back to Guillaume Apollinaire

“Palace” by Guillaume Apollinaire 🇫🇷 (26 Aug 1880 – 9 Nov 1918)
Translated from the French by Donald Revell
In deepest dream towards Rosemonde’s palace
My barefoot brain inclined for the evening
Like a naked king the walls are waking
Beaten flesh and fresh-cut roses
​
You can see my thoughts immersed in roses
Smiling at the concert of the toads
They are in the mood for cypress bedposts
The sun is a broken mirror of the rose
​
What badly wounded bowman opened
Stigmata of palms on the windowpane
At the white lamb’s love-feast I have tasted
Resins that bitter the Cyprian wine
​
On the jagged lap of the lascivious king
In the May-time of her age and finest frock
Mysterious Madame Rosemonde rolls
Her little round eyes like a Hun
​
Lady of my thoughts your pearly asshole
Is unrivalled by anything Oriental
For whom are you waiting
Deepest dreams en route to the Orient
Are my loveliest neighbors
​
Knock knock Come into the forecourt night is coming
In shadow the night-light is toasted tinsel
Hang your heads by the hair on the hat-rack
The evening sky is aglimmer with pins
​
We entered the dining room our noses
Caught a whiff of grease and mucus
Of twenty soup bowls three were urine
The king ate two poached eggs in bouillon
​
And then the scullions brought in the meat dishes
A standing roast of thoughts deceased in my brain
My lovely still-born dreams in slices still bloody
And gamy little meatballs of memory
​
Dead for millennia now these thoughts
Had a flavorless taste of frozen mammoth
Bones or visionaries danced out of ossuaries
The dance of death in the folds of my brain
​
And all those meats pronounced revelations
But Holy Christ!
A famished belly has no hearing
The guests continued their best mastications
​
Ah Holy Christ! cried out the rib-eyes
The huge pâtés the marrow and hot-pots
Tongues of fire o where is the pentecost
Of my thoughts for all places nations and times