Skip to main content
Outdated Browser

For the best experience using our website, we recommend upgrading your browser to a newer version or switching to a supported browser.

More Information

Poetry

Seven Irrational Sonnets

By Jacques Bens
Translated from French by Rachel Galvin
Founding Oulipo member Jacques Bens plays with poetic form in these seven sonnets.

Melancholy

So I’ll once more find my old horizons,
cherished scent of winds and habitations.
Fear not if it seems I’m quitting the place.

I leave Paris just to love it better.

One tends to hurry a banal embrace.
But what’s this pride worth that’s past all seasons?   
Try to unite the heart with its reasons. 
The city, while smiling, leaves a rough trace.

I leave Paris just to love you better.

To love you better, I couldn’t picture—
Now I see the present whisks us away.   
To see you, I have to step back a bit.
I lock up my regrets, as will be fit,
Slipping my key under your entryway.

 

Thirteen

Poet, stay calm, but it’s not unforeseen,
One day you’ll write a poem numbered thirteen,
While rather anxious that the sky will fall.

I’m not superstitious, but all the same.

Thirteen, in days of yore, brought death to call
On shepherds in Sumer and Greece, umpteen
Year II troops, the English merchant marine!
At least, that’s the rumor that ran the hall.

Don’t believe it, no no, but all the same.

Committing blasphemy’s no parlor game.
If freethinking may have its charms for me, 
I’m quite wary of those who will lay blame; 
the thirteenth poem’s thirteenth line must lay claim
to some virtues that I just cannot see.

 

Nostalgia

I’ll no longer haunt this lost location
Where my friends, gently, find some fixation,
Fixation I crave, though I play the stud,

For I love the smell of books most of all.

If I’ve swapped my pen for a plow and mud
(That is, lyric and inoculation),
If I’ve, I say, chosen field plantation,
I’ve not renounced my écriveron blood:

Still, I love the smell of books above all.

To regain that world that had me in thrall,
To meet, each day, my cousin the proofer!
To sniff the cold perfume of leather scrawl!
To relive, at last, the life I recall,
And egads! return like a proud victor!

 

Modest

Sometimes my friends pout, want to altercate,
And turn their backs. And then I speculate. 
Such as: I think they find me pretentious.

No, really, no joke, don’t I seem modest?

Pretentious! No slight is more spurious! 
I never judge, opine, incriminate!
My point of view will never dominate!
(Though my take’s often the most judicious.) 

Objectively speaking, I’m quite modest.  

Besides, consider one who will protest 
And likely thinks he’s unimpeachable.
Listen to him: he’ll keep scolding with zest,
Advise, contradict, exhort, and suggest,
And I’m the one who’s objectionable?

 

Gourmet

I’m no gourmand. But fine, on occasion,
Faced with a choice dish, I’ll gladly forge on.
Ah, don’t scorn the pleasures of the table!

Body suits mind; the heart, the gut rounds out.

I do tend to find game delectable,
Thrush with sea grapes or cornered venison,
But I can also happily feast upon
Ham omelets, a treat indisputable.

When the belly is full, the heart is stout.

Thus, I’ll be vanquisher of all my doubt
(save, of course, a crisis that’s hepatic).
Plus, I’m not much good playing the Boy Scout,
I can’t seem to refuse a pint of stout,
Which helps develop my zygomatic. 

 

V.

I wish a poem were a passing humor,
No motive, no greed, a simple gesture,
The blithest dream of a young wood sleeping.

Yes, but even still: threshold, door, passage.

What silently joins magnet and filing,
A bite to the heart with its brown blister,
The pale glance of my prettiest reader
When she runs, at night, to meet her darling.

It’s just as I say: threshold, door, passage.

To life, death, an eye that’s not often sage, 
Horizon split by the sower’s labor,
Concealed kiss planted within your cleavage,
Ear inclined to the eternal message
And the dark silence of private clamor.

 

Ultimate

The last-born finishes this progression
Of lean, commoner versification
That would seek, sans éclat, to animate.

For I don’t have much taste for eloquence.

Sonnets “sans éclat”? Near apostolate.
Victory by singing, war clarion  
If I’d a shred of bold disposition 
Or a knack for throwing around my weight

Not to mention a yen for eloquence.

There’s no question. I don’t have the patience
To play Samson in Temple Parnassus.
Nor arms nor fitness nor impertinence.  
As one goes on, it’s of no consequence,
Like a morning breeze and like a chorus. 

From 41 Sonnets irrationnels. © Jacques Bens. By arrangement with the author’s estate. Translation © 2013 by Rachel Galvin. All rights reserved.

English French (Original)

Melancholy

So I’ll once more find my old horizons,
cherished scent of winds and habitations.
Fear not if it seems I’m quitting the place.

I leave Paris just to love it better.

One tends to hurry a banal embrace.
But what’s this pride worth that’s past all seasons?   
Try to unite the heart with its reasons. 
The city, while smiling, leaves a rough trace.

I leave Paris just to love you better.

To love you better, I couldn’t picture—
Now I see the present whisks us away.   
To see you, I have to step back a bit.
I lock up my regrets, as will be fit,
Slipping my key under your entryway.

 

Thirteen

Poet, stay calm, but it’s not unforeseen,
One day you’ll write a poem numbered thirteen,
While rather anxious that the sky will fall.

I’m not superstitious, but all the same.

Thirteen, in days of yore, brought death to call
On shepherds in Sumer and Greece, umpteen
Year II troops, the English merchant marine!
At least, that’s the rumor that ran the hall.

Don’t believe it, no no, but all the same.

Committing blasphemy’s no parlor game.
If freethinking may have its charms for me, 
I’m quite wary of those who will lay blame; 
the thirteenth poem’s thirteenth line must lay claim
to some virtues that I just cannot see.

 

Nostalgia

I’ll no longer haunt this lost location
Where my friends, gently, find some fixation,
Fixation I crave, though I play the stud,

For I love the smell of books most of all.

If I’ve swapped my pen for a plow and mud
(That is, lyric and inoculation),
If I’ve, I say, chosen field plantation,
I’ve not renounced my écriveron blood:

Still, I love the smell of books above all.

To regain that world that had me in thrall,
To meet, each day, my cousin the proofer!
To sniff the cold perfume of leather scrawl!
To relive, at last, the life I recall,
And egads! return like a proud victor!

 

Modest

Sometimes my friends pout, want to altercate,
And turn their backs. And then I speculate. 
Such as: I think they find me pretentious.

No, really, no joke, don’t I seem modest?

Pretentious! No slight is more spurious! 
I never judge, opine, incriminate!
My point of view will never dominate!
(Though my take’s often the most judicious.) 

Objectively speaking, I’m quite modest.  

Besides, consider one who will protest 
And likely thinks he’s unimpeachable.
Listen to him: he’ll keep scolding with zest,
Advise, contradict, exhort, and suggest,
And I’m the one who’s objectionable?

 

Gourmet

I’m no gourmand. But fine, on occasion,
Faced with a choice dish, I’ll gladly forge on.
Ah, don’t scorn the pleasures of the table!

Body suits mind; the heart, the gut rounds out.

I do tend to find game delectable,
Thrush with sea grapes or cornered venison,
But I can also happily feast upon
Ham omelets, a treat indisputable.

When the belly is full, the heart is stout.

Thus, I’ll be vanquisher of all my doubt
(save, of course, a crisis that’s hepatic).
Plus, I’m not much good playing the Boy Scout,
I can’t seem to refuse a pint of stout,
Which helps develop my zygomatic. 

 

V.

I wish a poem were a passing humor,
No motive, no greed, a simple gesture,
The blithest dream of a young wood sleeping.

Yes, but even still: threshold, door, passage.

What silently joins magnet and filing,
A bite to the heart with its brown blister,
The pale glance of my prettiest reader
When she runs, at night, to meet her darling.

It’s just as I say: threshold, door, passage.

To life, death, an eye that’s not often sage, 
Horizon split by the sower’s labor,
Concealed kiss planted within your cleavage,
Ear inclined to the eternal message
And the dark silence of private clamor.

 

Ultimate

The last-born finishes this progression
Of lean, commoner versification
That would seek, sans éclat, to animate.

For I don’t have much taste for eloquence.

Sonnets “sans éclat”? Near apostolate.
Victory by singing, war clarion  
If I’d a shred of bold disposition 
Or a knack for throwing around my weight

Not to mention a yen for eloquence.

There’s no question. I don’t have the patience
To play Samson in Temple Parnassus.
Nor arms nor fitness nor impertinence.  
As one goes on, it’s of no consequence,
Like a morning breeze and like a chorus. 

7 Sonnets irrationnels

Mélancolique

Je vais donc retrouver mes anciens horizons,
Cette odeur pas perdue des vents et des maisons.
J’ai l’air d’abandonner, mais n’ayez nulle crainte :

Si je quitte Paris, c’est pour le mieux aimer.

On incline à brusquer une banale étreinte.
Mais que vaut cet orgueil qui n’est plus de saison ?
Allez donc réunir le cœur et les raisons.
La ville, en souriant, laisse sa rude empreinte :

Si je quitte Paris, c’est pour vous mieux aimer.

Vous mieux aimer, je ne pouvais y croire, mais
Je vois bien qu’aujourd’hui le présent nous emporte.
Il me faut, pour vous voir, m’éloigner quelque peu
J’enferme mes regrets, puisque cela se peut,
Après avoir glissé ma clé sous votre porte.

 

Treizième

Poète, un jour ou l’autre, il faut, ne t’en déplaise,
Écrire le poème numéroté treize,
Avec la grande peur de voir le ciel s’ouvrir.

Je ne suis pas superstitieux, mais tout de même.

Le nombre treize, en d’autres temps, a fait périr
Les bergers de Sumer, ceux de Péloponnèse,
Les soldats de l’An II et la marine anglaise !
Du moins, ce sont des bruits que l’on a fait courir.

Pour moi, je n’en crois rien, non-non, mais tout de même

Je préfère ne pas hasarder de blasphème.
Si la libre pensée a pour moi des appas,
Je me méfie beaucoup des jeteurs d’anathème,
Et le treizième vers du treizième poème
Doit avoir des vertus que je ne connais pas.

 

Nostalgie

Je ne hanterai plus les graves officines
Où mes amis, tout doucement, prennent racines,
Racines que j’envie sous mes airs fanfarons,

Car, au-delà de tout, j’aime l’odeur des livres.

Si j’ai troqué la plume pour les mancherons
(C’est façon de parler, poétique et vaccine),
Si j’ai, dis-je, choisi les champs et les fascines,
Je n’ai pas renié mon sang d’écriveron :

Toujours, par-dessus tout, j’aime l’odeur des livres.

Ah, connaître à nouveau ce monde qui m’enivre !
Retrouver, chaque jour, mes cousins correcteurs !
Renifler le parfum froid des clichés de cuivre !
Revivre, enfin, la vie qui déjà m’a fait vivre,
Et, parbleu ! débarquer comme un triomphateur !

 

Modeste

Parfois, mes amis boudent, me font grise mine
Et me tournent le dos. Pour lors, je m’examine.
Par exemple, je crois qu’on me dit prétentieux.

Non vraiment, blague à part : je n’ai pas l’air modeste ?

Prétentieux ! Pas de reproche plus fallacieux !
Je ne juge jamais, ne tranche ou n’incrimine !
Sur les autres, jamais mon avis ne domine !
(Pourtant, presque toujours, c’est le plus judicieux.)

Objectivement, moi, je me trouve modeste.

Bien plus : considérez tel autre qui proteste
Et qui, probablement, se voit plus-que-parfait.
Écoutez-le parler ; sans cesse il admoneste,
Conseille, contredit, exhorte, manifeste !
Et c’est moi qu’on vient accuser de ce forfait ?

 

Gastronome

Je ne suis pas gourmand, mais j’avoue que, parfois,
Devant un mets choisi, volontiers je m’assois.
Ah, ne méprisez pas les plaisirs de la table !

Si le corps vaut l’esprit, le ventre vaut le cœur.

J’ai tendance à trouver le gibier délectable,
Grive aux raisins de mer, ou bien biche aux abois,
Mais je puis aussi bien hisser sur le pavois
L’omelette au jambon, délice incontestable.

Quand l’estomac est plein, on a du ventre au cœur.

Ainsi, de mes soucis, je serai le vainqueur
(Hormis, bien entendu, de ma crise hépatique).
D’autant plus qu’étranger au style enfant-de-chœur, 
Je ne refuse pas un verre de liqueur,
Ce qui me développe le zygomatique.

 

V

J’aimerais qu’un poème soit comme un caprice,
Un geste simple, sans calcul, sans avarice,
Le réveil nonchalant d’un jeune bois dormant.

Oui, mais encore : un seuil, une porte, un passage.

Ce qui unit sans bruit la limaille et l’aimant,
D’une morsure au cœur la brune cicatrice,
Le regard pâle de ma plus jolie lectrice
Quand elle court, le soir, retrouver son amant.

C’est bien ce que je dis : une porte, un passage.

A la vie, à la mort, un œil pas toujours sage,
L’horizon brisé par le geste du semeur,
Un baiser dérobé au creux de ton corsage,
Une oreille dressée vers l’éternel message
Et le silence obscur d’une intime clameur.

 

Ultime

Avec le dernier-né, s’achève la carrière
De cette poésie gracile et roturière
Qui tente d’animer des sonnets sans éclat.

Car je n’ai pas beaucoup de goût pour l’éloquence.

« Sans éclat », ce serait presque un apostolat,
La victoire en chantant, la trompette guerrière,
Si j’avais un petit la fibre aventurière,
Et quelques dons physiques pour le pugilat,

Sans compter un revenez-y pour l’éloquence.

Il n’en est pas question. Je n’ai pas la patience
Au temple parnassien de jouet les Samson,
Ni les bras, ni le poil, ni-ni l’impertinence.
Au demeurant, tout ça se veut sans conséquence,
Comme un vent du matin et comme une chanson.

Read Next

february-2009-the-graphic-world-part-iii-worth-ten-thousand-words-waltz-with-bashir-ari-folman-hero