Serge Pey: Three Poems in English from "Why I Crush Tomatoes"

Translated from French by Yasser Elhariry 

[My first memory of Serge Pey was in Paris, sometime in the early 1980s, when he woke us up in the apartment off Saint Germain that my wife & I were then borrowing.  Our son had arrived a few hours before, traveling with a couple of friends across Europe & walking halfway across Paris on the morning of a Metro strike.  The three of them were sacked out on the floor, across the room from us, but didn’t hear Serge’s heavy knocking on the door.  We did & when we opened up for him he moved in quickly, holding with both hands a large, hollow, brightly painted rain stick, filled with beans or pebbles, which when upended made a gentle swooshing sound like rain or falling water.  He told us he had come to serenade us – Aztec style – & walked out to the center of the rather large room, where the ritual began.  Those were still the years when nothing could surprise us, so we sat up on our bed & listened, somewhere between sleep & waking.  His performance, which we recognized as “his performance,” went on for 10 or 15 minutes, during which time one or other of the young men on our floor would open up his eyes from time to time & then fall back to sleep.  At one point too the live-in maid walked past him on her way into the kitchen but seemed to take no notice, & Serge, when his ritual work was over, embraced us both & left as peacefully & caringly as he had entered.

               I have seen & heard him many times since then & have come to recognize him as one of our most inventive & energized performers of a new & constantly evolving poetry.  In addition to his performances (often still with sticks and rain sticks) he is the author of nearly sixty volumes of written poetry & was the editor for many years of Émeute and Tribu as two principal magazines of the European & world avant-garde.  The title poem of his new work Why I Crush Tomatoes, translated into English by Yasser Elhariry, is a masterpiece of poetry & poetics, but its 758 numbered sections are too long to publish here.  The following three shorter poems will hopefully be enough to give a hint or taste of his ongoing sense & sensibility. (J.R.)] 

Imbecile 

When I speak

of your poems

to an imbecile

it’s as

if I were pissing

against the wind
wanting the
wind
to change direction

Imbeciles are

truly numerous
on earth
Surely more
numerous
than the poems
that you write

An imbecile doesn’t

wear a watch
but chooses
the hour
we speak of you

An imbecile

may divide your hope
by zero

An imbecile may

make
onions cry
when he speaks
of his suicide
while affirming
that we’re assassinating him

An imbecile

feigns ignoring
the truth by rigging
a photograph of
poetry

For an imbecile

a thousand examples
are pointless
and a single lie
proves all

An imbecile may say

that a monster
recruits thousands
of angels
for his army

An imbecile may

declare
that this text
is no poem

When the toast

of a poet falls
the imbecile believes
the jam
changes sides
some where
in an other poem
or world

When the world falls

the imbecile knows
not 

We Have A Flag 

We have a flag

that we see and a flag

that we do not see

We have flag

with no flag

of all flags

We have a flag

like a kerchief

to vomit our blood and our skin

We have a flag that couches

a skeleton

dismantled of its own bones

We have a flag that undresses

all flags

Our flag is a sandal

Our flag is a piece of foot
 

We have a flag

A piece of serge

We have a flag

We have a hand

We have a skin

We have a flag made

with an eye and a bird

We have a flag with no flag

We have a flag

that does not love flags

We have a flag on fire that

burns all flags

We have a piece of wood

We have a piece of skin

We have a flag with no flag

amidst a million flags

We have a flag with no flag

among a single flag

We have no flag

We have a flag with no flag

  in our own flag 

Time for Assassins 

When a poem

cannot even
save death
it’s time for assassins

Death is dead

We no longer find it
in the tombs
upturned
of the bistros

Some

dedicate themselves to
find
it by dying twice
and confuse
this effort with
resurrection

The café is dead

The table is dead
The bread is dead
The telefilm of the dead
applauds other
dead
who run behind
balls

We know it

the dead vote
for the dead

When death has had enough

of death
we must console it
by giving it sugar
black
like to a dog

We bark

By living
we only find
the dead who
no longer attend
us & that’s what we call
death

The tombs are

cradles
constructed by babies
in cement

Our only way of being

is killing
It’s time for
assassins
The unique virtue of
man
is that he knows that a
sack
doesn’t stand up straight
when empty