from TRISTE TRISTAN by Paol Keineg

Tristan and Isolde; Salvador Dali (1944)

from TRISTE TRISTAN by Paol Keineg

trans. from the French by Rosmarie Waldrop

Tristan, Iseut, etc.

take nudity by storm —

the poor girl has escaped,

bursts of hate

all around the woods,

and the burghers

end up with a beautiful wedding,

the dog taken in with the loot —

the gift of oneself estranges the self,

we’d like to ruin

these militant lovers.

Joined

to the lady’s ass

for hours —

poetry’s can’t-do-a-thing

no worry to him —

years near sovereignty

forbid his touching a corpse —

the forest experienced

as basis of

civilization —

the lady with the prominent nose turns into a scold.

Give weight to her breasts

lift them up with both hands —

life in the fields

a bit rough

with the pissing cows —

Iseut is sick to her stomach

of being torn open `

belly to sell not for sale,

everyone’s object of desire

lives under trees.

The moonlight again

so round, dispensing selves —   

round, astonished eyes

see disant satellites —

funny how bloodless the real.

A cottage for two hearts —

mum or swearing,

they recoil from a unified tale —

the hermit in this remote place

is a foil of a good god good goddamn 

good evening good teller of tales —

a pause in the Morrois forest,

can’t stop pissing — he draws  

his bow most tight, the arrow’s for her.

Clavicle, sternum, breast of the man —

Iseut anal, oral, social, a sport,

pawed near the wells —

complains: get a move-on,

big savage — erogenous 

zones planted with gorse —

read:

he marks his territory with piss,

she gets up on her hind legs.

Ear to the ground

strip bare whom you’ll betray —

undress her ass

in the lyric tradition

screams sublimated

into scientific exhibits —

balls aching

for love of poetry.

Uniform pink

the tongue 

deceives — glorious bodies

apart at the hip —

masterful brains

imagination

fueled

by the long fucks.

Kelenn,* the holly that, in spite of its name, doesn’t teach —     

she puts her head on his lap,

closes her eyes against sleep —

would be a great fragrant void,

an amphibian.

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* Breton kelenn is both holly and teaching

Paol Keineg was born in Brittany in 1944. His first book, Le poème du pays qui a faim (1967) became a manifesto of Breton militancy. While remaining intensely interested in Celtic mythology, he taught for almost thirty years at Brown and Duke before returning to France in 2009. He is both playwright and poet.  His most recent  book is a Collected Poems: Les trucs sont démolis (2008). Burning Deck has published a translation of his Boudica.

Rosmarie Waldrop (b. 1935) Poet, translator, and editor Rosmarie Waldrop has been a forceful presence in American and international poetry for over forty years. Born in Germany in 1935, Waldrop studied literature and musicology at the University of Würzburg and the University of Freiburg before immigrating to the United States in the late 1950s. She received a PhD from the University of Michigan in 1966. While at the University of Michigan, Waldrop married poet and translator Keith Waldrop. In 1961 the Waldrop’s began Burning Deck Magazine. (from Poetry Foundation)