It happened one fine night the universe
Foundered on reefs where wreckers lit a flame
Set high above the sea I saw them gleem
Your eyes Elsa your eyes Elsa your eyes (source)Les yeux d’Elsa (1942) de Louis Aragon
I feel bluesy today. I got Aragon in my heart and mind. Louis Aragonsee end of article. had a profound influence on the teenager that I was. And that I still am, it seems, despite my 72 springs. I am not the only child of the 20th century to have received the grace, the elegance, the violence and the extraordinary permanence of his verses straight to the heart.
As we talk about the length on the palate of a rare wine, the Aragon verses creep into my fibers and resonate with me long after I have finished reading them. Forever in fact. They never stop. There is also in this poet an impetus, the communist commitment – inevitably disappointed dream, when the false Tsar with the wine stain signed the death warrant of the Soviet empire.
Communists mad enough to survive the collapse of Stalinism could not continue to pretend this time around. With the USSR, Gorbachev killed Soviet communism, a beautiful planetary dream of an alternative to devouring capitalism.
This dream has lived.
Warning ! I have no nostalgia, no regret for the cold war and the years of lead, no. Just this desolation, this desert and frozen tundra, this mess that no one has been able to repair … Once upon a time there were ants of the PCF.French Communist Party
May they rest in peace, and us with them. As for Gorby, breaking the masses of the people has not been successful for the masses. In thirty-five years, he has taken dearly.
Same for me, without having liquidated the USSR. Today he regrets. Not me. He wished it had happened differently. We all want the same thing when we screw up something important. Regrets make failure worse. They make you age and put on weight, that’s all we can say. (listen to Les regrets)
The USSR is dead, the Russian bear is still growling. Other times, other deaths. Squeaky harmony, impossible agreement.
They make friend, they are death to death. The past is watching you and you thought it was dead.
We should set the sidereal clock back and get the vodka out, mate. It is only in Camaret his town hall that Gagarin quoted excited in his moth-eaten sputnik which put the piss to the frustrated US largely overwhelmed crushed rolled Kennedy belching at all costs he wanted to sing in the tune to find his fortune and to walk on the Moon.
I would just like to convey to you a little of my gratitude to him. He helped me to live in the evenings of weariness. He rocked me to the rhythm of his musical settings, by Jean Ferrat, by Ferré, by Ogeret, by Brassens, and the others that I forget. I wouldn’t have the brasserie to bring it back, but I put an Aragon poem to music. Yes, I admit it, I also wrote a few dozen songs, a rock opera and dozens of trados: Dylan, Cohen, Leadbelly, Guthrie, The Beatles, Joplin, Donovan, and those that I omit. It was yesterday, what is it? Sixty years ? Prescription! I ask for the release.
In my defense, I never pretended to publish my drawings or my songs. Hobbys than all this. Only writing suits me, quite worthy of the public. I know what I’m worth, I know my weaknesses. Chimney storyteller, intimate speaker, private talker, charmed charmer, attentive, inspired, I favor face to face. We only transmit well to one at a time. Otherwise it’s bullshit. I know all about it, chatting is my first job. I know how to do. And make me forget.
No ulterior motive, no further thought, neither in front nor behind. I am frank of the collar. I write as I speak, always songs in my head, epithets that stuck with me. My texts, I am told, resemble their images, present, insistent, often mocking. None of my criticisms are based on jealousy, envy, the desire to outdo anyone but me.
And I would tell and I would tell
So much was this life adventure
Where man has become life-size
His voice above the forests
The mountains, the seas and the secrets
And I would tell and I would tell
And my shadow takes off its clothes
In the similar arms of girls
Where I thought I found a world
Dear authors, dear artists. I have imitated them all, the means and the good, the gifted and the unheard of, oh yes, as I imitated the cartoonists, Morris, Tillieux, Hergé, Franquin, Roba, Peyo, Giraud … Always imitates, imitates without cease. Imitation is the secret to progress, whatever the field. It is a question of imitating only the qualities of each author. And especially to imitate several.
Do not focus on a single master. The more numerous are those that one imitates, and the more one’s own style, the paw, the interior music can find expression. A good master does not clone his apprentices, he helps them to become what they are from all eternity. Hay copies of himself, he assists the emergence of new awakens, all different, amazing, moving.
Don’t take notes. Open up, that will be enough. These are not recipes, tips, or tutorials. Just words. The words of an old man who rambles a little. One day you will suck all the sap out of it. Tomorrow. Later. Matter of timing. Everything comes in due time, the long-awaited understanding will always remain.
All this to tell you to stop this little game that prevents you from moving forward, to succeed, or even to act, this stupid game that forbids you to live. But yes, I fuck my pots. Weigh my words. Before you can help others, you really need your help, you first. Before you claim to love anyone, love yourself. And you will love men and gods. They are the same.
All this to tell you that your life comes from what you do with it, from nothing else. There is only one, like the moon. Whether it is multiple or not depends only on you, your expectations, your dreams, and the reasons that bring you to earth. Please stop martyring yourself, I don’t believe masochism is one of the ways of awakening. I do not know of a single awakened one who manifests this sad tendency. On the other hand, before awakening, we are all the torturers of ourselves. Cruel executioner, the greatest of petty tyrants, the most pervert, the omnipresent.
Wait for me please! May time be prolonged, may desire lengthen, may the extension table turn into a piano, may you play on the back of Venice and its canals, the lake and its canoes, the marble and its cap, the mussel and its gifts, the noodle with secateurs and the choice in the date. Wait, wait, I’m almost done. He was blond I think.
Of an ebony blond, blonde as a moonless night, blonde as a brunette. Do you remember Elsa? He called you Zaza and you hated it. He was a native of Béthune, forty years of misfortune. A rather heavy guy of an unwelcome nature. For months, ten years, he lived on my money.
Wait. Just a moment.
But the beauty is gone
I feel no longer drunk
Down the dark eyes have sunk
My pillow feels alone
My Elsa does not belong to me. Her name is not Elsa. She is not Russian. She is not communist. She is one of the day. She is in love. She is not mine. On her finger, no ring is put. And me no more than another.
Let’s talk about everything, nothing. Speech is the bond that holds us together, which comes to me from this distant past, this strange uncertain time forever extinguished that we have never reached, neither Spirou, nor Tintin, nor Bill, nor Rintintin, nor Marie the whore, nor Kiki the elf, nor tonight, nor tomorrow, nor at night, nor in the morning-shut upyou damn idiot remember your bullshit shut up is your destiny your silence is a feast.
The spiritual life is the awakening of our essential nature. It gives us the qualities of being so badly needed by modern man: silence, simplicity, serenity, confidence.
Be silent, the Eyes will speak.
Tes yeux sont si profonds qu’en me penchant pour boire
J’ai vu tous les soleils y venir se mirer
S’y jeter à mourir tous les désespérés
Tes yeux sont si profonds que j’y perds la mémoire
Your eyes are so deep that while leaning to drink
I saw all the suns coming there mirror
Throw oneself there to die all the desperate
Your eyes are so deep that I lose my memory there
À l’ombre des oiseaux c’est l’océan troublé
Puis le beau temps soudain se lève et tes yeux changent
L’été taille la nue au tablier des anges
Le ciel n’est jamais bleu comme il l’est sur les blés
In the shade of the birds, it’s the troubled ocean
Then the sudden good weather rises and your eyes change
Summer cuts the nude with the angel apron
The sky is never blue as it is on wheat
Les vents chassent en vain les chagrins de l’azur
Tes yeux plus clairs que lui lorsqu’une larme y luit
Tes yeux rendent jaloux le ciel d’après la pluie
Le verre n’est jamais si bleu qu’à sa brisure
The winds chase away the sorrows of the azure in vain
Your eyes clearer than him when a tear shines on them
Your eyes make the sky jealous after the rain
The glass is never so blue as when it shatters
Mère des Sept douleurs ô lumière mouillée
Sept glaives ont percé le prisme des couleurs
Le jour est plus poignant qui point entre les pleurs
L’iris troué de noir plus bleu d’être endeuillé
Mother of the Seven pains O wet light
Seven swords have pierced the prism of colors
The day is more poignant that point between the tears
The iris with a black hole, bluer to be bereaved
Tes yeux dans le malheur ouvrent la double brèche
Par où se reproduit le miracle des Rois
Lorsque le cœur battant ils virent tous les trois
Le manteau de Marie accroché dans la crèche
Your eyes in misfortune open the double breach
Where the miracle of the Kings is reproduced
When the heart is beating, they see all three
Marie’s coat hanging in the crèche
Une bouche suffit au mois de Mai des mots
Pour toutes les chansons et pour tous les hélas
Trop peu d’un firmament pour des millions d’astres
Il leur fallait tes yeux et leurs secrets gémeaux
A mouth is enough in the month of May words
For all the songs and for all the alas
Too little of a firmament for millions of stars
They needed your eyes and their Gemini secrets
L’enfant accaparé par les belles images
Écarquille les siens moins démesurément
Quand tu fais les grands yeux je ne sais si tu mens
On dirait que l’averse ouvre des fleurs sauvages
The child monopolized by the beautiful images
Spread his/her own less disproportionately
When you have big eyes I don’t know if you are lying
It looks like the shower opens up wildflowers
Cachent-ils des éclairs dans cette lavande où
Des insectes défont leurs amours violentes
Je suis pris au filet des étoiles filantes
Comme un marin qui meurt en mer en plein mois d’août
Do they hide lightning bolts in this lavender where
Insects undo their violent loves
I am caught in the net of shooting stars
Like a sailor who dies at sea in the middle of August
J’ai retiré ce radium de la pechblende
Et j’ai brûlé mes doigts à ce feu défendu
Ô paradis cent fois retrouvé reperdu
Tes yeux sont mon Pérou ma Golconde mes Indes
I removed this radium from the pechblende
And I burned my fingers at this forbidden fire
O paradise a hundred times found lost again
Your eyes are my Peru my Gold my Indies
Il advint qu’un beau soir l’univers se brisa
Sur des récifs que les naufrageurs enflammèrent
Moi je voyais briller au-dessus de la mer
Les yeux d’Elsa les yeux d’Elsa les yeux d’Elsa
It happened that one beautiful evening the universe broke
On reefs that the wreckers inflamed
I saw shining above the sea
The eyes of Elsa the eyes of Elsa the eyes of Elsa
Louis Aragon, (1897-1982) is a French poet, novelist, and journalist. With André Breton, Tristan Tzara, Paul Éluard, Philippe Soupault, he was one of the animators of Parisian dadaism and surrealism.
In 1931, he broke with surrealism and became fully involved in the French Communist Party, to which he had joined in 1927, and in the literary doctrine of socialist realism. The defeat of 1940 marks a turning point in his poetry, and Aragon then turns to a reinterpretation of the poetic and novelistic tradition.
From the late 1950s, Léo Ferré and Jean Ferrat set to music or sang many of his poems, helping to make his poetic work known to a wide audience.
With Elsa Triolet, he formed one of the emblematic couples of 20th century French literature. Several collections from Aragon are dedicated to him, and his works often refer to the works of his companion. (Wikipedia)
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