This? & Paris, by Tristan Corbière

THIS?

	What?…
			- Shakespeare

Essays? —Now then, I’ve never essayed!
A study? —Lazily I’ve never forayed.
Volume? —Too brocaded to be well relayed.
Copy? —Alas no, this isn’t paid!

A poem? —Thank you, but I’ve pawned my lyre.
A book? —A book too, how would that transpire?
Papers? —No, no, thank God, that’s clear as the day!
Album? —This isn’t plain, and it’s ever too frayed.

Rhymed ends? —To what end? …And this isn’t kind!
A work? —It isn’t polite nor is it refined.
Songs? —How I’d like to, oh my little Muse!
Pastime? —And so you think me amused?

—Verses? …you’ve varnished the vermin… —No, that’s jerky.
—Oh, so you’ve chased after Originality?
—No, sh’s a rather silly silliness,—off the avenues—
Which flees ever more, as soon as she feels pursued.

—Pure chic? —And who would teach me its dealings!
—High flight? Falling sickness? —I’ve neither rales nor wings!
—Something to put at the door —…Or at a bordello
—Or a house of correction? —Oh, but no!

—Alright, it’s not classical? —Barely is it French!
—Amateur? —Do I look to you like a man of achievements?
Is it old? —It doesn’t have forty years of service…
Is it young? —With age, one heals from that vice.

…THIS, it’s naively an impudent pose;
This is, or isn’t thither: nothing, or who knows…
—A masterpiece? —It’s possible: I haven’t made one yet.
—But is it a Huron, a Gagne, or a Musset?

—It’s a… but there I’ve put the name of this humble author,
And neither does my child have a title to be a liar.
It’s a stroke of luck, right or wrong, all by hazard…
Art doesn’t know me. I don’t know Art.

			The police prefecture, 20 May 1873

PARIS

Bastard of Creole and Breton,
He too came there—anthill,
Bazar where nothing’s on the sill,
Where the sun lacks in tone.

—Good luck! We’re lining up… An escort
Pushes at your chain—behind!—
…Fire’s out, without sunshine;
Buckets pass, empty or not.—

There, his poor Muse undefiled
Hits the block to turn tricks like a girl-child,
They say: what’s she pushing?

—Nothing. —She stayed there without a sound,
Not listening to the void resound
And watching the wind rushing…

There: live by lashes of the whip! —To pass
in the carriage, to the correctional;
Re-pass in for a returnal;
To surpass yourself, and to trespass!…

— No, little one, you’ve got to begin
By being big —it’s no trouble—
Poor one: stir up gold by the shovel,
Obscure one: a name that rings!

Stick it on the viticulturists
And teach it to the parakeets
Who sing it or whistle it…

—Music! —It’s the paradise
Of Muhammads and the houris,
Of the pimp-gods battering each other with hits!

-

“I wanted but the rose,—Ding, dong!
Went again to the rosebush,—Dong, ding!”

Poet.—And so?…We need the thing;
The Parnasse up the stairs climbing,
The Disgusters, the skin’s yellowing,
The Beadles, the Maniacs to link in…

The Uncomprehended sleeps in his pose,
Beneath the zinc of the manchineel’s flush;
The Naive one “wanted but the rose,
—Dong, ding! went again to the rosebush!”

“The rose in the rosebush, Ding, dong!”
—The foot’s made for its chain all along.
“The rose in the rosebush”…—Too late!

“…The rose in the rosebush”…—Nature!
—Or it’s a metal-fitter, pedicure,
Or some other thing in the trade!

-

I fancied…—Oh, that’s no longer for sale!
Still got to pay: in the deck,
Shuffle the woman!—My loved one so frail
Had told me: “I won’t forget…”

…I had a lover there, to the back
And her pale shadow’s still haunting
Between the scents of the lilacs…
Maybe She’s crying…—Alright then: sing,

For you all alone, your nostalgia,
Your blank nights without candle or star…
Sad verses, sad in the morn!…

But here: whisk yourself with the org-es,
Load up your reddened eyelids so starchy,
And bring out your air of a wh-re!

-

It’s bohemia, kid: Renounce and let free
Your moorland and your churchbells,
The glum hills of your colony,
And your badums on the drum’s thick pelt.

It’s a song used-up and well finished
Your youth… Eh, it’s barely a day, nothing!…
Take it:—It’s still new—Slander and tarnish
Your poor loves… and love itself.

Evole! Your cup runneth over!
Keep the dregs and spill the wine over:
Like this.—Nobody saw that trick you played.

And may one day a monsieur so candid
Say of you—Vile! Oh, splendid!—
…Or say nothing.—It’s shorter that way.


-

Evohe! lash the vein;
Evohe! misery: Stupefy!
Like a lady of joy, to bitter pain
Fall, with this one word.—Rejoice!

Loiter the sickly dressing-screens
Where the fruits go to moisten un-dry
Moisten for a quarter-hour at the scene
—Walk the plank, and then at once die!

Go: trestles, lupanars, houses of prayer,
Court of miracles, court of order:
—Quarter-hours of immortality!

You appear! it really is happening!!!…
And at you someone throws something:
—Flower on paper, or low morality.—

-

Thus, Boreas arises:
You’ll believe it’s arrived!
The five-hundred-thousandth Prometheus
On the rock of the map painted riveted up.

Alas: what good bird-predator,
What vulture, what Mister Rapace
Will come to bite at your little liver
Fat, truffled?…for what—For the furnace!

Banal furnace!…—Farewell, cured being!—
Swallowing your returned spleen,
Come, like a pelican so white,

While skinning the song of the swan,
Yellow-beak, it pierces your side!…
Before a sinner, your very depiction.

-

You’re laughing.—Alright!—Be so bitter,
Get used to it, Mephisto the jocular.
Absinthe! and your lips froth and quiver…
Tell me that came from your heart.

Make your posthumous opus,
Castrate love …love—long-er!
Your scarred-up vein snuffs
Miasmas of glory, oh conqueror!

Enough, isn’t it? go away!
		Leave at last
Your grant—your last mistress…
Your revolver—your last companion…

The funny pistol’s put its time in!
…Or rest, and drink your fill of living,
Upon a cleared-off napkin…