I’m partial to the surrealists; in cinema, painting, photography, fashion,
poetry—they demand that you detach yourself from the banalities of reality and
float in the zero gravity of the unconscious. I should find them tedious, but I
don’t.
And I swear my job is stuck in a Dalì painting.
Anyhow, today we’ll have a poem from the Frenchman Paul Éluard,
whose first wife actually ran off with Dalì (after having sparked a long-term ménage-à-troi
with Max Ernst). Dadist, surrealist, communist—Éluard was passionate about all
the powerful movements of the 20th Century. (Sadly, he was
completely taken in by Stalin, remaining a fervent admirer until his own death
in 1952.) He was a soldier in both world wars and spent time in sanatoriums
because of tuberculosis.
I don’t quite know what to make of “The Earth Is Blue”—but that’s
the whole surreal ethos. I just love the notion of something being “blue like
an orange”.
“La Terre Est Bleue”
La terre est bleue comme une orange
Jamais une erreur les mots ne mentent pas
Ils ne vous donnent plus à chanter
Au tour des baisers de s'entendre
Les fous et les amours
Elle sa bouche d'alliance
Tous les secrets tous les sourires
Et quels vêtements d'indulgence
À la croire toute nue.
Les guêpes fleurissent vert
L'aube se passe autour du cou
Un collier de fenêtres
Des ailes couvrent les feuilles
Tu as toutes les joies solaires
Tout le soleil sur la terre
Sur les chemins de ta beauté.
And in English:
“The
World Is Blue”
The world is blue like an orange
No error the words do not lie
They no longer allow you to sing
In the tower of kisses agreement
The madness the love
She her mouth of alliance
All the secrets all the smiles
Or what dress of indulgence
To believe in quite naked.
The wasps flourish greenly
Dawn goes by round her neck
A necklace of windows
You are all the solar joys
All the sun of this earth
On the roads of your beauty.
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