This sonnet is about the usefulness and the danger of availing oneself of literary models , who are as many "ghosts and guardian shadows showing the shortest way" to creation, but whose help may easily lead to sheer plagiarism .


Forger

Forger who venture to start a career as thief,
Be not overcome by the demon who haunts you.
No fire would inhabit the mould you strive to hew,
Nor the artificial words entwined in your speech.

Accept the assistance of your guardian shadow,
Who commands alien craft, whose help is perilous,
But whose eyes, shut, for you will fathom the darkness
And clear a secure path, the shortest one also.

A wraith - if privilege of a wraith is to know
Where life arises, and which way thither to go
And the language ravished from the breath of the dead -

A wraith - if, wherever the flesh clings to some breath,
There must needs be a shade, a lane or a chasm,
Or a handkerchief that over the stream is waved.


******************

Faussaire qui du vol oses tenter le cours,
Ne laisse triompher le démon qui t'obsède.
Le feu n'habiterait la forme qui te cède
Ni, factices, les mots qui tressent ton discours.

De l'ombre qui te veille accepte le secours.
Etrange est son savoir, périlleuse son aide,
Mais qui les yeux fermés dans la nuit te précède
T'ouvre le sentier sûr, le chemin le plus court.

Fantôme - si connaître est d'un spectre domaine
Où se lève la vie, et la route qui mène,
Et la langue ravie à l'haleine des morts -

Fantôme - si la chair où s'attache du souffle
N'était plus sûrement spectre, passage, gouffre,
Ou mouchoir agité d'un bord vers l'autre bord.




Poetry by Michel Galiana
Read 1342 times
Written on 2007-12-06 at 16:48

Tags Poetry  Individuality  Galiana 

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