I'm not really a poet, even if I'm interested in the possibilities and limits of language. Nor am I a qualified translator.
And so the verses that follow should probably best be thought of as idiosyncratic transformations and deformations of the original poems written by Michel Houellebecq and published in the 1996 collection, Le Sens du Combat.
I post them here only because I wish to bring greater attention to Houellebecq as a poet in the English-speaking world and in the belief that any embarrassment they might cause will be mine alone.
[Untitled]
Whenever she saw me she'd push her pelvis in my direction
And say with suggestive irony: 'It's kind of you to come ...'
I'd glance vaguely at the curve of her breasts
And then leave. My office was bare.
Last thing Friday I would bin the old files only to
Receive an identical work-load on Monday.
And I liked her very much: she was pitiful; as a piece
Of secretarial meat she had passed her use by date.
She lived somewhere or other near Cheptainville
With a red-haired child and some video tapes.
She was unaware of the rumblings of the city
And on Saturday nights she rented porn films.
She typed the mail and I liked her face:
She very much wanted to be down on her knees.
She was thirty-five or maybe fifty,
She journeyed towards death without concern for her age.
Differentiation, Rue d'Avron
Scattered across the table like droppings are all
The usual signs of life: soiled tissues, spare keys,
And elements of despair reminding me that you
Were once desirable.
Sunday shrouded the local chippy and the bars
Full of immigrants with the same stickiness.
We strolled for a while, happy, before returning home
So as not to know, preferring to stare at one another.
You stripped naked in front of the sink and
If your face lacked the taut beauty of Botox,
Still your body remained firm and seemed to
Cry: 'Look at me! I'm still in one piece -
My limbs are still attached and death hasn't yet
Closed my eyes like those of my brother.
You taught me the meaning of prayer,
Look at me, look! Fix your eyes on my flesh!'
[Untitled]
A sun-exposed soul is threatened
By coastal waves that crash and
Reawaken the dull ache of
Underlying pain.
What would we do without the sun?
Grief, nausea, suffering and all of
Life's stupidities vanish beneath it.
The blue of noon purrs with the
Bliss of physical inertia; the joy
Of death and forgetfulness as
Eyes close in sensitive sleep.
Pitiless, the sea stretches
Like a rousing animal; this
Universe has no law.
What would we do without the sun?
