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Verse
by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, translation by Mark Spitzer

Gnomography


Istanbul is asleep beneath the pale moon
The Bosphorus sparkles with a thousand silvery flames
Alone in the great Mahommedan city
The old crier still hasn't slept—
His repeating voice which is amplified by echo
Announces to the city that already it is 10 o'clock
But through a window, from his high minaret
His indiscrete gaze plunges into a bedroom
For a moment it remains, silent, and pinned by surprise
He nervously caresses his great gray beard
But faithful to duty he steadies his voice
As the astonished echo repeats three times
To the blushing moon, to the dazzling stars
To Istanbul the white, that it will soon be noon

Ngobonbong,
August 28, 1916.

 

The Great Oak


But already, slowly, the sky is fading.
The western rays, hounded by the night
Fight against darkness, and resist again
Veiling the retreat of the sun which flees
Up from the black rock dominating the woods
As the oak still holds the decreasing light
Meanwhile, bit by bit, the shadow rises and takes it away
And plunges it, in turn, into the troubled whole
Each hour of our life brings its shadow as well
Chasing away hope, which will never return
The lost illusions, the bitterness rising
Invades our heart, destroying it and killing it—

Bikobimbo,
August 30, 1916.

 

On President Vincent Auriol


Hey, look at the President
That's a pretty tragic Destiny
He's well paid, he lives in the Palace of the President
He began his Career in a fierce campaign
Against the Death Penalty.
He was an Anarchist
And now he is President
No President has ever signed so many pardons.
There are ghosts which fill the Palace, I assure you
Dragging their execution posts
And the rhetoric of the President.
Imagine ending up like that!
He can't do anything about it, that's how it is...
That's Destiny
Those are his Challenges
He's a brave man
He must either sign
Or die.

(1949)

 

Pay-Back


     1

I will find you, you reeking piece of meat
some vile night!
I will gouge two black gaping holes
in your face
Your wretched soul will escape
into thin air!
You will see a fine crowd there!
You will see how we dance!
in the Great Cemetery of Bons Enfants!

     Refrain:

But here's Aunt Hortense
and her little Léo!
Here's Clementine and the valiant Toto!
must our pals be told
that the party is over?


To the devil with your kind!
Go hide! Get fucked in the ass!
It doesn't matter to me!
O crook! you thieves!
the wind will carry you away
like worries and dead leaves!
 

    2

For a long time now you've been bitching
that you're a cuckold!
And that I'm the punk responsible
for your shortcomings!
So don't go screwing up this occasion
by being relieved
Come with me and feel my dagger sting!
To the Great Remains of St. Mandé!


     3

Everyone knows that you're a rotten squealer!
That you cut deals and rat for the pigs
like Houdini!
This is how Mimile fell
into the guillotine basket!
I'll give you a nice little one-way ticket out of here
right in your tenderloins!

     4

Looking at you I see
A question which is eating me!
Will you be even filthier
Dead than alive?
And will you repulse vermin
Even more underground!?
But if you're left strangled at the stake
Then I'll come to grips with Mimile!
in the Graveyard of Bons Enfants!

(from the "definitive version," 1956)

 

Katika (first possibility)


I love Katika the whore
She who does not love in the morn
Nor my faithful heart, nor the roses
In the gray dawn when it pours.


When Katika will be hunchbacked
Because she sold her ass
We will go to the citadels to see
The bell-three times greater than she


That someone rings each morn
To wake all the whores
From Ireland to the Dardanelles.
Big battle, Meager Spoils.

 

Katika (second possibility)


I love Katika the whore
She who doesn't love the morn
Nor my faithful heart, or my roses
In the gray dawn when it storms.


When Katika becomes hunchbacked
Because she sold her ass
We will go to the citadels to see
beggars three times greater than she


Who we beat-off to every morn
To get all the sluts up
From Ireland to the Dardanelles.
Big battle, Little Reward.


(both poems from a facsimile of
the text sent to Henri Mah
é, 1936)

 

Publications:

Collected Poems of Georges Bataille
Bottom Feeder

Chapbooks:
Motorhead and Notch of the Sorceress (send 5$ for each title to MuscleHead Press, 3700 County Rd. Route 24, Russell, NY, 13684).

Email: spitzer@corpse.org

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