My wife and I first met Marc Delouze in Paris in the summer of 2001,
where he treated us to dinner and walked us around the Montmartre neighborhood
in which he'd grown up. In
September of that year Marc came to Taipei to attend the Taipei International
Poetry Festival, an event disrupted first by the terrorist attacks in New York
(which led to many international flights being cancelled) and then by the
arrival in Taiwan of typhoon Nari, the most destructive typhoon to hit Taiwan
in recent years. Regardless of
these combined disasters, Marc succeeded in making it to the festival and in attending
most of the events. While here he
managed to slog about the flooded city as much as possible, taking in as much
of the place as he could. I only
wish we could have shown him a bit more.
The following two translations grew out of Marc's Taiwan visit. The first poem is one of his earlier works, and was translated into English for reading at one of the festival events. The second Marc wrote in response to the disaster in Taipei, and was translated after his return to Europe. The French texts are followed by the English translations. --Eric Mader
C'est le carnaval au
bout de mes doigts tout
se travestit
grossirement et ment
comme un bruit de voix
derrire mon Žpaule
je ne sais plus parler
Žcrire
je ne said plus Žcrire
parler
tout
est ˆ refaire
de n'tre pas d'ˆ peine
avoir ŽtŽ le jour d'hier
o je ne suis pas nŽ
me griffe de sa vŽritŽ
tout est ˆ re-taire
Le silence en moi me
gne car
il ne sait plus combler
l'infime retard
sur le bruit qui le
devance et me tient par la main
et ce pour prend la
forme grossire
(mais je m'y laisse
prendre)
d'un stylo dont la
proue fend
la page ivre se contorsionne
retombe
(comme un chat sur ses
pieds)
sur son nez
De ne se convaincre que
du sillage
l'ˆ peine suivre tant
il Žgare et tant
il dŽsaccorde le livre
prŽvu
et son reflet sur la
page-miroir o mes ongles se brisent
ˆ gratter griffer
biffer
le mot auquel je me
prends...
le souffle
un peu le prendre
aussi
le souffle
qu'il s'affale
sur le flou du vers
(o est le vers?
moi le fil du
vers je le perds
je l'ai perdu
voyez-vous
- le voyez-vous?)
et plus il me poursuit
plus je cours
et plus et plus il me
poursuit plus ˆ court
d'arguments je me
trouve
perdu - o suis-je?
avant
aprs
la fte
a pris un autre visage
normal
pour un carnaval
nul ne s'en plaindra
sauf la lune peut-tre et encore...
Je disais
les visages
non
les traits
plus les mmes
l'heure est autre la
fte
a pris un autre visage
mon visage
a pris une autre tte
hier c'Žtait la nuit
c'est ce matin demain
l'aurore aux doigts de
prose confre aux choses leur
laideur
familire
c'est demain et les
mots sous mes ongles sont noirs
pauvre et pas nouveaux
les mots
ont-ils encore un
masque
un dernier masque
un tout dernier...
...peut-tre ne le
saurai-je jamais peut-tre
ne saurai-je jamais la
fin de la fte
y a-t-il une fin
y avait-il une fte?
--Marc Delouze
*******
It's the carnival at
the tips of my fingers everything
disguised outrageously
and lying
like the sound of a
voice behind my shoulders
I no longer know how to
speak of writing
I no longer know how to
write of speech
all
must be redone
not to be just barely
having been the yesterday
in which I wasn't born
paws me with its truth
all must be shut up
once more
The silence in me
annoys because
it no longer knows how
to get through the paltry delay
before the sound that
outstrips it and leads me by the hand
and this to take the
outrageous form
(but I let myself be
taken)
of a pen whose prow
cuts
the drunken page twists
itself falls back
(like a cat on its
feet)
on its nose
To be convinced of
nothing but the wake
to barely follow it so
much does it stray and so little
accord with the
foreseen book
and its reflection on
the mirror-page where my nails are broken
from pawing scratching
rubbing out
the word that takes
me...
the breath
a little to take it
also
the breath
may it run aground
on the verse's haziness
(where is the verse?
I've lost its thread
the verse's thread
I've lost it
you see
--do you see?)
and the more it chases
me the more I run
and the more the more
it chases me the more I run
out of arguments
I find myself
lost--where am I?
before
after
the festival
took a different face
normal enough
for a carnival
nobody will complain
except maybe the moon
and besides...
I was saying
the faces
no
traits
no longer the same
the hour has changed
the festival
has taken another face
my face
has taken another head
yesterday it was
nighttime now it's morning tomorrow
dawn with its prose
fingers vouchsafes things their
familiar ugliness
it's tomorrow and the
words beneath my fingernails are black
poor not at all new the
words
do they still have a
mask
a final mask
an absolutely final...
maybe I'll never know
maybe
I'll never know the
festival's end
is there an end
was there, really, a
festival?
[Translated by Eric
Mader and Hui-Ling Lin.]
*****
Quatre jours aprs l'attentat
sur New York, un typhon d'une ampleur sans prŽcŽdent s'est abattu sur Taipei,
tuant plus d'une centaine de personnes, dont nul n'a parlŽ dans le monde, non
plus que des centaines de blessŽs, des milliers de sans-abri, des dizaines de
milliers de gens qui ont tout perdu, y compris la compassion des hommes. O va
le chemin du monde? O finit le chemin de l'homme?
Typhoon
upon Taipei
Il pleut sur Taipei
Il pleut sur Taipei
Il pleut
il pleut
il pleut
La sueur des secondes
Les grosses larmes des
minutes
Et le lourd chagrin des
heures
Inondent les joues de
la Terre
La poche d'eau du ciel
A crevŽ engloutissant
les jours
Et les nuits
C'est le temps tout
entier qui tombe sur Taipei
Depuis l'Ararat du pome
Je contemple horrifiŽ
le silence qui tombe
sur Taipei
Dans les artres de la
ville
Les hommes troncs
oscillent comme des bouchons
pataugeant dans un sang
jaune et tide
Ils ne voient plus
leurs pieds
Ils ne voient pas leurs
pas
Ni la trace de leurs
pas
Ils ne marchent plus -
ils dŽrivent
Parmi les cadavres des
choses englouties
O vont-ils?
D'o viennent-ils?
De nulle part vers
nulle part ils dŽrivent
Et leurs regards
transparents de stupeur
Et leurs sourires
tristes comme des fruits tombŽs
Que nul ne viendra
ramasser
Il pleut sur Taipei
toutes les larmes du sicle vagissant
Comme si on savait dŽjˆ
Ici
La fin de tout ceci
(Le vent parti, le ciel
partout, les Žtoiles effacŽes, les nuages rouillŽs, la lune oblongue et morte
d'un rŽverbre, la nuit saisie dans la gelŽe
du temps, et pour finir
le tableau du monde dŽcrochŽ)
Le jour est aussi
silencieux que la nuit
Sur les vitres l'eau
tisse
La soie d'un silence
translucide
Marc Delouze
(Taipei-Paris,
septembre 2001)
*****
Four days after the
attack on New York, a typhoon of unprecedented force hit Taipei, killing nearly
two hundred people and leaving hundreds more wounded. Thousands were left homeless, having lost everything. Will the compassion of men be there for
them? Where is the world's path
leading? Where does man's path
end?
Typhoon
upon Taipei
It's raining on Taipei
It's raining on Taipei
Raining
Raining
Raining
The sweat of seconds
The heavy tears of
minutes
And the weighty grief
of hours
Inundate Earth's cheeks
The sky's water sack
Has split
Swallowing the days
And the nights
It's time in its
entirety that's falling on Taipei
From the Ararat of the
poem
I contemplate the
silence that falls
on Taipei
In the city's arteries
Trunks of men oscillate
like corks
Floundering in a warm
yellow blood
They no longer see
their feet
They no longer see
their steps
Nor the trace of their
steps
They no longer
walk--they drift
Among the corpses of
things swallowed
Where are they headed?
From where do they
come?
From nowhere to nowhere
they drift
Their faces dulled by
stupor
And their smiles sad as
fallen fruit
That no one will come
to gather
It's raining on Taipei
all the century's tears wailing
As if we already knew
Right here
The end of all of this
(The wind gone, sky
everywhere, stars effaced, clouds blighted, the moon oblong and shot dead by a
street lamp, night gripped in the frost of time; finally the scene of the world
is taken down)
Day is as silent and
night
On the windows water weaves
It's translucid silence
of silk
Marc Delouze
(Taipei-Paris,
September 2001)
[Translated by Eric
Mader.]
Email: inthemargins03@hotmail.com
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