Collected Poems

THE PRETTY REDHEAD

THE PRETTY REDHEAD from the French of Appollinaire I stand here in the sight of everyone a man full of sense Knowing life and knowing of death what a living man can know Having gone through the griefs and happinessesof love Having known sometimes how to impose his ideas Knowing several languages Having travelled more than a little Having seen war in the artillery and the infantry Wounded in the head trepanned under chloroform Having lost his best friends in the horror of battle I know as much as one man alone can know Of the ancient and the new And without troubling myself about this war today Between us and for us my friends I judge this long quarrel between tradition and imagination Between order and adventure You whose mouth is made in the image of God's mouth Mouth which is order itself Judge kindly when you compare us With those who were the very perfection of order We who are seeking everywhere for adventure We are not your enemies Who want to give ourselvesvast strange domains Where mystery flowers into any hands that long for it Where there are new fires colors never seen A thousand fantasies difficult to make sense out of They must be made real All we want is to explore kindness the enormous country where everything is silent And there is time which somebody can banish or welcome home Pity for us -who fight always on the frontiers Of the illimitable and the future Pity our mistakes pity our sins I78 Here summer is coming the violent season And so my youth is as dead as spring Oh Sun it is the time of reason grown passionate And I am still waiting To follow the forms she takes noble and gentle So I may love her alone She comes and draws me as a magnet draws filaments of iron She has the lovely appearance Of an adorable redhead Her hair turns golden you would say A beautiful lightning flash that goes on and on Or the flames that spread out their feathers In wilting tea roses But laugh laugh at me Men everywhere especially people from here For there are so many things that I don't dare to tell you So many things that you would not let me say Have pity on me ECHO FOR THE PROMISE OF GEORG TRAKL'S LIFE Quiet voice, In the midst of those blazing Howitzers in blossom. Their fire Is a vacancy. What do those stuttering machines Have to do With the solitude? Guns make no sound. Only the quiet voice Speaks from the body of the deer To the body of the woman. NEW POEMS 179 ...