Paul Celan

FOUR POEMS

translated by Pierre Joris


         Bon vent, bonne mer,

a fluttering
brainflap, a
seapiece,
hoists, where you live,
its capital city, the
unconquerable.



WOODFACED,
slagmouthed
fool above the treadwheel:

from your earlobe
your eye dangles
and hops,
greened.


YOU WITH THE DARKNESS-SLINGSHOT,
you with the stone:

It is overevening,
I throw light behind myself.
Fetch me down,
take us
seriously.


IN SAURIAN-
skins, epi-
leptic one,
I bed you, on the windowsills,
the gable-
holes
fill us up, with lightdung.

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