A window open
fertile
mysterious
but what we see
by candlelight (delights?) what can we see derrière une vitre deep in that dark luminous hole (trou noir ou lumineux.) [We have to assume here that window = l’hymen].
This is where we find life. [Which sounds horribly awkward in English.]
Better to rewrite Baudelaire:
The body only exists in the dark.
The body only exists in the dark.
This is a problem of illumination.
The body illuminated/illuminates desire. [We can’t escape this.]
The body illuminated/illuminates desire. [We can’t escape this.]
[The poem is a sound test] [A deconstruction of the idea of sight as that which allows us to map the boundaries of the other.] And all that leaks through.
You can almost hear the sexual machinery humming.
[Clearly, what he is really asking is, How does language create the body. Or is the body a creation of language.]
Across the waves of roofs a woman
Out of her face (avec son visage, [ ] avec presque rien) out of almost nothing
I create her. She is there. Or [he asks] does she only exist within him.
I create her. She is there. Or [he asks] does she only exist within him.
Maybe a woman is always a half-finished sentence.
I could go on, but I think at this point it’s easier to say that what Baudelaire really wants is to swallow her whole.
More from Ann Pedone:
