Long Long Ago
Long long ago I went through the castle of leaves
Yellowing slowly in the moss
And far away barnacles clung desperately to rocks in the sea
Your memory better still your tender presence was there too
Transparent and mine
Nothing had changed but everything had aged at the same rate as my temples and
my eyes
Don't you just love that platitude? Let me go it's so rare for me this ironic
satisfaction
Everything had aged except your presence
Long long ago I went through the surf on a lonely day
The waves were unreal even then
The hulk of the shipwreck you knew about - remember that night of storms and
kisses? - was it a ship or a delicate woman's hat rolled by the wind in the spring
rain? - was there too
After that its happiness and dancing in the hawthornes!
The aperitifs had changed the names and colors
Of the rainbows framing the mirrors.
Long long ago you loved me.
poem by Robert Desnos
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I Have Dreamed of You so Much
I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real.
Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make
your dear voice come alive again?
I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my
chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body.
For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for so many
days and years, I would surely become a shadow.
O scales of feeling.
I have dreamed of you so much that surely there is no more time for me to wake up.
I sleep on my feet prey to all the forms of life and love, and you, the only one who
counts for me today, I can no more touch your face and lips than touch the lips and
face of some passerby.
I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept so much
with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom
among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadow than the shadow the
moves and goes on moving, brightly, over the sundial of your life.
poem by Robert Desnos
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Ebony Life
A frightening stillness will mark that day
And the shadow of streetlights and fire-alarms will exhaust the light
All things, the quietest and the loudest, will be silent
The suckling brats will die
The tugboats the locomotives the wind will glide by in silence
We will hear the great voice which coming from far away will pass over the city
We will wait a long time for it
Then at the rich man's time of day
When the dust the stones the missing tears
form the sun's robe on the huge deserted squares
We shall finally hear the voice.
It will growl at doors for a long while
It will pass over the town tearing up flags and breaking windowpanes.
We will hear it
What silence before it, but still greater the silence
it will not disturb but will hold guilty will brand and denounce
Day of sorrows and joys
The day the day to come when the voice will pass over the city
A ghostly seagull told me she loved me as much as I loved her
That this great terrible silence was my love
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poem by Robert Desnos
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Identity of Images (Identité des images)
I am fighting furiously with animals and bottles
In a short time perhaps ten hours have passed one
after another
The beautiful swimmer who was afraid of coral wakes
this morning
Coral crowned with holly knocks on her door
Ah! coal again always coal
I conjure you coal tutelary genius of dreams and my
solitude let me let me speak again of the beautiful
swimmer who was afraid of coral
No longer tyrannize this seductive subject of my
dreams
The beautiful swimmer was reposing in a bed of lace
and birds
The clothes on a chair at the foot of the bed were
illuminated by gleams the last gleams of coal
The one that had come from the depths of the sky and
earth and sea was proud of its coral beak and great
wings of crape
All night long it had followed divergent funerals toward
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poem by Robert Desnos
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Sleep Spaces
In the night there are of course the seven wonders
of the world and the greatness tragedy and enchantment.
Forests collide with legendary creatures hiding in thickets.
There is you.
In the night there are the walker's footsteps the murderer's
the town policeman's light from the street lamp and the ragman's lantern
There is you.
In the night trains go past and boats
and the fantasy of countries where it's daytime. The last breaths
of twilight and the first shivers of dawn.
There is you.
A piano tune, a shout.
A door slams. A clock.
And not only beings and things and physical sounds.
But also me chasing myself or endlessly going beyond me.
There is you the sacrifice, you that I'm waiting for.
Sometimes at the moment of sleep strange figures are born and disappear.
When I shut my eyes phosphorescent blooms appear and fade
and come to life again like fireworks made of flesh.
I pass through strange lands with creatures for company.
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poem by Robert Desnos
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The Voice of Robert Desnos
So like a flower and a current of air
the flow of water fleeting shadows
the smile glimpsed at midnight this excellent evening
so like every joy and every sadness
it is the midnight past lifting its naked body above belfries and poplars
I call to me those lost in the fields
old skeletons young oaks cut down
scraps of cloth rotting on the ground and linen drying in farm country
I call tornadoes and hurricanes
storms typhoons cyclones
tidal waves
earthquakes
I call the smoke of volcanoes and the smoke of cigarettes
the rings of smoke from expensive cigars
I call lovers and loved ones
I call the living and the dead
I call gravediggers I call assassins
I call hangmen pilots bricklayers architects
assassins
I call the flesh
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poem by Robert Desnos
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If You Only Knew
Far from me and like the stars, the sea and all the trappings of poetic myth,
Far from me but here all the same without your knowing,
Far from me and even more silent because I imagine you endlessly.
Far from me, my lovely mirage and eternal dream, you cannot know.
If you only knew.
Far from me and even farther yet from being unaware of me and still unaware.
Far from me because you undoubtedly do not love me or, what amounts to the
same thing, that I doubt you do.
Far from me because you consciously ignore my passionate desires.
Far from me because you are cruel.
If you only knew.
Far from me, joyful as a flower dancing in the river at the tip of its aquatic stem,
sad as seven p.m. in a mushroom bed.
Far from me yet silent in my presence and still joyful like a stork-shaped hour
falling from on high.
Far from me at the moment when the stills are singing, at the moment when the
silent and loud sea curls up on its white pillows.
If you only knew.
Far from me, o my ever-present torment, far from me in the magnificent noise of
oyster shells crushed by a night owl passing a restaurant at first light.
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poem by Robert Desnos
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