Léo Ferré

Le 14 juillet il y avait un hommage à Léo Ferré sur Arte à l'occasion du vingtième anniversaire de sa disparition.
J'ai regardé histoire de me remémorer des souvenirs enfouis.
Il a été celui qui, lors de l'adolescence, m'a fait aimer la poésie.
Pour moi l'inculte il a fait des choix judicieux parmi les poètes mais aussi dans leurs oeuvres.
Apollinaire, Aragon, Baudelaire, Rimbaud et Verlaine.
Ensuite, après m'être imprégné de toute cette poésie je suis parti à la recherche d'autres horizons.
Il y a eu en premier Oscar Wilde, puis Allen Ginsberg, Rainer Maria Rilke et beaucoup encore tel, Blake et John Keats.
Il me semble aujourd'hui que sans les poèmes sur lesquels Léo Ferré a posé sa musique, je n'aurais pas fait ce long trajet vers la poésie.
Et c'est pourquoi ce dimanche après midi j'ai regardé quasi religieusement Léo Ferré avec parfois des larmes plein les yeux.

Le Jardin des Tuileries

This winter air is keen and cold,

And keen and cold this winter sun,

But round my chair the children run

Like little tings of dancing gold.

Sometimes about the gaudy kiosk 

The mimic soldiers strut and stride,

Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide

In the bleak tangles of the bosk.

And sometimes, while the old nurse cons 

Her book, they steal across the square,

And launch their paper navies where

Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze.

And now in mimic flight they flee,

And now they rush, a boisterous band--

And tiny hand on tiny hand,

Climb up the black and leafless tree.

Ah! cruel tree! if I were you,
And  children climbed me, for their sake
Though it be winter I would break
Into Spring blossoms white and blue!

The moon is like a yellow seal
Upon a dark blue envelope;
And soon below the dusky slope
Like a black sword of polished steel

With flickering damascenes of  gold
Lies the dim Seine, while here and there
Flutters the white or crimson glare
Of some swift carriage homeward-rolled.

Oscar wilde

________

Sonnet on the Sale by Auction of Keats' Love Letters

These are the letters which Endymion wrote

To one he loved in secret, and apart.

And now the brawlers of the auction mart

Bargain and bid for eachpoor blotted note,

Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote

The merchant's price: I think they love not Art

Who break the crystal of  a poet's heart

That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.

Is it not said that many years ago,

In far Eastern town, some soldiers ran

With torches through the midnight, and began

To wrangle for the mean raiment, and to throw 

Dice for garments of a wretched man,

Not knowing the God's wonder, or His woe?

Oscar Wilde. Complete Poetry (Oxford World's Classics)

The Play-Ground

When painfully athwart my brain

Dark thoughts come crowding on,

And, sick of worldly hollwness,

My heart feels sad or lone-

Then out  upon the green I walk,

Just ere the close of day,

And swift I ween the sight I view

Clears all my gloom away.

For there I see young chidren -

The cheeriest thing on earth -

I see them play - I hear their tones

Of loud and reckless mirth.

And many a clear and flute-like laugh

Comes ringing through the air;

And many a roguish, flashing eye,

And rich red cheek, are there.

O, lovely, happy children!

I am with you in my soul;

I shout - I strike the ball with you -

With you I race and roll. -

Methinks white-winged angels,

Floating unseen the while,

Hover around this village green,

And pleansantly they smile.

O, angels! guard these children!

Keep grief and guilt away:

From earthly harm - from evil thoughts

O, shield them night and day!

Walt Whitman  The Complete Poems   (Penguin Classics)

Ode to the West Wind

I

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-striken multitudes: O thou,

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until 

Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)

With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destryer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

II

Percy Bysshe SHELLEY (1792-1822) Ode to the West  Wind

City Dusk

Come out... out

To this inevitable night of mine

Oh you dinker of new wine,
Here's pageantry... Here's carnival,
Rich dusk, dim streets and all
The whisperings of city night...

I have closed my book of fading harmonies,
( The shadows fell across me in the park)
And my soul was sad with violins and trees,
And I was sick for dark,
When suddenly it hastened by me, bringing
Thousands of lights,a haunting breeze,
And a night of streets and singing...

I shall know you by your eager feet
and by your pale, pale hair;
I'll whisper happy incoherent things
While I'm waiting for you there...

All the faces unforgettable in dusk
Will blend to yours,
And the footsteps like a thousand overtures
Will blend to yours,
And there will be more drunkenness than wine
In the softness of your eyes on mine...

Faint violins where lovely ladies dine,
The brushing of skirts, the voices of the night
And all the lure of friendly eyes... Ah there
We"ll drift like summer sounds upon the summer air...

Francis Scott Fitzgerald  (Thousand-and-First Ship)

Crows

Lord, when the open field is cold,

When in the battered villages

The endless angelus dies-

Above the dark and drooping world

Let the empty skies disclose

Your dear, delightful crows.

Armada dark with harsh cries,

Your nests are tossed by icy winds!

Along the banks of yellowed ponds,

On roads where crumbling crosses rise,

In cold and gray and mournful weather

Scatter, hover, dive together!

In flocks above the fields of France

Where yesterday's dead men lie,

Wheel across the winter sky;

Recall our black inheritance!

Let dutyin your cry be heard,

Mournful, black, uneasy bird.

Yet in that oak, you saints of god,

Swaying in the dying day,

Leave the whstling birds of May

For those who found, within that wood

From which they will not come again,

That every victory is vain.

Arthur Rimbaud (translated by PAUL SCHIMDT)