Mots en mouvement /Words on the Move 2008

Traduction du poème "Carnets secrets d'Agathe Brisebois" de Patrick Coppens.
Translation of Patrick Coppens' poem "Carnets secrets d'Agathe Brisebois

Henri-Dominique Paratte


Agathe Brisebois' Secret books

By Patrick Coppens

Translation by Henri-Dominique Paratte

****

I work for eternity
in evanescence, though

shapes taken over by space
intimate grounds of colors

Talking about colors,
those that fade were
in the first place not made to last.

Shiver of bells jingling, words like a sleigh

Poetry clutters
my forgotten memories.

****

He came near me to ask for time,
I waved him away.
He stared at me, shocked, and I added:
don't worry, it – or she – will come to pass.

It was noon.
I lived my whole life in one day
Then yours, the following day.
After that, it was all over.

“You're a poet, I think,
but you won't find anything new,
anything really meaningful,
unless you gaze at your navel, and at no other.”
(Max Jacob,
Letter to François Gachot, May 7, 1926)
****

Don't forget those pictures;
the ones where we danced in Sospel,
on the bank of the Merlanson.

Summer loves
A red currant in my head

Mysteries reproduce
like rabbits. Hat trick!

“Bringing real and virtual together
in the same object turns it into
the disturbing mirror of our inner life.”
(Bernard Noel,
Les peintres du désir, 1992)

I like looking at abstraction
through the cracks in reality.

****

Being unknown
On certain days, is like a weight,
On others, a distressing thought;
I revel in it all the same
because no one can take it from me.
When I write, though, when I draw,
I feel like a queen, worshipped by adoring subjects.


The exhausting need to please for those
who do not like one another – or themselves – enough.

****

Style.
What about it?


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