For plumage and threads, from Selected Translations, by W.S. Merwin.
from Absence / by Jean Follain (1903-1971, French)
one leaf taking wing
only the man has to know how long it will take
20th-Century French Poetry
DPF / Apollinaire
For saltimbanques, from The Poetry of Surrealism, edited by Michael Benedikt.
from Phantom of the Clouds / by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) translated by Michael Benedikt
A tiny spirit without the least human burden
Everybody thought
And this music of shapes and forms
Drowned out that of the mechanical organ
Ground out by the man with his face covered with his own ancestors
DPF / Supervielle
Still attempting no repetitions, so here’s a no-repeat for today, from Selected Translations by W.S. Merwin.
from The Tip of the Flame / by Jules Supervielle (French 1884-1960)
All through his life
He had liked to read
By a candle
DPF / Aragon
For cradles and birds, from The Poetry of Surrealism, An Anthology, edited by Michael Benedikt.
from Once and For All / by Louis Aragon (1897-1982)
What then is love?
–A gold ring around the clouds.
DPF / Melançon
For groves and colonnades, from Selected Translations, by W.S. Merwin.
from Blind Painter / by Robert Melançon (French, b. 1947)
But you should not linger
in this metaphorical palace
old as language. Here are trees
all waiting to be named.
DPF / Cendrars
For fish and beaches, from A Book of Luminous Things, edited by Czeslaw Milosz.
from Aleutian Islands / by Blaise Cendrars, translated by Monique Chefdor (1887-1961)
mountain ash pine trees Arctic willows
Bed of heather and Alpine plants
DPF / Arp
For stars, from The Poetry of Surrealism: An Anthology, edited by Michael Benedikt.
from Infinite Millimeter Manifesto / by Jean (Hans) Arp, translated by Michael Benedikt
First we have to let forms, colors, sounds sprout
and then explain them.
DPF / Guillevic
from Everywhere / by Guillevic trans. by Denise Levertov
There is nothing but you,
field poppy.
Daily Poetry Fragments {Semi-Daily} 