The Brazier

Poem by Guillaume Apollinaire Collection AlcoolsThemes DeathPeriod 20th century

To Paul-Napoléon Roinard

I have thrown into the noble fire
That I carry and adore
Living hands and even fire
This Past these death’s heads
Flame I do whatever you want

The sudden gallop of the stars
Being only what will become
Joins the male neighing
Of centaurs in their stud farms
And the great vegetable laments

Where are those heads I had
Where is the God of my youth
Love has become evil
Let the flames be reborn in the brazier
My soul undresses in the sun

In the plain flames have grown
Our hearts hang from the lemon trees
The severed heads that cheer me
And the stars that have bled
Are nothing but women’s heads

The river pinned on the city
Fixes you there like a garment
Leaving for the docile amphion
You endure all the charming tones
That make stones agile

***
I blaze in the brazier with adorable ardor
And the hands of believers throw me back there multiple innumerable
Limbs of the cut ones blaze beside me
Remove the bones from the brazier
I suffice for eternity to keep alive the fire of my delights
And birds protect with their wings my face and the sun

O Memory How many races that degenerate
From the Tyndarids to the ardent vipers of my happiness
And are serpents only the necks of swans
That were immortal and were not singers
Here is my life renewed
Great vessels pass and repass
I dip my hands once more in the Ocean

Here is the ocean liner and my life renewed
Its flames are immense
There is nothing common anymore between me
And those who fear burns

***

Descending from the heights where light thinks
Gardens ringing higher than all the shifting skies
The masked future blazes crossing the heavens

We await your good pleasure oh my friend

I scarcely dare look at the divine masquerade

When the Desirade turns blue on the horizon

Beyond our atmosphere rises a theater
That the worm Zamir built without instrument
Then the sun returned to light the squares
Of a marine city appeared upstream
On the roofs the low doves rested

And the herd of sphinxes returns to the sphinxery
With small steps He will hear the shepherd’s song all his life
Up there the theater is built with solid fire
Like the stars on which the void feeds

And here is the spectacle
And forever I am seated in an armchair
My head my knees my elbows vain pentacle
The flames have grown on me like leaves

Inhuman actors clear new beasts
Give orders to tamed men
Earth
O Torn that the rivers have darned

I would rather night and day in the sphinxeries
Want to know so that at last I might be devoured there

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-brazier-guillaume-apollinaire/