Poems by Paul Eluard

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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The Absence

I speak to you across cities

I speak to you across plains

My mouth is upon your pillow

Both faces of the walls come meeting

My voice discovering you

I speak to you of eternity

O cities memories of cities

Cities wrapped in our desires

179

Paul Eluard

Barely Disfigured

Adieu Tristesse

Bonjour Tristesse

Farewell Sadness

Hello Sadness

You are inscribed in the lines on the ceiling

You are inscribed in the eyes that I love

You are not poverty absolutely

Since the poorest of lips denounce you

187

Paul Eluard

La Terre Est Bleue

La terre est bleue comme une orange

Jamais une erreur les mots ne mentent pas

Ils ne vous donnent plus à chanter

Au tour des baisers de s'entendre

Les fous et les amours

Elle sa bouche d'alliance

Tous les secrets tous les sourires

Et quels vêtements d'indulgence

194

Paul Eluard

Hunted

A few grains of dust more or less

On ancient shoulders

Locks of weakness on weary foreheads

This theatre of honey and faded roses

Where incalcuable flies

Reply to the black signs that misery makes to them

Despairing girders of a bridge

Thrown across space

Paul Eluard

Easy

Easy and beautiful under

your eyelids

As the meeting of pleasure

Dance and the rest

I spoke the fever

The best reason for fire

148

Paul Eluard

Absence

I speak to you over cities

I speak to you over plains

My mouth is against your ear

The two sides of the walls face

my voice which acknowledges you.

I speak to you of eternity.

O cities memories of cities

cities draped with our desires

133

Paul Eluard

Talking Of Power And Love

Between all my torments between death and self

Between my despair and the reason for living

There is injustice and this evil of men

That I cannot accept there is my anger

There are the blood-coloured fighters of Spain

There are the sky-coloured fighters of Greece

The bread the blood the sky and the right to hope

For all the innocents who hate evil

160

Paul Eluard

Obsession

After years of wisdom

During which the world was transparent as a needle

Was it cooing about something else?

After having vied with returned favours squandered treasure

More than a red lip with a red tip

And more than a white leg with a white foot

Where then do we think we are?

119

Paul Eluard

The Deaf And Blind

Do we reach the sea with clocks

In our pockets, with the noise of the sea

In the sea, or are we the carriers

Of a purer and more silent water?

The water rubbing against our hands sharpens knives.

The warriors have found their weapons in the waves

And the sound of their blows is like

The rocks that smash the boats at night.

158

Paul Eluard

The Human Face

I. Soon

Of all the springtimes of the world

This one is the ugliest

Of all of my ways of being

To be trusting is the best

Grass pushes up snow

Like the stone of a tomb

140

Paul Eluard

Open Door

Life is truly kind

Come to me, if I go to you it’s a game,

The angels of bouquets grant the flowers a change of hue.

136

Paul Eluard

Other Children

"Little child of my five senses

and of my tenderness."

Let us cradle our loves,

We will have good children.

Well cared for,

We will fear nothing on earth,

Happiness, good fortune, prudence,

Our loves

160

Paul Eluard