Max Jacob

Rain 

Mr. Yousouf forgot his umbrella
Mr. Yousouf lost his umbrella
Madame Yousouf, someone stole her umbrella
There was an ivory handle on her umbrella
What stuck in my eye was the end of an umbrella
Somewhere, haven’t I left my umbrella
Didn’t I leave my umbrella
Last night in your umbrella-stand?
I shall have to buy myself an umbrella
I never really use an umbrella
I have a duster with a hood for the rain
Mr. Yousouf you are lucky to dispense with                 

                                                    translation by Elizabeth Bishop

Max Jacob

Rain

                            translated by Elizabeth Bishop

IS2018

Mr. Yousouf forgot his umbrella
Mr. Yousouf lost his umbrella
Madame Yousouf, someone stole her umbrella
There was an ivory handle on her umbrella
What stuck in my eye was the end of an umbrella
Somewhere, haven’t I left my umbrella
Didn’t I leave my umbrella
Last night in your umbrella-stand?
I shall have to buy myself an umbrella
I never really use an umbrella
I have a duster with a hood for the rain
Mr. Yousouf you are lucky to dispense with 

Max Jacob

Ravignan Street“One never bathes twice in the same stream,” the philosopher Heraclitus used to say. However, the same people always turn up again! They go by, at the same time, gay or sad. You, passers-by in Ravignan Street, I have given you the names of Historical Defuncts! Here’s Agamemnon! Here’s Madame Hanska! Ulysses is a milkman! Patrocles is at the foot of the street while a Pharaoh is near me. Castor and Pollux are the ladies on the sixth floor. But you, old rag-picker, you who, in the enchanted morning, come to get the garbage, the garbage which is still fresh when I put out my nice big lamp, you whom I do not know, poor and mysterious rag-picker, you, rag-picker, I have named you a noble and celebrated name. I have named you Dostoyevsky.

                                                                               translated by Elizabeth Bishop

Max Jacob

 

                                    par Amadeo Modigliani (1911)

Poem of the Moon

There are on the night sky three mushrooms, which are the moon. As abruptly as sings the cuckoo from a clock, they rearrange themselves each month at midnight. There are in the garden some rare flowers which are little men at rest that wake up every morning. There is in my dark room a luminous shuttle that roves, then two … phosphorescent aerostats, they’re the reflections of a

Max Jacob

The beggar woman of naples

When I lived in Naples there was always a beggar woman at the gate of my palace, to whom I would toss some coins before climbing into my carriage. One day, surprised at never being thanked, I looked at the beggar woman. Now, as I looked at her, I saw that what I had taken for a beggar woman was a wooden case painted green which contained some red earth and a few half-rotten bananas …

***

Happy bananas!

Jose

                                        translated by

Max Jacob

The Concarneau Regattas

Drowning people don’t always sink to the bottom. It is even enough for someone struggling in the water to remember that he knew how to swim and then he sees his trousers flap around like the legs of a jumping jack. That’s what happened to me at the Concarneau regattas. I was perfectly calm before sinking, or well those elegant people in their skiffs passing by will notice my efforts or well…in short, a certain optimism. The shore so close! With life-sized Israelite individuals of the most gracious sort. What surprised me in getting out of the water was that I was hardly damp, and that people looked at me not as a poodle, but as a man.

            translated by Sophia Lecker