Eleven Haiku
I
The squalor moon,
oh, small girl, just a desperate pomegranate bench
in the mountains.
///
Almost small,
the little girl
climbed onto a bench.
///
A moitié petite,
La petite
Montée sur un banc.
II
he
sit
ant
wind
rolled
a cigarette
of
air.
///
The hesitant wind
rolls a cigarette of air.
///
Le vent
Hésitant
Roule une cigarette d’air.
III
Calendar fencing,
the toothless lewd lunar frailty
of a pink tree– my life weeping in water
///
Painted fence.
The green trees are all pink.
That’s my season.
///
Palissade peinte
Les arbres verts sont tout roses
Voilà ma saison.
IV
noses & venus bathing:
a dying nurse, melting the snow
///
Her heart melts when she sings,
she melts the snow,
the nurse of birds.
///
Le coeur à ce qu’elle chante
Elle fait fondre la neige
La nourrice des oiseaux.
V
in theory, the quiet will beg me
for insight into your
blushing landscape of paradise–
a weeping of night
///
A landscape of paradise.
No one knows that I blush
at the touch of a man, at night.
///
Paysage de paradis
Nul ne sait que je rougis
Au contact d’un homme, la nuit.
VI
this imperfect dirt
your thighs borrowing mine
///
The mute woman speaks.
It is the imperfection of art,
this obscure language.
///
La muette parle
C’est l’imperfection de l’art
Ce langage obscur.
VII
i created myself so you didnt have to.
i had to exit myself to make room for you.
street deaths breathing life into wild strawberries.
///
The automobile is truly launched.
Four martyr heads roll
beneath the wheels.
///
L’automobile est vraiment lancée
Quatre têtes de martyrs
Roulent sous les roues.
VIII
and two ends of a river are never meant to kiss
you stole
the red
from the sky
with your cheeks,
a pale, honest blue
///
Wheels of the roads,
Wheels unraveled wire by wire,
Worn out.
///
Roues des routes,
Roues fil à fil déliées,
Usées.
IX
a buddha
startles
its own
shadow
in the
sun
///
Ah! A thousand flames, a fire, the light,
a shadow!
The sun follows me.
///
Ah! mille flammes, un feu, la lumière,
Une ombre!
Le soleil me suit.
X
as you sleep I will count every hair on your head
I’ll kneel at your ancient and stunning dilemma
–are you the trumpeter
or his madness?
Are you the love of night?
Or the night in love?
///
Woman without a singer,
Black clothes, grey houses,
Love comes out at night.
///
Femme sans chanteur,
Vêtements noirs, maisons grises,
L’amour sort le soir.
XI
together i dream
of atonement
–a cigarette lost in the sea
///
A feather gives the hat
an air of lightness.
The chimney is smoking.
///
Une plume donne au chapeau
Un air de légèreté
La cheminée fume.
A Note:
These are not translations. These are transmutations. I am a student of Cid Corman, of Franz Wright, of the wind’s death. These are solely my poems, these are exclusively Eluard’s.
Kristopher Biernat 
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