Rene Guy Cadou, Frankrijk (1920 - 1951)

In de voetsporen tredend van zijn ouders & grootouders, werd Cadou onderwijzer in Bretagne (zijn geboortegrond). Tegen de tijd van zijn dood had hij al een behoorlijk poetisch oeuvre bij elkaar geschreven, dat overigens grotendeels pas in 1977 verzameld werd uitgegeven. Gedurende zijn leven verscheen onder andere :

1947 - Helene ou le monde vegetal
1950 - poemes choises

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Preface

I did not write this book. It was dictated to me month after month by a sovereign voice, and I only recorded, like one dumb, the durable echo that banged so hard on the obscure eardrum of the world. Speech was granted to me in addition, so that I might relay a few of those amazing vibrations, a few of those mysterious exchanges we sometimes intercept in the halls of distress.

The poet lives inside a prison made of streets, people, buildings, car horns, breaking dishes, open bellies, tears, rains, laughs, drunken trains. He delivers us.

I deliver you a license on the dangerous network of beauty. I only have the rights of the weakest man. I have cut in line before you at the cashier’s window.

Departing trains take us through ferocious illusions toward a stellar mountain range that weighs little in eternity’s scale.

But what good is venturing into those pathetic wings, onto that bohemian stage whose every drama we have known for a long time?

I do not conceal that these poems are coming to me from much farther away than myself and that I speak to all of you about a fleeting world, as inaccessible as a grass fire and all surrounded with evil spells.

I show you a country without possible horizon, but time and again recognizable thanks to its chief adorned with scarlet and crimson.

I impart news that concerns you directly—great news. O poetry, step away from your mirror! I speak for youths and men of all ages. I speak of what’s happening to me. I speak of a world absolved by its anger. And perhaps will you hear this voice: monochord by choice, unseated, thrown off the horse in the lane, behind this thrice-locked gate, behind this gate, behind this soul, this voice, O youths and you men of all ages, perhaps will you hear this voice knocking, wanting in, knocking, O youths, knocking just like you at the door of its destiny and singing through the crossfire.

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Want as I might I could not
Get used to horses and lilac flowers

The train that passes on the horizon is very old
Despite its very modern machinery

It is oiled and flawless like a poem
But I prefer Gaelic songs

Want as I might I could not
Leave horses and lilac flowers

The airplane is old the automobile is old
Only the melodious buzzing of a bee

Is young and equally young that old man
Whose walk is slowed by the walk of a beetle

Want as I might I could not
Get used to horses and lilac flowers

Because I am afraid that I will no longer know how to die the way men line up
Side by side for a fishing contest

I am afraid of not keeping up with my neighbors
Who drive automobiles and take trains

And die in their beds without worrying about the countryside
Where love kills like the bursting of a chestnut

Die as I might I will not be able
To leave horses and lilac flowers.

© Cadou