Louis Aragon
Pop Song
Cloud
A white horse stands up
And that's the small hotel at dawn where he who is always first-come-first-served awakes in
palatial comfort
Are you going to spend your entire life in this same world
Half dead
Half asleep
Haven't you had enough of commonplaces yet
People actually look at you without laughter
They have glass eyes
You pass them by you waste your time you pass away and go away
You count up to a hundred during which you cheat to kill an extra ten seconds
You hold up your hand suddenly to volunteer for death
Fear not
Some day
There will be just one day left and then one more after that
That will be that
No more need to look at men nor their companion animals their Good Lord provides
And that they make love to now and then
No more need to go on speaking to yourself out loud at night in order to drown out
The heating-unit's lament
No need to lift my own eyelids
Nor to fling my blood around like some discus
Nor to breathe despite my disinclination to
Yet despite this I don't want to die
In low tones the bell of my heart sings out its ancient hope
That music I know it so well but the words
Just what were those words saying
"Idiot"
French, trans. ?
Louis Aragon, French, in Fear of Narrative and the Skittery Poem of Our Moment, by Tony Hoagland,
Poetry, March, 2006.