The years passed by. The storms died down. The world went its way. I suffered to think it was your heart which no longer perceived me. I loved you. In my absence of visage and my emptiness of joy. I loved you, changing in every way, faithful to you. — René Char, from “Annals,” Selected… Continue reading René Char
I saw you I saw you in the distance in front of the wall I saw the hole of your shadow on the wall There was still some sand left And your bare feet Your footprints that went on and on How would I have known you The… Continue reading Pierre Reverdy
And if it were true, we do not think all philosophy is worth one hour of pain. ― Blaise Pascal, Pensées. (Penguin Classics, July 27th 1995) Originally published 1670.
I know your heart, that crowded solitude where old uprooted loves are crammed into a roaring forge: — Charles Baudelaire, from “Sad Madrigal,” Fleurs du mal / Flowers of Evil. (Published by Auguste Poulet-Malassis 1857)
Does your heart still throb at my very name? Do you still see my soul in your dreams? — Paul Verlaine, from “Sentimental Dialogue,” One Hundred and One Poems. tr. by Muriel Kittel. (University of Chicago Press; 1 edition, November 1, 2000)
Love loves to return, to bring back to the origin, to begin loving from the first instant, love wants to love everything, — Hélène Cixous, from “Poetry, Passion and History,” Rootprints: Memory and Life Writing. (1st edition, June 27, 1997)
I am in love, that’s enough: I feel generous, holy, human, trembling, — Jules Laforgue, “Thunderbolt,” trans. by William Jay Smith, Poems of Jules Laforgue. (Carcanet Press Ltd.; Revised edition, June 1, 2004) Originally published September 28th 1986.
