from ‘ Lost Quatrains’ by Alain Bosquet

 

The edition that the Lost Quatrains (Stances Perdues) are derived from is a Dedalus (Dublin) one, from the Poetry Europe Series No.6:

Stances Perdues, Alain Bosquet, Trans, Roger Little.1999

I have published one from this edition before now on Poethead; and of course referred in brief to Anatoly Bisk (Alain Bosquet) in brief, I will add in a brief bio link at the end of this small post.

(i).

My world is simple: an armchair , a mirror,
a ceiling that comes down at my commanding,
a book where everything occurs at hope’s
margins. I’m happy sketching larks ascending.

(ii).

I’ve learnt to perish several days a week.
A simple exercise : you ask your heart
to stop awhile. You don’t feel any pain:
you simply live, arise and then depart.

(iii).

I prize the elements of which I’m made:
nitrate and quicksand, pepper there for taste.
I greet the devil and caress the rose.
When I get up, a crystal is displaced.

This is a bilingual edition with short biographies on Translator and Poet. I put in the Max Ernst print because he is quite a favourite of mine and I have used him before to show poetic/artistic collaboration in the post of Rene Crevel‘s Babylon:

Babylon : Art and Image.

 

Alain Bosquet Books.