Meant o say I did like this, David.
Doug
On 2011-11-20, at 12:51 AM, David Bircumshaw wrote:
> It was only recently that I came across this wonderful and I think early
> little piece by Francis Ponge. Excuse the pedestrian translation, but the
> final image ...
>
> (*in **Œu****vres complètes, *I, Gallimard, La Pléiade, p. 721)
> **
> Le paysage
>
>
>
> L’horizon, surligné d’accents vaporeux, semble écrit en petits caractères,
> d’une encre plus ou moins pâle selon les jeux de lumière.
> De ce qui est plus proche je ne jouis plus que comme d’un tableau,
> De ce qui est encore plus proche que comme de sculptures, ou architectures,
> Puis de la réalité même des choses jusqu’à mes genoux, comme d’aliments,
> avec une sensation de véritable indigestion,
> Jusqu’à ce qu’enfin, dans mon corps tout s’engouffre et s’envole par la
> tête, comme par une cheminée qui débouche en plein ciel.
>
>
> which translates like:
>
>
> The Landscape
>
>
> The horizon, ruled with misty accents, appears written in small characters,
> in an ink is more or less pale according to the play of light.
>
> What is closer now I can appreciate like a painting.
>
> What is closer still only as in sculpture, or architecture.
>
> Then the reality of things climbs up to my knees, like an overwhelming
> meal, with the crammed sensation of indigestion.
>
> Until the end, when it is all sucked out of my body and spat out above, as
> if through a chimney, its mouth wide open to the sky.
>
>
>
>
> --
> David Joseph Bircumshaw
> "The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is
> that none of it has tried to contact us."
> - Calvin & Hobbes
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
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> blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
>
Douglas Barbour
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Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
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and as you read
the sea is turning its dark pages
turning
its dark pages.
Denise Levertov
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