José-Flore Tappy
Three Lunar Poems
In my coarse dress
bony
sharper than flint
I dig into
the suffocating blackness
scratch with my fingernails
the saltpeter of night
*
The night holds on tight
to its salty moon its bald doll
with hollow eye sockets
her dress so dark so taciturn
she blends with the sky
Homeless
it takes the doll everywhere
now pallid
from having dawdled through
all the vastness
till morning
it hugs her bathes her
with its moveable sweat
a cloud-shield
against phantom rains
*
My hips held tightly
in coarse cloth
I move forward
compact
borne along by my ankles
all around
craters shiny foam
and mercury
the moon beneath my feet barely vibrates
me the insect it the spider web
me the restless one it the sphere
me upright it circular
me shaped of dirt and smoke
with my dreams my waxes and my muds
me the flesh it the stone
me anarchy it sovereign
me the dwarf it gigantic
I irritate silence
transport every which way
drinking water and shady merchandise
and I attend to chores and keep the fire burning
me the wild animal it cloud
me pagan it ecstasy
me the hoarse one it fluid
and I scratch space with my shrill needle
me the ear it the deaf one
me violent it speechless
me the heavy swell it nothingness
(translated by John Taylor from Lunaires by José-Flore Tappy)
(Poems selected from Lunaires [2001], Moudon, Switzerland: Éditions Empreintes, 2005.)
Lunaires
Dans ma robe de drap fruste
osseuse
plus aiguë qu’un silex
je creuse
l’étouffante noirceur
je gratte avec mes ongles
le salpêtre de la nuit
*
La nuit tient tout contre elle
l’astre de sel sa poupée chauve
aux yeux troués
si sombre sa robe si taciturne
elle se confond avec le ciel
Sans refuge
partout l’emmène
poupée blafarde
d’avoir traîné
à travers toute l’immensité
jusqu’au matin
la serre la baigne
de sa sueur mobile
bouclier de nuées
contre les pluies fantômes
*
Les hanches serrées
dans une étoffe rêche
j’avance
compacte
portée par mes chevilles
tout autour
cratères lumière d’écume
et de mercure
à peine si l’astre sous mes pieds
vibre
moi l’insecte elle la toile
moi l’agitée elle la sphère
moi debout elle circulaire
pétrie de terre et de fumée
avec mes rêves mes cires et mes boues
moi la chair elle la pierre
moi l’anarchie elle souveraine
moi la naine elle géante
j’irrite le silence
véhicule en tous sens
l’eau potable et de troubles marchandises
et je vaque aux besognes et j’entretiens le feu
moi la fauve elle nuée
moi païenne elle l’extase
moi la rauque elle fluide
et je raie l’espace de ma stridente aiguille
moi l’oreille elle la sourde
moi violente elle muette
moi la houle elle néant
John Taylor received a 2011 NEA grant for his project to translate Georges Perros’s Papiers collés and a second grant, from the Sonia Raiziss Charitable Foundation, to translate Louis Calaferte’s Le Sang violet de l’améthyste. He has recently translated books by Philippe Jaccottet (And, Nonetheless, Chelsea), Pierre-Albert Jourdan (The Straw Sandals, Chelsea), and Jacques Dupin (Of Flies and Monkeys, Bitter Oleander Press). Taylor’s most recent collection of personal writings is The Apocalypse Tapestries (Xenos), and he has a new book, If Night is Falling, forthcoming with the Bitter Oleander Press in 2012. He is also the author of the three-volume essay collection, Paths to Contemporary French Literature (Transaction), as well as Into the Heart of European Poetry (Transaction).
José-Flore Tappy was born in Lausanne in 1954. She is the author of five volumes of poetry: Errer mortelle (Payot, 1983),Pierre à feu (Empreintes, 1987), Terre battue (Empreintes, 1995), Lunaires (La Dogana, 2001), and Hangars (Empreintes, 2006). She has won two prestigious Swiss literary awards: the Ramuz Prize for Errer mortelle and the Schiller Prize for Hangars. She works as an editor and scholar at the Centre de Recherches sur les Lettres Romandes at the University of Lausanne. In John Taylor’s translations, her poems have appeared in the Antioch Review, the International Literary Quarterly, Carte Blanche, Asymptote, and Trans Lit Magazine, and are forthcoming in The Bitter Oleander.
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