The golden dawn and the shivering evening find our schooner out at sea opposite this villa and its outlying buildings, which form a promontory as vast as Epirus and the Peloponnese, or Honshu or Arabia! Shrines that are lit up by processions returning; immense views of the fortifications along modern coasts; dunes illustrated with hot [...]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Promontory by Arthur Rimbaud translated by Robert Yates
Posted in Les Illuminations, Poetry Cafe, Uncategorized on March 5, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
VIGILS by Arthur Rimbaud Translated by Robert Yates
Posted in Uncategorized on March 5, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
I It is rest in the sunshine, without fever or languor, on the bed or on the meadow. It is the friend neither passionate nor weak. The friend. It is the lover neither tormenting nor tormented. The lover. The air and the world that were never sought. Life. – So, then, was it this? – [...]
BEAUTEOUS BEING by Arthur Rimbaud Translated by Robert Yates
Posted in Uncategorized on December 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Looming against a snowy landscape, a titanic Being of Beauty. Whistlings of death and circles of soft music make this adored body rise, stretch and waver like a phantom; black and scarlet wounds burst in the splendid flesh. The very colours of life darken, dance, and disengage themselves around the Vision in progress. And shudders [...]
TALE by Arthur Rimbaud Translated by Robert Yates
Posted in Uncategorized on December 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
A Prince was annoyed at merely spending his time in perfecting commonplace acts of generosity. He had in mind astonishing revolutions in love, and suspected that his wives were capable of more than that accommodating attitude adorned with heaven and luxury. He wanted to see the truth, the hour of essential desire and satisfaction. Whether [...]
Childhood by Arthur Rimbaud translated by Robert Yates
Posted in Uncategorized on October 3, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
I That idol with dark eyes and yellow mane, without relatives or court, more noble than fables, Mexican and Flemish; her domain, insolent azure and verdure, runs across beaches named by waves empty of ships with names ferociously Greek, Slavonic and Celtic. At the forest’s edge – dream flowers chime, burst open, brighten, – the [...]
Historic Evening by Arthur Rimbaud translated by Robert Yates
Posted in Uncategorized on September 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
One evening, let us say, when the naïve tourist, isolated from our economic horrors, finds himself, a master’s hand brings to life the harpsichord of the meadows; people are playing cards at the bottom of the lake, a mirror showing queens and sweethearts; we have holy women, veils and threads of harmony, and legendary chromatic [...]
Movement by Arthur Rimbaud translated by Robert Yates
Posted in Uncategorized on August 16, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The swaying movement on the bank by the river falls, The stern-post gulf, The swiftness of the gangway, The enormous capriciousness of the current Lead on with their unprecedented lights And chemical innovation The travellers surrounded by the valley’s torrents And the strom. They are the conquerors of the world Each seeking their personal chemical [...]
Lives by Arthur Rimbaud translated Robert Yates
Posted in Uncategorized on June 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
I Oh the huge avenues of the holy land, the temple terraces! What have they done with the Brahmin who explained the Proverbs to me? I can still even see the old women from that time and place. I can remember the hours of silver and sunlight down by the rivers, my companion’s hand on [...]
Royalty & Departure : Two Poems from “Les Illuminations” translated by Robert Yates
Posted in Uncategorized on March 1, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
ROYALTY by Arthur Rimbaud Translated by Robert Yates One fine morning, among a most gentle crowd, a glorious man and woman announced on the public square: “My friends, I want her to be queen!” “I want to be queen!” She was laughing and trembling. He talked to his friends about revelations, about trials completed. They [...]
Rimbaud and the Paris Commune : Chronology
Posted in Uncategorized on February 12, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
In anticipation of the talk I am due to give at the Marx Memorial Library, 37A Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R ODU on October 25th 2010 (6,30 p.m.), I am setting out some of the background for Rimbaud’s association with the Paris Commune in 1871. The social and political situation in France during most of the [...]
