The night before the votes came in…
Was my pleasure to MC amid left-bank optimism in the wilds of Brixton. Johny Brown – frontman of legendary folk-punk heroes, Band of Holy Joy invited the gorgeously French band over, A Singer Must Die
– so it all went pretty indie.
Packed crowd also got to hear Morton Valence. Love. Robert ‘Hacker’ Jessett looks like George Michael undercover, Anne Gilpin’s more bonnie than her Hacker Clyde.
When doing my homework, I discovered how poetic translations can be – finding zillions of versions of Baudelaire, Rimbaud & Verlaine. Being the kind of girl who has to order the first thing she sees on a menu, in fear of indecision, I went freestyle and opted to make my own really bad translations below…
—-
Enemy. Baudelaire. Kirsty translation v1.
My youth was nothing but a tempest storm
Broken brilliant with sun rays
The thunder and the rain have ravaged me
And sickened fruit in my garden lays
Voila – touched by the autumn of my creative life
I prepare my shovel and pick
To reassemble the earth and soils
Arrêt – this water must not lick through cracks to tombs beneath
And who knows if the flowers that I dream
of finding in this sun will root or wash away, a tragedy,
Never finding the mystic thing which offers their vigorous beauty
O doulear! Alas – time eats life
and the obscure enemy locked to our heart is blood lost,
growing from this fortified dust…
In response to my enemy
Time is my enemy
Not nature
I fight in bars
On dancefloors
In praise of love
Of life raw
Lost
At the aftershow
Before there was Burroughs, shooting his wife, Rimbaud shot Verlaine.
And after Rimbaud came Penny Rimbaud (creator of anarchic band, Crass)
Penny for your Rimbaud (based on this video interview with Ian F Svenonius on Vice)
Despair.
Go military. Go Defense.
Give me a penny for your Rimbaud.
Those left behind
Must get out of bed
McLaren, Branson, cash from chaos.
Exit the existential mess
Take action
Get out of bed.
Time and space are the replacement of place
The holocaust is the spirit of displacement
Accepted face
Of a corporate seditionary policy
Anarchy is rage not rave
Get out of bed
Get out of love
Our price is now
Insurrection, mutiny – see treason.
How does it feel to be mother of a thousand dead
No agitprop to Iraq half a million dead
5 years prep to make the platform blow
SantaClausification of dead rockstars
Dead philosophers
Dead myths
Full Marx Mythomania
There ain’t gonna be a revolution
We have to go sideways so we can’t be seen, he said
The true dimension will be like a prairie fire
Conrad’s anarchist will destroy GMT – universal time…
Anarchists get out of bed.
We shall be moved
We must not bemoan the loss of dinosaurs
Or the concentration camp we live in now
As long as I can remain outside of it
And get out of bed
WE’VE GOT THE SYSTEM
Vote symbolism
Vote dada
Vote surreal
Vote metaphysical
Vote rock n roll
Vote for the commodification of music
Vote disco
Vote anarchy
Vote punk
Vote religion
Vote politics
Vote homo
Vote labels
Vote The Band Of Holy Joy
Vote Gainsbourg
Vote Russell Brand
Vote
Vote Kardashian
Vote vagabond
Vote war
Vote rave
Vote pagan light
Vote silk
Vote nylon
Vote outsider
Vote for death
Vote for soil
Vote for now
Vote for the future
Vote for the past
Vote cancer
Vote hallucinogenic
Vote psychedelic
Vote adolescent
Vote child
Vote baby
Vote death
Vote?
—
What did one socialist lobster say to another socialist lobster when it went to the voting station alone?
Stop being so shellfish
A very popular translation of Paul VERLAINE’s – THE BULLY – ‘lesser poet’
Through Interminable Land…
(Romances Sans Paroles: Arriettes Oubliées VIII)
Through interminable land
Ennui of the plain,
Vague snow once again
Gleams like sand.
The sky is copper
Devoid of any light,
You might almost gather
The moon had lived and died.
Floating clouds
Grey oak-trees lift
In near-by woods
Among the mists.
The sky is copper
Devoid of any light,
You might almost gather
The moon had lived and died.
Wheezing crow
You gaunt wolves too,
When north winds blow
How do you do?
Through interminable land
Ennui of the plain,
Vague snow once again
Gleams like sand.
— [this was riffed on the back ]
Devoid of light
Avoid the light
a void of light
Metal sky
Bullet hole stars w
Slate oak
Roots remain underground
Sheltered from wheezing city crows
Hunted by gaunt smacked up wolves
Queens of the night
Slumberous reward of narcolepsy
The warmth of dreams
Light – remove it
Through interminable land
Ennui of the plain,
Vague snow once again
Gleams like sand.
Condemned Women – BAUDELAIRE [didn’t read this, or translate it – lifted from the amazing http://fleursdumal.org]
Like thoughtful cattle on the yellow sands reclined,
They turn their eyes towards the horizon of the sea,
Their feet towards each other stretched, their hands entwined,
They tell of gentle yearning, frigid misery.
A few, with heart-confiding faith of old, imbued
Amid the darkling grove, where silver streamlets flow,
Unfold to each their loves of tender infanthood,
And carve the verdant stems of the vine-kissed portico.
And others like unto nuns with footsteps slow and grave,
Ascend the hallowed rocks of ancient mystic lore,
Where long ago St. Anthony, like a surging wave,
The naked purpled breasts of his temptation saw.
And still some more, that ‘neath the shimmering masses
stroll,
Among the silent chasm of some pagan caves,
To soothe their burning fevers unto thee they call
O Bacchus ! who all ancient wounds and sorrow laves.
And others again, whose necks in scapulars delight,
Who hide a whip beneath their garments secretly,
Commingling, in the sombre wood and lonesome night,
The foam of torments and of tears with ecstasy.
Kirsty’s ODE TO BAUDELAIRE:
We walked through cows lost after milking – confused as the clouds rushing past the moon
Suitcase of books
Sleeping in sacks
Most people get three chances – I got FIVE
Light over flatus, ignus, aqua, terra, and me
Misty lake – babtism with nature
who wrapped like ivy pulling to her core
Beneath the soil
Buried in stolen black vinyl
And everyday I fight nature
From Babylonia, to the path of Venus across the Wiccan sky
Israel where jesus drives a Fiat Lux (let there be light)
To blood of Guenavere
Changing from clown to pallbearer
choking on the rust of gargoyle’s lungs
—
RIMBAUD – RAMBO – the shooter, the midnight looter – rebel poet, walked out on words by 20,
Dying in Marseille – a leg less than he was born with.
But who cares? Poets live forever.