the infection you cured with what
a little coarse salt
the whole tube thrown into the water
he says that no it just happened
just through crying and waiting
stretched out there without waiting for anything
not from life really or from anything
the women especially who always
had wounded or betrayed
To start with his mother whom he hadn’t known Had left him on the ground
one summer evening Not far from a passenger station One would think it
was a bad novel from the last century Shared cruelties Memories screens
Bonus: a still dragon Placed in the center of the image While under the
mountain of clouds Orange sun with almost green reflections
I no longer keep a journal
I no longer draw
what is happening
without a single word
he says now
my slumber is deep
it’s the sleep of a bird who knows
the forest its turmoils not a breath
between the trees but everywhere in the air
some bits of slogans
and you why do you never respond
to the real questions
we might think that’s a dog barking
a car passes one of them remembers
others move a plate
The little artichokes in a glass jar As if they were
flowers That could be charming Living completely displaced
Delicious although also distressing She knitted her hat She says
she repeats At the end of the act she is slapped It’s written in
the stage directions
Everyone has to slap her Before jumping out the window
Mephisto combines all the characters at once
Snow White rots on her feet
she is mushroom but it’s the apple
which sticks, poisonous
in the deceased’s throat
the children’s slipper found after
the accident he says I kept it I could not
throw it out I am sure that the child is dead
how to show what’s off-screen in the poem
when going becomes necessary
to work the voice place it each
evening each time you open your notebook
sun or lamp middle of the day
early morning double choir
of the birds from the other side of the lake
In a Sade play A tiger metamorphoses into a young man
Very pretty young man Whom the marquis names Lili A cream-
colored gauze cravat, very voluptuously tied A little lace ruffle
For the marquis, iris powder Elderflower eyedrops Chervil
poultice Foot baths Application of leeches
It’s not a girl
more like a panther
it’s a boy
who has a girl’s name
you have to proceed to a test
at times the remark is analogous
to the reasons
I no longer entertain myself
I no longer
keep myself company
even cutting my toenails
becomes difficult
Some evenings The critic like her sister Must define the impossibility
of the theory of reflection It’s he who gets the inertia moving Making clear
that technical agility doesn’t have to hide itself Beneath a clumsy exterior
At the indicated time The shadows detach from the bodies
we can note the numerous accommodations
for violence
hunger misery death seem
always necessary to the proper functioning
of the State
we work on it it’s obvious
open the door let
in the ghosts
here intervenes
the legend which includes
all the photographs
the decomposition process
of our existences
they say they don’t give a damn
it calms
like a glass of water
in five columns and without indent
The story of the stags in the forest Bury under real branches What
is the meaning of this apparition Saying at night I make piles of logs I dream
that I pile up logs It requires incessant attention An
attention, incessant Don’t go thinking it’s funny Each morning
I wake up Exhausted
Faust’s destiny embodies the destiny
of the bourgeoisie the horror of that class
those we have the right to kill
and those we don’t have the right to kill
in Shakespeare already
we find all our everyday
make it so that
some are killable
Do you eat horse Some birds Your power of existing is it
strong enough And your wife Have you sufficiently penetrated her Is
she satisfied
but what’s it about
He says he’ll come back when everything is finished That nothing will be possible
anymore Since it’s the poet who surveys The spiritual door
opening onto the Third Reich While far away the night begins to
fall Violent Wild
a submission
impassioned by the object that occupies it
when one of the victims recalls
that to realize is to vomit one by one
the anachronistic pages
to realize the whiteness of the cod
to be pragmatic then see what happens
like Molloy calculating the average
time of his farts
to act she says “I want to act”
everything turning liquid means
that everything happens
to liquefy someone means
also to kill the person
the dislocation of the world
the true subject of art
We will no longer go to the wood I should learn to be quiet The day is sad
because the departure lasts The territories are clearly drawn Dream
machinery Facing interactive consensual abjection A concept
that does everything As was said about maids Room under the roofs
With neither water nor electricity If the service is too long You will
wear diapers We will deduct them from your salaries
the communal body
it’ll get cold again
she says mayonnaise
rather than fresh butter
repeating in love I am a little colossus
tracking the ambiguous rhyme lower down
dampness of brain the same and the opposite
a concept of the lake
added to that of the crack
random identity of the sirens
LZ great predator
disorientation in scales
one and the same fishbone
LN displaced functions at a loss
a germinative conception of letters
“paean to place”
a poetics of the cannery
Sweet life my love Have you ever tasted this delicacy The marrow
of the bone And don’t be afraid of spilling wine on the cabbage I saw a star
whistle before falling Under a proper name a common name Something
backlit Lost in the grass She says I learn to condense
No layoff from this condensery
the words auto-braided each night
hair white that’s to say dead
“exception made unless”
seven years the same dress
torment infested with
shadows
taking books and chrysanthemums
the question of form in language
how to live it while making it
fusion and confusion
the virus is an information
logic of transparency
she says a nation without State
it’s possible look at the Roma
transnational minority spread
across territories of many States
tsigane gypsy that means
Un-Touched
here is a white
missing a page
without a doubt torn off
the next day
he says he won’t come back
We don’t need words They bury them alive up to the neck
Then they smash their skulls with spades This additional
act is called The flower Psychic close-up A partial visual object
the sun swam in a sauce
red not a breath
in case of catastrophic emergency
everything will be eaten cold
he says the retina is too hard you
have to displace the lens
incise your arm Faust
show a little courage
I hear the sky which moves
damned be the one who flies
the meat of its holiness
the only winning gesture is not to play
Don’t leave us Keep your hand in mine Do you remember
how much we have suffered Since they separated us one from another
These times are not so far To find the pure event
of the image Its living currency It would be so difficult Bite into
a body as raw as a turnip you would dare
that they come in a profound silence
and then they leave
let’s stay here or there
the place doesn’t matter
when the evening falls the heart
tightens a point set lower down
and that a finger enters
from Love is Colder Than the Lake
Liliane Giraudon
translated from the French by Sarah Riggs and Lindsay Turner
Liliane Giraudon was born in 1946 and lives in Marseille. Situated between prose and poetry, her feminist, experimental writing traverses genres, modes, and media. In addition to writing for film, television serials, theatre, and radio, Giraudon practices what she calls “écriredessiner” (literally, “to write-draw”), producing pamphlets and art books as well. Most of Giraudon’s work has been published by France’s Éditions P.O.L., including L’amour est plus froid que le lac (Love is Colder Than the Lake, 2016).
Sarah Riggs is a poet and filmmaker. She was born in New York, where she is now based after having spent over a decade in Paris. She is the author of books of poetry in English, including The Nerve Epistle (forthcoming with Roof Books, fall 2021), Eavesdrop (Chax, 2020), Waterwork (Chax, 2007), Chain of Minuscule Decisions in the Form of a Feeling (Reality Street, 2007), Sixty Textos (Ugly Duckling, 2010), Autobiography of Envelopes (Burning Deck, 2012), and Pomme & Granite (1913 Press, 2015), which won a 1913 Poetry Prize. She has translated six books of contemporary French poetry into English, including, most recently, Etel Adnan’s TIME (Nightboat Books, 2019), which won the Griffin International Poetry Prize and the Best Translated Book Award in 2020. She is the director of the international arts organization Tamaas, which focuses on earth arts justice and film, and runs an annual poetry translation seminar. Visit her website here.
Lindsay Turner is a poet and translator. Her first book of poems, Songs & Ballads, was published in 2018 by Prelude Books. Her translations of contemporary Francophone poetry and philosophy include Frédéric Neyrat’s Atopias (with Walt Hunter, Fordham University Press, 2017), as well as Ryoko Sekiguchi’s adagio ma non troppo (Les Figues, 2018) and Stéphane Bouquet’s The Next Loves (Nightboat, 2019). She teaches English and creative writing at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina.
