backward, tears

In celebration of the month of May, I'm including this translation of "I'm so wild about your strawberry mouth," a ballad by Francois Villon which I first heard read by the late German actor/eccentric Klaus Kinsky. For at least part of his life, Kinksy was obsessed with Villon, a 15th-century French poet, outlaw and vagabond who wrote this poem about his ex-girlfriend, Isebeau. I couldn't find an English version, but I had a CD and transcription of Kinski reading it in German, so I took the liberty of translating it tonight. The line breaks and forms of address (i.e. repetition of "you") are modeled after Kinski's reading, which is full of ecstatic shouts, quavering pauses and reverent whispers. I wish I had the means to include it here. I also recorded a 12-minute electric guitar anthem last month borrowing from this poem's title, imagery and energy, but I'll leave that off the Internet for now.

The above illustration was inspired by a line of Paul Celan's that means "a tear rolls back in its eye." I had it in my head for a while without remembering where it came from, and I decided to draw it to look like weepy faces going through the last stage of an automatic car wash, the part where heat fans lift the moisture up the windshield.

For now, here's Villon's ballad, one of my first efforts to interpret/translate a classic.

You
You
I'm so wild about your strawberry mouth
I've torn my lungs from shouting
after your white body,
you woman.
In the clover, May built a bed,
there bloomed a sweet passing-of-time
with your love the long night.
I long to be there in the deep valley.
Your night prayer and your star-husband.

In deep strawberry valley, in black hair
I slept several summers there
but never slept enough all the same
come,
come here
I know a lovely game
in the deep valley, in mussel-earth
oh, you
you
I'm so wild about your strawberry mouth

The gray world brings joy no more
I gave my sweetest summers there
and it has also brought you no happiness;
not really, only your red mouth
has been spared
for me, for me
for me kept so deep in your hair
I searched the long nights
in winter valley, in ashen earth
I'm so wild about your strawberry mouth

In winter valley, in black strawberry cabbage,
the snowfall built a nest there
and did not ask where love was.
I had ridden that red beast so deep
when I slept with you
Oh, if only the winter were through
and the meadows green again!
oh you,
you
I'm so wild about your strawberry mouth

-Francois Villon