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From: The Ink’s Path by Bernard Noël. Translated by Eléna Rivera

7.1

and now look at who is looking at you through these images
there is something in your eyes that came from their dying powder
at the same time as your memory groped picking up imprints
what has become of thoughts if nothing is left of the faces
everything goes up in smoke pushing our old phantoms in air
why does it feel that a frame would suffice to fix the specter
perhaps its our vision that deposited some scraps of dust
we place the word oblivion on top in fact it’s a dump
where we throw names to then serve as bait for a handful of forms
will we make memories or the beginnings of a fiction
the power of metamorphosis is the flip side of time
one gives each their chance and the other devours them just as fast
what can lifespan of one do against lifespan of all
time then is but a raining of sawdust throughout the body
its flour obscures the country of language and the one of sight
gestures pass between which make us dream of a nearby presence
more spectacle some pretense never the hoped-for being

Eléna Rivera is a poet & translator, born in Mexico City and spent her formative years in Paris. She won the 2010 Robert Fagles prize for her translation of Bernard Noël’s The Rest of the Voyage (Graywolf Press, 2011) and is a recipient of a NEA Fellowship in Translation. She also translated Isabelle Garron’s Body Was (Litmus Press, 2022) and Isabelle Baladine Howald’s book, Phantomb (Black Square Editions, 2022). She has received fellowships from the Djerassi Foundation, the Witter Bynner Poetry Translator Residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute, and MacDowell. THE CCAWINGG OF CROWS is forthcoming from Litmus Press.

Bernard Noël (1930–2021) was a French poet, novelist, essayist, and art critic. He received the Grand Prix national de la poésie (National Grand Prize of Poetry) in 1992, the Prix Robert Ganzo (Robert Ganzo Prize) in 2010, as well as the Grand prix de poésie from the Académie Française for his entire poetic work in 2016. He is the author of numerous books of including: La Chute des temps and Extraits du corps from Poésie/Gallimard and Le Reste du voyage: Et Autres Poèmes from Points/poésie Seuil.

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx