Flares of the Guns, Poem by Guillaume Apollinaire

Poem by Guillaume Apollinaire Collection CalligrammesThemes WarPeriod 20th century

To Mr. Joseph Granié.

Here is the pink nipple of the warty spurge
Here is the nose of the invisible soldiers
I the invisible horizon I sing
Let civilians and women listen to these songs
And here first is the canticle of the wounded stretcher-bearer

The ground is white the night azure
The crucifixion bleeds
While the wound bleeds
Of the soldier of Promise

A dog was yapping the shell miaowed
The mute glow sprang forth
As to whether war is funny
The masks did not flinch

But what mad laughter beneath the mask
Eternal whiteness of this place
Where the dove wears a helmet
And steel flies too
I am alone on the battlefield
I am the white trench the green and russet wood
The shell miaows
I will kill you
Bestir yourselves infantrymen with yellow piping
Great artillerymen red as moles

King’s blue like the Mediterranean gulfs
Velvety with every shade of velvet
Or mauve still or horizon-blue like the others
Or faded
Come mug in hand
Stand up flare
Dance grenadier waving your pine cones
Alidades of sighting triangles aim at the glows
Dig holes children of 20 dig holes
Sculpt the depths
Fly away swarms of blond airplanes like little bees

I the horizon I do the cartwheel like a great Peacock
Listen to the oracles reborn that had ceased
The great Pan is risen again
Virile Champagne that titillates Champagne
Grown men young people
Chameleon of the auto-cannons
And you class 16
Crackings of arrivals or else white blooming
in the skies
I was happy yet it burned the eyelid
The captive officers wanted to hide their names
Eye of the wounded Breton lying on the stretcher
And who cried to the dead to the pines to the cannons
Pray for me Good God I am poor Pierre
Intestines and rumble of the cannon
On this sea with white waves
Mad stoic like Zeno
Pilot of the heart you zigzag

Little forests of pines
The brood awaits its feeding
Do noses of rabbits poke out
Like the warty spurge

Just like the spurge here
The sun barely buds
I adore it like a Parsi
This tiny autumn sun

An infantryman almost a child
Blue like the day that flows away
Handsome like my triumphant heart
Said while putting on his balaclava

While we are not there
How many girls become beautiful
Here is winter and step by step
Their beauty will move away from them

O sudden Flares of the guns
This beauty that I imagine
For lack of memories
Draws from you its origin

For it is nothing but the ardor
Of the violent battle
And from the terrible glow
A burning muse has been made

He gazes a long time at the horizon
Knives barrels of water
Lit lanterns have crossed
I the horizon I will fight for victory

I am the invisible who cannot disappear
I am like the wave
Come open the sluices that I may rush and overturn everything

Guillaume Apollinaire

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