Alcools by Apollinaire Guillaume; Revell Donald; Apollinaire Guillaume

Author:Apollinaire, Guillaume; Revell, Donald; Apollinaire, Guillaume
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Published: 1995-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Poem Read at the Marriage of André Salmon

July 13, 1909

To myself seeing the flags this morning I did not say

Behold the splendid vestments of the poor

OR democratic modesty disguises sorrow

OR honorable liberty compels us to mimic

The leaves o vegetable liberty o only liberty

OR the house is on fire because someone left forever

OR hands that wave today will labor tomorrow

OR they have been hanged who made no profit

OR they have renovated the world restorming the Bastille

I know renovation is rooted only in poetry

Paris is bedecked with flags because my friend André Salmon

is getting married here

I met you first in a miserable

Wine bar when we were young

Smoking and miserably dressed awaiting

Sunrise in love in love with meaningless

Words deceived deceived little boys unacquainted

With laughter the table and glasses became a dying man

The dying glance of Orpheus the glasses shattered

And we became acquainted with laughter

We left the bar as pilgrims of perdition

Across streets across regions across reason

I saw him again at the river where Ophelia drowned

Her pallor remained adrift among the lilies

He departed amidst a host of Hamlets

Playing demented songs on a wooden flute

I saw him again beside a dying muzhik counting beatitudes

Mistaking the snowfall for a naked woman

I saw him again doing this or that in honor of words

Qui changent la face des enfants et je dis toutes ces choses

Souvenir et Avenir parce que mon ami André Salmon se marie

Réjouissons-nous non pas parce que notre amitié a été le fleuve qui nous a fertilisés

Terrains riverains dont l’abondance est la nourriture que tous espèrent

Ni parce que nos verres nous jettent encore une fois le regard d’Orphée mourant

Ni parce que nous avons tant grandi que beaucoup pourraient confondre nos yeux et les étoiles

Ni parce que les drapeaux claquent aux fenêtres des citoyens qui sont contents depuis cent ans d’avoir la vie et de menues choses à défendre

Ni parce que fondés en poésie nous avons des droits sur les paroles qui forment et défont l’Univers

Ni parce que nous pouvons pleurer sans ridicule et que nous savons rire

Ni parce que nous fumons et buvons comme autrefois

Réjouissons-nous parce que directeur du feu et des poètes

L’amour qui emplit ainsi que la lumière

Tout le solide espace entre les étoiles et les planètes

L’amour veut qu’aujourd’hui mon ami André Salmon se marie

That change the faces of children and I say these things

From the past from the future because my friend André Salmon

is getting married

Let us rejoice not because friendship has flooded and nourished us

River lands whose crops are food for all desire

NOR because our cups are the dying glance again of Orpheus

NOR because we are so tall many mistake our eyes for constellations

NOR because the flags flap in the windows of citizens who have spent a happy century having their lives and their little things to defend

NOR because rooted in poetry we have the power of words forming and deforming the universe

NOR because we weep unridiculously and are acquainted with laughter

NOR because we smoke and drink as always

Let us rejoice because the superintendent of fire and poets

Love flooding as light floods all

Solid

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