{"id":16743,"date":"2020-04-20T06:25:34","date_gmt":"2020-04-20T10:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=16743"},"modified":"2020-04-20T07:01:19","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T11:01:19","slug":"paul-celan-fifty-years-later-tenebrae-5-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/paul-celan-fifty-years-later-tenebrae-5-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Celan: Fifty Years Later: Tenebrae & 5 More"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was exactly 50 years ago, on the night of 19 to 20 April 1970 that Paul Celan left his apartment on\u00a0the avenue Emile Zola, and succumbed to his psychic demons: the Pont Mirabeau (an actual bridge over the Seine that is also a poem by Apollinaire)\u00a0<\/span>is where he decided to put an end to his life by going into the Seine. His body was found further downstream on 1 May. He was buried in the Thiais cemetery on the outskirts of Paris where his son Fran\u00e7ois already rested and where his wife Gis\u00e8le would join him in December 1991.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On his desk Paul Celan had left Wilhelm Michael biography of H\u00f6lderlin, Das Leben Friedrich H\u00f6lderlins<\/i> lying open to page 464. He had underlined the following sentence from a letter by Clemens Brentano:<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes this genius goes dark and drowns in the bitter well of his heart.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are 6 poems from Sprachgitter | Speech-grille<\/em> (I will post commentaries to the poems tomorrow) from \u00a0Paul Celan:<\/em>\u00a0Memory Rose into\u00a0<\/i>Threshold\u00a0<\/i>Speech.<\/i>\u00a0The Collected Earlier Poetry<\/i><\/a>\u00a0forthcoming from FSG in November, i.e. in time for Celan’s 100th birthday on November 23. In October, Contra Mundum Press will publish my translation of Paul Celan: Microliths (Posthumous prose)<\/a>.<\/em> These two volumes complete my translation work on Celan’s oeuvre.<\/p>\n

TENEBRAE<\/h4>\n

We are near, Lord,
\nnear and graspable.<\/h4>\n

Grasped already, Lord,
\nclawed into each other, as if
\neach of our bodies was
\nyour body, Lord.<\/h4>\n

Pray, Lord,
\npray to us,
\nwe are near.<\/h4>\n

Windbent we went there,
\nwe went there to bend down
\nover crater and maar.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

To the trough we went, Lord.<\/h4>\n

It was blood, it was
\nwhat you spilled, Lord.<\/h4>\n

It shone.<\/h4>\n

It cast your image into our eyes, Lord.
\nEyes and mouths gape, so open and empty, Lord.
\nWe have drunk, Lord.
\nThe blood and the image that was in the blood, Lord.<\/h4>\n

Pray, Lord.
\nWe are near.<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

*<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

WHITE AND LIGHT<\/h4>\n

Sickledunes, uncounted.<\/h4>\n

In the windshadow, a thousandfold: you.
\nYou and the arm,
\nwith which naked I grew toward you,
\nlost one.<\/h4>\n

The rays. They blow us into a heap.
\nWe wear the shine, the pain and the name.<\/h4>\n

White,
\nwhat moves for us,
\nweightless,
\nwhat we barter.
\nWhite and light:
\nlet it wander.<\/h4>\n

The distances, moon-close, as we are. They build.
\nThey build the cliff, where
\nwhat wanders breaks,
\nthey keep
\nbuilding:
\nwith lightspume and spraying wave.<\/h4>\n

What wanders, signaling from the cliffs.
\nThe foreheads
\nit beckons,
\nthe foreheads that were lent to us,
\nfor the sake of the mirroring.<\/h4>\n

The foreheads.
\nWe roll with them over there.
\nForehead coasts.<\/h4>\n

Are you asleep?<\/h4>\n

Sleep.<\/h4>\n

Seamill turns,
\nicebright and unheard,
\nin our eyes.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

SPEECHGRILLE<\/h4>\n

Eyeround between the bars.<\/h4>\n

Flitterbug lid
\nrows upward,
\nfrees a gaze.<\/h4>\n

Iris, swimmer, dreamless and dim:
\nthe heavens, heartgrey, must be near.<\/h4>\n

Slanted, in the iron socket
\nthe smoldering splinter.
\n<\/span>By its light-sense
\nyou guess the soul.<\/h4>\n

(Were I like you. Were you like me.
\nDidn\u2019t we stand
\nunder one trade wind?
\nWe are strangers.)<\/h4>\n

The flagstone. On them,
\nclose together, the two
\nheartgrey pools:
\ntwo
\nmouthfuls of silence.<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

*<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

SNOWBED<\/h4>\n

Eyes, worldblind, in the deathcliffs: I come,
\n<\/span>hardgrowth in the heart.
\nI come.<\/h4>\n

Moonmirror rockwall. Downward.
\n(Breathflecked ligthglow. Blood streaks.
\nClouding soul, once more near-shapely.
\nTenfingershadow \u2014 Gripclasped.<\/h4>\n

Eyes worldblind.,
\neyes in the deathcliffs,
\neyes, eyes.<\/h4>\n

The snowbed under us both, the snowbed.
\nCrystal after crystal,
\nmeshed timedeep, we fall,
\nwe fall and we lie and we fall.<\/h4>\n

And fall:
\nWe were. We are.
\nWe and the night are one flesh.
\nIn the passageways, the passageways.<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

*<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

MATI\u00c8RE DE BRETAGNE<\/h4>\n

Gorselight, yellow, the slopes
\npus skyward, the thorn
\nwoos the wound, in it the bell
\nrings, it\u2019s evening, the Nothing
\nrolls its seas in worship,
\nthe bloodsail heads toward you.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

Dry, silted
\nup, the bed behind you, sedge-
\nchoked, its hour, above,
\nnext to the star, the milky
\ntidal inlets yack in the mud, stone-mussel
\nbelow, tufted, gapes into the blue, a shrub of
\ntransience, pretty,
\ngreets your memory.<\/h4>\n

(Did you know me,
\nhands? I walked
\nthe forked path that you showed, my mouth
\nspit its gravel, I walked, my time,
\na wandering snow cornice, cast its shadow \u2014 did you know me?)<\/h4>\n

Hands, the thorn-
\nwooed wound, it rings,
\nhands, the Nothing, its seas,
\nhands, in gorselight, the
\nbloodsail
\nheads toward you.<\/h4>\n

You
\nyou teach
\nyou teach your hands
\nyou teach your hands you teach
\nyou teach your hands to
\nsleep\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

*<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

RUBBLE SCOW<\/h4>\n

Waterhour, the rubble scow
\nferries us into evening, we,
\nlike it, are in no hurry, a dead
\nWhy stands at the stern.<\/h4>\n

. . . . . . . . . . .<\/h4>\n

Lightened. The lung, the jellyfish
\nswells into a bell, a brown
\nsoul-extension reaches
\nthe bright-breathed No.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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