Translated from the French by Eliot Cardinaux
THE PRODIGAL’S TORCH
The quarantined enclosure burned
You cloud move ahead
Cloud of resistance
Cloud of caverns
Towing hypnosis.
ONGOING TRUTH
The crevice’s inventor
Tugs tumult’s rope
We gauge the depth
Along the riled contours of the thigh
The quiet blood that releases
Confuses the needles
Raises love without reading it.
POSSIBLE
As soon as he was certain
With a tightness in his throat
He facilitated the word
She played on the four-penny picture books
He spoke like one kills
The beast
Or pity
His fingers touched the other shore
But the sky tilted
So quickly
That the eagle on the mountain
Had its head cut off.
THE PRUNER’S UMLAUT
Because the sun was playing the peacock on the wall
Instead of traveling on treeback.
© Libraries José Corti, 1934 and 1945, for the poems of René Char
© Eliot Cardinaux, 2023, for the English translations
René Char (1907-1988) is a French poet who was a leader of the French Resistance during World War II. These poems are taken from his 1934 collection Le Marteau sans maître (The Hammer with No Master), and were written several years before he became active as part of the surrealist movement, from which he later distanced himself.
© Libraries José Corti, 1934 and 1945, for the poems of René Char
Eliot Cardinaux is a poet, pianist, and composer living in Western Massachusetts. Working at the intersection of improvised music & lyric poetry, his work could be described as oblique, and is often both dissident & devotional. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in music from The New England Conservatory, and an MFA in Poetry from The University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the founder of The Bodily Press, through which he releases poetry chapbooks, CDs, LPs, and collaborations with visual artists. His poems have been published in print & online publications such as Jacket2, The Café Review, Spectra Poets, Talisman, Caliban Online, and Bloodroot Literary Magazine.
