Fatality of Water
Unique, ultimate, an instant, a sound, dark gleam, whole, growing.
beyond the Märchenbilder
I
Unique, ultimate, an instant, a sound, dark gleam, whole, growing.
Ultimate, absolute, but an instant: he is embraced by the river, which he wants for himself (“mine!”), entirely (“may your breathing be mine!”), forever engulfed in its tumult.
The sounds (“ah, the forces are everywhere unleashed against me!”), all the sounds, are blended by the scarf of the river into a single scream carried beyond itself.
Words (“Malediction, oh my burning reason!”) and thought killed before they are born, crushed (dizziness and deafening roar) by the vise gripping him.
II
Such rage, such impatience for happiness!
Too late!
Held up by those who have carried him back to the shore, he stumbles in the street, holding his face between his hands, walled up (his insanity) in a scream never heard.
Do they know (and his loved ones? especially she who runs up to him?), do they know he will never return to them, now that he has become the mortal remains of himself?
Shattered: this extreme point reached.
Wasted, worn-out (fatality of water), vacant-minded (what do we know about that?), will he no longer even hear in the depths of his self the alarming cry “I am lost”?
Pierre Chappuis, was born in Tavannes (Canton Bern), Switzerland, in 1930. He is an essential French-language poet in a generation that includes Philippe Jaccottet, Yves Bonnefoy, André du Bouchet, Jacques Dupin, and Jacques Réda. His many published works include collections of critical essays, poetic prose, and poetry. Among his most recent books, all published by the Éditions José Corti, are Dans la foulée (2007), Comme un léger sommeil (2009), and Muettes emergences (2011). Distance aveugle (2000) and À la portée de la voix (2002), also brought out by Corti, are collections of short poetic prose. For his writing, he has won two prestigious Swiss literary prizes: the Schiller Prize in 1997 and the Grand Prix C.F. Ramuz in 2005. He lives in Neuchâtel.
John Taylor has translated numerous French-language poets, including Philippe Jaccottet, Pierre Voélin, Pierre-Albert Jourdan, Catherine Colomb, and Pierre Chappuis. He has recently translated the Italian poet Franca Mancinelli. His most recent collections of poetry are The Dark Brightness (Xenos Books), Grassy Stairways (The MadHat Press), and Remembrance of Water and Twenty-Five Trees (Bitter Oleander Press). Born in Des Moines in 1952, Taylor has lived in France since 1977.
