Laure Cambau

Apr 9, 2021 | Poetry

Translated from the French by Anne-Marie Glasheen
The Taste of Void

I took sleep from your pocket,
tattooed on your bone was a flower
red proffered
I put away your entrails
left drying with curls and shoes
by ear
I took the temperature of ecstasy
and on your blue lip
tested the taste of the void,
my breath suits you so well

*

Mothers leave fathers fade away
dismembered by the absent one
and children dream in a circle
of a mother clothed in light
fathers fade away
mothers leave
mothers carry little ones already old
old ones too little
and wild men
collected at the side of the road
that leads straight to the sun

*

There is simply an urgency
to leave the body,
by the chimney or the mouth,
the ears are for the spleen,
and the nostrils look out onto the void,
there is simply an urgency
to find the emergency wound

*

What will remain of me?
Some sand in your thoughts
a few fingers on your sex
and some small bones under your pillow

__

Laure Cambau

Laure Cambau

Laure Cambau lives in Paris. She is a poet and a pianist, as well as an author of stories for children and of song lyrics.
In her constant balance between the “fertility of sound” and “the magic reality of words” (D.H.Lawrence) she claims her right to strangeness. She has published nine collections of poetry and has been granted the Poncetton award by the Société des Gens de Lettres for Lettres au voyou céleste (Amandier, 2010). She also received Venus Koury-Ghata award in 2018. Her latest collection Grand Motel du Biotope was published in 2021 by Apic (Algiers).

 

Anne-Marie Glasheen

Anne-Marie Glasheen

Anne-Marie Glasheen, poet, photographer and translator, with an English mother and Belgian father, spent her early childhood in Belgium. A past Chair of the Translators Association, Glasheen has translated fiction, non-fiction, plays, poetry and art history books. Her translated plays have been performed at the Edinburgh and Brighton festivals, in London, the USA and Northern Ireland. In 1998, she was the recipient of the Belgian francophone prize for translation. Her poetry has been published in poetry journals in Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the UK and USA and her first collection appeared with Bradshaw Books in 2008.

Browse More

Empowering African Voices Online: The Impact of WikiAfrica Education

Written by Dina Rosa Agyemang Did you know that Wikipedia, the world's most popular online encyclopedia, has more information about the city of Paris than about all 55 African countries combined? Africa is a continent rich in resources and technological know-how, yet...

Three Poems by Andrea De Alberti

Translated from the Italian by Jessica Harkins

High Tide by Sanjeev

Translated from the Hindi by Varsha Tiwary

Two Poems by Manishankar

Translated from the Bangla by Soma Roy and Kamalika Mitra

Three Poems by Andrea De Alberti

Translated from the Italian by Jessica Harkins

Al-Baqa Café, Gaza by Francis Kurkievicz

Translated from the Spanish by Francis Kurkievicz

Two Poems by Nirmala Putul

Translated from the Hindi by Pooja Sancheti

Two Poems by Marisela Capriles Vergara

Translated from the Spanish by James Richie

Bitemarks by Shyamkrishnan R

Translated from the Malayalam by Ananthu Sunil

A Daughter’s Echo — Kiran Prasad Rajanahally

TRANSLATED FROM KANNADA BY SAHANA PRASAD     “There is a saying in the tale of Sankhyaayana, my dear daughter, that… when the impermanent body perishes, the soul remains unaffected! This has been beautifully conveyed in the rhythm of association. Rhythm here...