It's 4 in the morning
I get up fully dressed
In my hand a little bar of soap
Someone I love sent me
I go to wash up
I emerge from the hole we sleep in
I feel terrific
And happy to be able to wash up for the first time in three days
Then all clean I go get a shave
After that I blend in sky-blue with my blue uniform until night falls and it's a very sweet pleasure
To say no more about anything I do it's an invisible being doing it
All buttoned up and all blue now blended into the sky I disappear
By Guillaume Apollinaire, translated by Ron Pagett
5 comments:
Is this about work?
I think Appolinaire was a soldier in the first world war, hence the blue uniform.
...although we didn't know this at first, and figured out the weird soldier-ness of it only after talking about it for a while, and then google-ing apollinaire.
at first anita just liked it for the language of it, which is quite engaging.
we're trying to find this in french right now, without luck.
word verif: neterrie-- b/c in the morning, with his bar of soap, il a fait son neterrie.
frick this is an awesome poem/translation.
i read it in adbusters. i read that sometimes for fun.
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