Illuminations

True alchemy lies in this formula: ‘Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse’.

I shed more tears than God could ever have required.

What is my nothingness to the stupor that awaits you?

Is it possible to become ecstatic amid destruction, rejuvenate oneself through cruelty?

I have stretched ropes from bell-tower to bell-tower; garlands from window to window; chains of gold from star to star, and I dance.

Against snow, a tall Beautiful Being. Whistlings of death and circles of muffled music make this adored body rise, swell and tremble like a ghost; scarlet and black wounds open in the magnificent flesh.

Ho teso corde da campanile a campanile; ghirlande da finestra a finestra; catene d'oro da stella a stella, e danzo.

Estendi cordas de campanário a campanário; guirlandas de janela a janela; correntes de ouro de estrela a estrela, e danço.

cement in bold relief,—far underground. I lean my elbows on the table, and the lamp lights brightly the newspapers I am fool enough to re-read, and the absurd books.

Tenemos fe en el veneno. Sabemos dar nuestra vida entera, todos los días. He aquí el tiempo de los asesinos.

AFTER THE DELUGE AS SOON as the idea of the Deluge had subsided, A hare stopped in the clover and swaying flower-bells, and said a prayer to the rainbow, through the spider’s web. Oh! the precious stones that began to hide,—and the flowers that already looked around. In the dirty main street, stalls were set up and boats were hauled toward the sea, high tiered as in old prints. Blood flowed at Blue Beard’s,—through slaughterhouses, in circuses, where the windows were blanched by God’s seal. Blood and milk flowed. Beavers built. “Mazagrans” smoked in the little bars. In the big glass house, still dripping, children in mourning looked at the marvelous pictures. A door banged; and in the village square the little boy waved his arms, understood by weather vanes and cocks on steeples everywhere, in the bursting shower. Madame *** installed a piano in the Alps. Mass and first communions were celebrated at the hundred thousand altars of the cathedral. Caravans set out. And Hotel Splendid was built in the chaos of ice and of the polar night. Ever after the moon heard jackals howling across the deserts of thyme, and eclogues in wooden shoes growling in the orchard. Then in the violet and budding forest, Eucharis told me it was spring. Gush, pond,—Foam, roll on the bridge and over the woods;—black palls and organs, lightning and thunder, rise and roll;—waters and sorrows rise and launch the Floods again. For since they have been dissipated—oh! the precious stones being buried and the opened flowers!—it’s unbearable! and the Queen, the Witch who lights her fire in the earthen pot will never tell us what she knows, and what we do not know.

O vento Sul me fez lembrar miseráveis incidentes de infância, meus desesperos de verão, a horrível quantidade de força e de ciência que o destino sempre afastou de mim. Não! não passaremos o verão neste país mesquinho onde nada mais seremos que noivos órfãos. Quero que este braço teso não arraste mais uma imagem querida.

CHILDHOOD I That idol, black eyes and yellow mop, without parents or court, nobler than Mexican and Flemish fables; his domain, insolent azure and verdure, runs over beaches called by the shipless waves, names ferociously Greek, Slav, Celt. At the border of the forest—dream flowers tinkle, flash, and flare,—the girl with orange lips, knees crossed in the clear flood that gushes from the fields, nakedness shaded, traversed, dressed by rainbow, flora, sea. Ladies who stroll on terraces adjacent to the sea; baby girls and giantesses, superb blacks in the verdigris moss, jewels upright on the rich ground of groves and little thawed gardens,—young mothers and big sisters with eyes full of pilgrimages, sultanas, princesses tyrannical of costume and carriage, little foreign misses and young ladies gently unhappy. What boredom, the hour of the “dear body” and “dear heart.” II

Uyanık geçen geceler I Işıklı bir dinleniş bu, ne hararet ne bitkinlik, yatağın üzerinde veya çayırların üstünde. Dost bu, ne ateşli ne zayıf. Dost. Sevgili bu, ne acı veren ne acı çeken. Sevgili. Hiç aranmamış hava ve dünya. Hayat. -Demek bu muydu? -Ve rüya şiddetleniyor

Magical flowers were humming. The turf slopes cradled *him.* Beasts of a fabulous elegance were circulating. Storm clouds were piling up on the rising sea made of an eternity of hot tears.

From castles of bone unknown music comes But now, that toil rewarded; you, your calculations, ––you, your fits of impatience––are no more than your dancing and your voice, not fixed and certainly not forced, although an added reason for a double consequence of inventiveness + success, ––in brotherly and discreet humanity throughout the universe devoid of images;––force and justice reflect the dancing and the voices which are only now esteemed. The voices of instruction in exile... The body’s ingenuousness bit- terly put in its place... –– Adagio –– Ah! the infinite egotism of adolescence, the studious optimism: how full of flowers the world was that summer! Tunes and forms fading... ––A choir, to calm down impotence and absence! A choir of glass pieces, of nocturnal melodies... Soon, indeed, the nerves will slip their moorings.

how full of flowers the world was that summer! Tunes and forms fading... ––A choir, to calm down impotence and absence! A choir of glass pieces, of nocturnal melodies... Soon, indeed, the nerves will slip their moorings.