THE CRITIC WRITES POEMS: TOM HIBBARD

7 SURREALIST TRANSLATIONS
By Tom Hibbard

        Vertical Village

Like the wolves exalted

By their disappearance

We observe the year of fear

And of liberation

The wolves snow-covered

By distant hunting

For the date erased

Beneath the future that roars

Furtive we wait

To establish ourselves

The source of the headwaters

We know that Things arrive

Suddenly

Gloomy or embellished

The dart that connects the two curtains

Life against life, tumult and mountain

Flashed

                                  -1970 (Rene Char)

          Rupestral  Praise of Miro

As far as to the station of Altamira

Fleeing the Icarian games

Reader of nimble relief

Admirably certain of little

We love exactly as it happened to us

On your little donkey of Orpheus

Beautiful insomnia of friendship—

You clarify the pattern of it

                                 -1972 (Rene Char)

          The Bird of Hell

This blackbird in my head

Does not allow itself to be tamed

It is like a cloud that passes

and that is never tricked

like a cigarette between fingers

and the haze in the eyes

However I don’t dare entrust it to anyone

and am sad when it disappears

It clings to all the smiles

resting on stretched out hands

and feeds on the sugar of words

without even uttering a sound of joy

For a long time I have tried not to see it

no longer to listen to it crow in the night

and when it tears with its claws

the fillets of certitude

It is the son of insomnia

and of melancholic disgust

My blackbird my copy

hatred is not your bug

I give you three days and three nights

                                    -1953 (Philippe Soupault)

         Chagall So Much and More

A thoroughly small Chagall where one sees the universe

With color perspective and all that it needs

The painting on the back and the painter on the front

A great deal too much of the world and everything screwed up

Food is scarce the invited arrive

Nothing is truly ready the wines the table setting

Send the horse to look for the flowers at the grocer

A thoroughly small Chagall whose eyes are bigger than its stomach

A thoroughly small Chagall like a wedding

The violin in front that travels across the neighborhood

A thoroughly small Chagall blue on Sunday with a slice of orange behind the ear

A thoroughly small Chagall with lovers on the roof

I have lost the ring and the gloves how shall we do it

I have lost the key to the picture

And the people are starting again without having seen the bridegroom

A thoroughly small Chagall without even a corner in which to hang

                                                                       -1966 (Louis Aragon)

          Servitudes

It was night yesterday

but the billboards sing

the trees stretch themselves

the statue at the hairdresser’s smiles

No spitting

No smoking

the rays of the sun in the hands are exactly right

there are fourteen

I invent unknown streets

From new continents bloom

newspapers that will come out tomorrow

Watch out for wet paint

I will go walking naked with a cane in my hand

                                                     -1930 (Philippe Soupault)

            The Man Alone

The man alone is a staircase

Not one part of him does not guide

And to him remain inhuman

All the doors of the palace

The man alone has crooked arms

Uneven eyes shortness of breath

He has only elsewhere for a pillow

His sleep is a prostitute

The man alone has fingers of wind

What anyone gives him becomes a cinder

Even pleasure he can take none

That dust does not take back

The man alone has no face

He is only a window against the rain

And the tears that one sees on him

Belong to the nation

He is a letter mislaid

Did it have a false address

To whom did it express tenderness

What hands tore it to pieces

                                             -1965 (Louis Aragon)

          Interior

The table serving of the most sumptuous luxury

Is way too long

It separates me from the woman I love

I can hardly see her

In the stars of dinner glasses of all sizes she remains inverted and backwards

Revealing herself in a gust of wind

                                                         -1943 (Andre Breton)

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“The Man Alone,” “Chagall So Much and More,” “The Bird of Hell” were previously published in Another Chicago Magazine  edited by Barry Silesky.  Also several French Surrealist translations of Tom Hibbard’s were used in issues of Willow Springs.

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Recently Tom Hibbard has had several articles published on visual writing, one in Big Bridge, issue 17 and also in Galatea Resurrects, issue 19.  Hibbard has also had an article on the work of Belgian artist Luc Fierens in Word/ For Word, issue 22 and an article on Jack Kerouac’s poetry also in Big Bridge, issue 17.  Several poems following Kerouac’s style and visual writing were recently published in Cricket Online Review.  His book of poetry The Sacred River of Consciousness is available online at Moon Willow Press and Amazon.com.  And his book Place of Uncertainty is available online at Otoliths Storefront from Lulu.  Hibbard is working on a new collection of poetry and further articles on visual writing.