.
The small bride and the elder girl
Had reappeared with the clothes
And it was already our fate
That looked at me under your veil
Be forgiven! And it's the reason why,
I keep, alas! with some pride,
In my memory, which cuddled you,
the side lightning that flew from your eye.
Original Title: "Brise Marine"
Year: 1980
Text: Stéphane Mallarmé
The flesh is sad, alas! and I have read all the books.
To flee! Over there, to flee! I feel that some birds are drunk
of being among the unknown foam and the skies!
Nothing, nor the old gardens reflected by the eyes
Will hold that heart that is getting drenched in the sea
Oh nights! Nor the deserted brightness of my lamp
On the empty paper that whiteness defends
And nor the young woman breast-feeding her child.
I will leave! Steamer swinging your masts,
Set sails for an exotic nature!
A boredom, sorry by the cruel hopes,
Still believes into the supreme farewell of the handkerchiefs!
And, maybe, the masts, inviting the thunderstorms
Are of those that a wind tilts over the wreckings
Lost, without mast, without mast, nor fertile islets...
But, Oh my heart, hear the songs of the sailors
Original Title: "A l'enseigne de la fille sans coeur"
Text: Jean Villard
Year: 1946
The sky/evening is blue, the open sea wind
digs the sea quite prettily
Toward the harbor climbing to the attack
Galloping its white squadrons
It's an harbor all at the edge of the world
whose streets open on the infinite
But from there as the Earth is round
one can not see the United States.
Noone cares, there is happiness
There is a pub "At Rita the blond"
Noone cares, there is happiness
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!
The accordion plays in major
The refrains of this vast world
There is Rita and her kiss curls
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!
In that small pub, that's where she reigns
One sees her golden mane blaze
Her mouth is like a fruit that bleeds
But people say that her heart is dead
And yet the guys are there, all funny:
The little ones, the tough ones, the hefty fellows
who enter swaying their shoulders
There are some who came from Dakar.
There are some from Antwerp, some from Honfleur
Travelling around sometimes up to the poles
They look at her, it's all their happiness,
But not a single one knows her favors
The accordion plays in major
All the tunes: the sad ones, the funny ones
There is the beautiful blong, that blossoming rose
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!
They loved her even more as she was tough
More her gaze was cruel
Set a hole in their belt
It was hell, it was heaven.
A smile and it was sunday
The boys said: "Drink with us"
They trembled in front of her white hand
pouring rhum and sweet wine.
Beer, coffee, good wines and liquors.
The owner rolled up his sleeves
The money flowed, it was a pleasure
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!
The accordion plays in major
The opening of "The White Lady"
And some guys who gamble their happiness
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!
The owner knew the tune:
He liked the sound of the crowns
He told his only daughter:
"Flee away from love, it's time lost!"
But one evening, the sea was raging
We saw one stranger enter
with beautiful azure eyes without clouds
That's when everything changed
He looked at the heartless heart
She was like a thunder sky
Someone said: "There is trouble"
We could hear the hearts beat
The accordion plays in minor
A song "In the wild wind"
There is a girl, the face covered with tears
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!
He said: "It's you, my divine!"
She answered: "I am yours"
She cried against his chest
He hold her between his arms
The others then full of melancholy
Left with a sigh
The wind sang on the Atlantic Ocean
For that heart that just opened itself
They went off toward their big happiness
The owner had to close the shop
He has been seen drinking all of his liquors
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!
Then the State, that monopolizer,
that never had the sense of comical
Installed the tax collector ofice
At the sign of the Heartless Girl!
A nice reverse, I park my vocation against the sidewalk.
The door bangs with a good soothing noise.
The faith chips a little inevitably, in the end, in places
But we still start up first time even when it's cold.
A few steps in the street. I sign at the bottom of the sweetness of things
I make my muses piss, I converse with pollens.
Happy or unhappy, sad or gay, but does it really matter?
I expect news from myself. I do not grow impatient.
It's crazy how cushy we are when we are alone
And tranquil when others aren't there.
I plunge in the apartment from which I overhang the world.
I shut myself up in my compass. I head for myself.
Everything at its place, I come, I go, I reign, I roam.
I take care of the passing time and I set its thermostat.
Naked more or less, pursuing my works, without haste about myself
And my connections with hedonism and with myself
I am so well, so naked and so myself
I am missing one verse to finish this rhyme. It does not make me lose my head.
It's crazy how cushy we are when we are alone
And tranquil when others aren't there.
I settle my sheets and to bed, without regrets, without hate, without anyone.
I think about what healthy people, you should think so, do not think about.
I pull at the opium pipe delivered by God very secretly
To all those who make the request And without any charge.
And then a bit like every evening, I tell myself my role
In the Little Big Horn case and the one of the Blue Train
In passing, I still write one or two verses very beautiful, very pious
Like: "In how many lives, have you lived, Elisabeth"
It's crazy how cushy we are when we are alone
And tranquil when others aren't there.
What is great above all is that Elisabeth does not answer me
She is elsewhere, she is already sleeping without a doubt, gloomy and beautiful
And complaining of the lack of tenderness in someone else's arms
Not loved like she should be by someone else
What is great above all is that Elisabeth does not answer me
She is elsewhere, she is already sleeping without a doubt, gloomy and beautiful
And complaining of the lack of tenderness in someone else's arms
Me, holding my scepter in my hand, I fall asleep in my crown
It's crazy how cushy we are when we are alone
And tranquil when others aren't there.
Here is the sun again
Nothing matters anymore.
Ran too much, searched too much
For the youth at the rays.
I'm twenty years old this morning.
Standing up like a sun
A weather of big winter
I blow on my fingers.
The weather is never nice
like at our wakening
The face that burns us
And the hunger that bites us.
I bury my thoughts
In pots the whole winter
Blossom who wants
In the spring, in the spring
But I live, but I go
It's cold, it's bright
All you have to do is to be in love
Of everything, of whatever.
The weather is never nice
like at our wakening
And I do not know how to bite
And I cut my teeth.
Up to my own body
Across my road
That steps back and smiles
And the girls are pretty
And then I make bubbles
And I speak alone
Between sorrow and dawn
Between living and knowing.
The weather is never nice
like at our wakening
Standing oneself against the wind
Talk nonsense.
How we lacked humor
Between our philosopher
Our seated prophets
And our apothecaries.
I eat with my fingers
I say "blue", I say "green"
My insolent gaze
The strength of the snow
The weather is never nice
like at our wakening
And laugh about all this
The pleasure of the sun.
Nothing matters anymore
But the sound of my steps
The stone of the churches
The girls' legs
And singing that song
That made us want
To live, to live.
Original Title: "C'est si peu dire que je t'aime"
Text: Louis Aragon
Year: 1965
Like a torn cloth
We live together separated
In my arms I hold you absent.
And the wound meant to last
Is it required to feel it so deep
When the sky is limited to us?
It's an understatement to say that I love you
This existence is a farewell
And we both only have eyes
For the light turning down.
Put on seven league boots
While saying ourselves that there is no hurry
That's what it means to be old.
It's an understatement to say that I love you
It is as if never, ever
I had told you that I loved you
If I was worried to be surprised by
The night on my throat that lays
Her gloved fingers of sovereign
When never again it is the month of May
It's an understatement to say that I love you
When things are nothing more
than a remembrance of their thrill.
An echo of dead music.
The pain of the sound remains
which the more it fades out the stronger it becomes
It's not much, some words for the song.
It's an understatement to say that I love you
And I would only have said that I love you
