the patinoire in front of the Hôtel de Ville

..

the kiss in front of the Hôtel de Ville

They kiss, oh, they kiss, they kiss,
the young on the streets, in the bistros, on parapets
they kiss and kiss as if they were themselves
just endings
of the kiss
they kiss, oh, they kiss in the racing cars,
in the metro stations, in theaters,
in buses, they kiss with desperation,
with violence, as if,
at the end of the kiss, at the conclusion of the kiss, after the kiss,
the only thing to follow would be prescribed old age, and death.
they kiss, oh, they kiss, the thin young people
in love. So thin, as if
they were ignoring the existence of bread in this world.
so in love, as if, as if
they were ignoring the existence of world itself.
they kiss, oh, they kiss as if they were
in the dark, in the safest darkness
as if nobody saw them, as if
the sun would rise
shining
only after
their mouths, broken by the kiss and bleeding
would only be able to kiss
with their teeth.


Nichita Stănescu
The young, tr. by Cristina Hanganu-Bresch

note:
if you want to see and hear it in Romanian, go to the translator's page and listen to the song there (included also a very interesting note on translation problems)



..

lovers are always the victims of torches and chance (even - or especially those on a Paris bridge)

In the back of your car
Where the light from the stars
Caught our eyes in a moment of blue
It was then that I knew
All my feelings were true
And what lovers like us have to do

I looked at the time
And the time ran so fast
Like an arrow that flies to the heart
And I thought that a lifetime
Would not be enough time
To delight in this pleasure so dark

Lovers are mortal
Their hearts are the size of night clouds
Lovers are mortal
Their actions are jealous and proud
Lovers are losers
And who knows the bruises they bear
For lovers are mortal
As frail as the breath that they share

In the shadows of doorways
Where lovers are always
The victims of torches and chance
I would hold you so near
'til the scent of your hair
Sent me reeling my mind in a trance

Oh I still can recall
The soft music of rain falling
Silver and cool in the night
And it washed through our love
Like a river in flood
Like an ocean of tears shining bright

And I like to believe
That the memories we weave
Are the bittersweet echoes of dreams
In the evening their call strays
From yesterdays hallways
Like the faraway chimes on the breeze

Lovers are mortal
Their hearts are the size of night clouds
Lovers are mortal
Their actions are jealous and proud
Lovers are losers
And who knows the bruises they bear
For lovers are mortal
As frail as the breath that they share

the melancholy diary of hotel rooms (Paris)

'He wrote me: I will have spent my life trying to understand the function of remembering, which is not the opposite of forgetting, but rather its lining. We do not remember, we rewrite memory much as history is rewritten. How can one remember thirst?'

... a melancholy whose color I can give you by copying a few lines from Samura Koichi: “Who said that time heals all wounds? It would be better to say that time heals everything except wounds. With time, the hurt of separation loses its real limits. With time, the desired body will soon disappear, and if the desiring body has already ceased to exist for the other, then what remains is a wound... disembodied.”

(excerpts from Chris Marker's Sans Soleil)

classical Paris series (1)

O nuit! ô rafraîchissantes ténèbres! vous êtes pour moi le signal d'une fête intérieure, vous êtes la délivrance d'une angoisse! Dans la solitude des plaines, dans les labyrinthes pierreux d'une capitale, scintillement des étoiles, explosion des lanternes, vous êtes le feu d'artifice de la déesse Liberté!
Crépuscule, comme vous êtes doux et tendre! Les lueurs roses qui traînent encore à l'horizon comme l'agonie du jour sous l'oppression victorieuse de sa nuit, les feux des candélabres qui font des taches d'un rouge opaque sur les dernières gloires du couchant, les lourdes draperies qu'une main invisible attire des profondeurs de l'Orient, imitent tous les sentiments compliqués qui luttent dans le coeur de l'homme aux heures solennelles de la vie.
On dirait encore une de ces robes étranges de danseuses, où une gaze transparente et sombre laisse entrevoir les splendeurs amorties d'une jupe éclatante, comme sous le noir présent transperce le délicieux passé; et les étoiles vacillantes d'or et d'argent, dont elle est semée, représentent ces feux de la fantaisie qui ne s'allument bien que sous le deuil profond de la Nuit.


Ch. Baudelaire (Le Spleen de Paris)













O night! O refreshing dark! for me you are the summons to an inner feast, you are the deliverer from anguish! In the solitude of the plains, in the stony labyrinths of a city, scintillation of stars, outburst of gas lamps, you are the fireworks of the goddess Liberty!

Twilight, how gentle you are and how tender! The rosy lights that still linger on the horizon, like the last agony of day under the conquering might of its night; the flaring candle-flames that stain with dull red the last glories of the sunset; the heavy draperies that an invisible hand draws out of the depths of the East, mimic all those complex feelings that war on one another in the heart of man at the solemn moments of life.

Would you not say that it was one of those strange costumes worn by dancers, in which the tempered splendours of a shining skirt show through a dark and transparent gauze, as, through the darkness of the present, pierces the delicious past? And the wavering stars of gold and silver with which it is shot, are they not those fires of fancy which take light never so well as under the deep mourning of the night?

(Translated by Arthur Symons)