Since on our night a voice sometimes swells and then fades, <br />To drown it we'll invent a still louder silence <br />So that the vintager who's in charge of the graves <br />In the mud of our days may find no repentance. <br /> <br />We shall have slept enough, from caresses exiles, <br />After the same silence has extinguished our cries. <br />And long shall be the night, hard the stone. On your wise <br />Side, allow your lover to forget that he dies. <br /> <br />On your bent lips whither attracts me your desire, <br />I'll exorcise the chasm that is lying in wait. <br />Be the calm torturer, be the placid vampire, <br />The rack on which bodies are stretched out and are bent. <br /> <br />On your brow that your hair like sargasso covers, <br />On your panting bosom that sobs swell and retain, <br />Let me the sailor be whom adventure elates, <br />Whose ship still more furrows his desire than the main. <br /> <br />(O ship, slowly you roam and your holds are but traps <br />Where the rowers' chanty, the swing of the hammocks, <br />The relieving slumber, the beat in which I'm rapt <br />Intensify the roll, disregarding my masts) . <br /> <br />But peacefully lying, side by side, now dreamless, <br />We'll sail along the night, without fray, aimlessly, <br />Happy to have stolen from the god who haunts us <br />And gnaws at us, a while, mysterious robbery. <br /> <br />We'll sail along the night, O my sweet accomplice, <br />Like two swans whose entangled voices are merging, <br />Who twist their necks into appropriate curves <br />That have the appearance of the woods and the springs. <br /> <br />Behold the pallid dawn gleaming through the window! <br />Every breath of the wind shifts us toward the berth. <br />Bells are drowning our feast in their muffled billow. <br />Presently a new day. Presently a new death! <br /> <br />Let your fear be quietened, your torturers dismissed. <br />Even almighty gods yield to wide opened eyes. <br />The night which over us flows like limpid liquid <br />With a leaden wave will enclose our universe.<br /><br />Michel Galiana<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/from-the-feast-of-kisses/
