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To Picasso
Spring lets the perjured betrothed wander
And lets the blue feathers leaf out for a long time
That the cypress shakes where the blue bird nests
A Madonna at dawn has taken the eglantines
She will come tomorrow to gather the wallflowers
To put in the nests of doves that she destines
For the pigeon that this evening seemed the Paraclete
In the little lemon grove fell in love
With the love that we love the latest comers
The distant villages are like eyelids
And among the lemons their hearts are suspended
***
My friends have finally confessed their contempt
I was drinking stars from full glasses
An angel exterminated while I slept
The lambs the shepherds of the sad sheepfolds
False centurions carried off the vinegar
And the beggars barely wounded by the spurge danced
Stars of awakening I know not one
The gas lamps pissed their flame in the moonlight
Undertakers with mugs clinked knells
In the candlelight fell pell-mell
False collars on waves of poorly brushed skirts
Masked women in childbed celebrated their churching
The city that night seemed an archipelago
Women asked for love and dulia
And dark dark river I remember
The shadows that passed were never pretty
***
I no longer even pity myself
And cannot express my torment of silence
All the words I had to say have turned into stars
An Icarus tries to rise to each of my eyes
And bearer of suns I burn at the center of two nebulae
What have I done to the theological beasts of intelligence
Once the dead returned to adore me
And I hoped for the end of the world
But mine arrives whistling like a hurricane
***
I had the courage to look back
The corpses of my days
Mark my road and I weep for them
Some rot in Italian churches
Or else in little lemon groves
That flower and bear fruit
At the same time and in every season
Other days wept before dying in taverns
Where ardent bouquets roared
In the eyes of a mulatto woman who invented poetry
And the roses of electricity still open
In the garden of my memory
***
Forgive me my ignorance
Forgive me for no longer knowing the old game of verses
I know nothing anymore and I love only
The flowers before my eyes become flames again
I meditate divinely
And I smile at beings I did not create
But if the time came when the shadow finally solid
Multiplied realizing the formal diversity of my love
I would admire my work
***
I observe the Sunday rest
And I praise idleness
How how to reduce
The infinitely small science
That my senses impose on me
One is like the mountains to the sky
To cities to my love
It resembles the seasons
It lives decapitated its head is the sun
And the moon its severed neck
I would like to feel an infinite ardor
Monster of my hearing you roar and you weep
The thunder serves you as hair
And your claws repeat the song of birds
Monstrous touch has penetrated me poisons me
My eyes swim far from me
And the intact stars are my masters without trial
The beast of the fumes has a flowering head
And the most beautiful monster
Having the savor of laurel grieves
***
In the end lies no longer frighten me
It’s the moon cooking like a fried egg
This necklace of water drops will adorn the drowned woman
Here is my bouquet of Passion flowers
That tenderly offer two crowns of thorns
The streets are wet with the recent rain
Diligent angels work for me at home
The lune and sadness will disappear during
The whole blessed day
The whole blessed day I walked singing
A lady leaning at her window watched me for a long time
Walking away singing
***
At the turn of a street I saw sailors
Dancing bare-necked to the sound of an accordion
I gave everything to the sun
Everything except my shadow
The dredges the bales the half-dead sirens
On the misty horizon the three-masters sank
The winds have expired crowned with anemones
O Virgin pure sign of the third month
***
Flamboyant Templars I burn among you
Let us prophesy together o great master I am
The desirable fire that devotes itself for you
And the girandole turns o beautiful o beautiful night
Bonds untied by a free flame Ardor
That my breath will extinguish O Dead at quarantine
I mirror from my death the glory and the misfortune
As if I aimed at the bird of the quintain
Uncertainty feigned bird painted when you fell
The sun and love danced in the village
And your gallant children well or badly dressed
Have built this pyre the nest of my courage
Guillaume Apollinaire
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-the-betrothal-guillaume-apollinaire/