POEM | TRISTRAN TZARA

A poem by one of my favourite poets for another of my favourite poets.


Tristran Tzara was a Romanian/French avante garde poet, essayist, performance artist, journalist and filmmaker and a central figure in the Dadaist movement, working on the infamous Littérature magazine. Tzara was greatly influenced by Guillaume Apollinaire (buried in the stunning Père Lachaise cemetery, Paris)Futurism, Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism movements. 

Appolliniare 
The Farewell (Alcools: L’Adieu)
I’ve gathered this sprig of heather
Autumn is dead you will remember
On earth we’ll see no more of each other
Fragrance of time sprig of heather
Remember I wait for you forever

Tzara
Vegetable Swallow
two smiles meet towards
the child-wheel of my zeal
the bloody baggage of creatures
made flesh in physical legends-lives

the nimble stags storms cloud over
rain falls under the scissors of
the dark hairdresser-furiously
swimming under the clashing arpeggios

in the machine's sap grass
grows around with sharp eyes
here the share of our caresses
dead and departed with the waves

gives itself up to the judgment of time
parted by the meridian of hairs
non strikes in our hands
the spices of human pleasures