Ballade des contre vérités (Ballade of the untruths)

Voulez vous que verté vous die?
Il n’est jouer qu’en maladie,
Lettre vraie que tragedie,
Lâche homme que chevalereux,
Orrible son que mélodie,
Ne bien conseillé qu’amoureux.

---

Shall I tell you the truth?
There is no joy except in sickness,
No truth except in tragedy,
No coward like a brave man,
No sound more horrible than melody,
No wisdom except that of lovers.


Villon

She Felt He

she felt he
better then the rest
and when
chiseled chest pressed to breast
paused
but brought her to the crest
and peak
as she was peaking
and speaking
words like no other
with this lover

he felt she
warmer than before
bodies moving pressed up
locked door
clothes thrown to the floor
and then
the rhythym and squeaking
ostinato in their pattern
lovely in their rest
she felt he twist tied in physical contest
that both shall win


she felt he
grow thick with resolution
to solve with solution
all the complexities that lie within
and each movement, a fire's risen
and birthed
like flame igniting and fighting
the air to breathe

he felt she
as they grew to believe
that each moment
each thrust
each physical manifestation of love and trust
grew
to illustrate all they knew
and nothing they don't know

she felt he
and he felt she
and together they bathed in the glow.


george smith

Drunk as Drunk

Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.

Pablo Neruda

end couplets from Raymond Queneau's 100,000,000,000,000 poems

#11
With marble souvenirs then fill a slum
For Europe's glory while Fate's harpies strum
--
#22
On fish-slab whale nor seal has never swum
They're kings we're mammal-cousins hi ho hum
--
#85
Though bretzels take the dols from board-room drum
Yet from the City's pie pulled out not one plum
--
#69
Poor reader smile before your lips go numb
The best of all things to an end must come
--
#75
Ventriloquists be blowed you strike me dumb
Yet from the City's pie pulled out not one plum
--
#107
Suits lisping Spanish tongues for whom say some
Soliloquies predict great things old chum
--
#37343
Do bank clerks rule their abacus by thumb?
And lessors' dates have all too short a sum
--
#2156
Where no one bothered how one warmed one's bum
A wise loaf always knows its humblest crumb