The Transcendental Friend no. 12, 11/99

Five Early Poems of Tristan Tzara
Translated from the Romanian by Julian Semilian & Sanda Agalidi and presented by Julian Semilian

Tzara was born in Romania, Moisnesti, in 1896. These poems were written around 1912-1913, in Romanian, before he left for Switzerland where he, along with Marcel Jancu and Hans Arp, orginated the concept of Dada with their performances at Café Voltaire. The Romanian of these poems is consciuosly wayward, in direct revolt against the symbolist literati poetry of the period.

After the first world war, Tzara emigrated to Paris, where Breton and the future surrealists awaited him eagerly, and for a time made him their guru. After the split with the surrealists, Tzara continued his dada activities, wrote his seminal poem The Approximate Man (in French), joined the communist party, fought in the French underground during the second world war. He died in 1963. The town of Moinesti has recently built a monument to him: a giant sculpture that spells: DADA. —JS

Quandaries

I took the old dream out of the box like you take off your hat
When you bedight yourself with the coat with lots of buttons
The way you pull the rabbit out by the ears
When you come back from the hunt
The way you pick the flower from the weeds
And your friend from the courtiers

Look what happened to me
when the evening rolled in real slow like a beetle
It's good balm for many, when I light up in my soul a fire of verses
I went to sleep. Sleep is a garden hedged by doubt
You don't know what's true, what's not
You think it's a thief and you shoot
Afterwards you are told it was a soldier
That's the way it was with me
That's why I called you to tell me—make no mistake
What's true—what isn't

Elegy for the Coming of Winter

Baby (hear me) the poplar trees are whimpering 'cause you're leaving
and I get to thinking: it's cold out there
make sure you pack some extra warm things to wear some books to read
(in one of the books you'll find a withered lilly)

I know how it'll be (comedy) I'll grab a clean handkerchief
and I'll weep all my grief in it, and I'll cough cause I'll catch cold
then I'll unfurl it in the wind when you're far away—honest thought
and I'll dream of the days gone by looking for another girl in the streets

Just think: What if no one waits for you
and you'll weep because you'll feel bad, life is so sad, sad
you'll never forget the handkerchief flapping
which will unleash furious winds in your garden
laying waste to the alleys, uprooting all domestic thought

Listen to my wise advice
Sit by the table and quietly sow
You haven't even finished the silk dress
Listen to my wise advice

Baby, wintertime is coming and you're leaving
and the putrefied old horse in the garden
has no more mane nor ears left; I'm waiting for the full moon
to hop on it and run after you, light (you understand...)

Little Cousin, Boarding School Girl

Little cousin, boarding school girl, dressed in black, white collar
I love you cause you're simple and you dream
And you're kind, you cry, you tear up letters that have no meaning
And you feel bad because you're far from yours and you study
at the Nuns where at night it's not warm
Once again you add up the days left till vacation
And you think of some Spanish engraving
Where a princess or duchess of Braganza
Stands in her large dress like a butterfly on the corolla
And amuses herself feeding the cats and awaits a cavalier
On the carpet are parrots and other little animals
Birds that fell from the sky
And lounging by the armchair that's in mourning
On the floor—thin and vibrating—rests a hound
Like an ermine fur smoothed over shoulders
She wants to pick it up but
She remembers and she caresses the necklace around her throat
Because she sights the cavalier—and that's all:
Sister Beatice or Evelina approaches the bench
History teacher or Latin and Greek
O why do the days fly by so rarely...
The leaves and the flowers fall like pages from the calendar;
Life is sad, but still there is a garden!
And the princess or the duchess of Braganza
Sleeps once again or loses her importance—because you add up
The days left—counting on your fingers till the vacation

I begin again my letter and I write you: Ma chère cousine
Je croyas hier entendre dans ma chambre ta voix tandre et caline.

Come with Me to the Country

House under construction with withered branches, like the spiders, in
scaffolding
Rise up into the skies with serenity
Until the clouds might serve you as curtains
And the stars: the gratitude of lamps on the evening balcony.

Between two chestnut trees burdened like men who leave hospitals
Grew the Jewish cemetery—from boulders;
At the city's edge, on the hill
The graves like worms they crawl.

The yellow dogcart waits for us in front of the train station
In me they rip the reeds with a rustle like paper
I want to end myself slowly along the land
And I want my soul to hesitate like a dancer on a rope.

Through the woods wander
Gypsy beggars with beards like ash
That you're afraid you don't run into them
When the sun brushes an eyelash on the tracks.

On horses we'll stray for many days
We'll tuck up at ashen inns,
There you tie the knot of many a friendship,
You go to bed at night with the innkeeper's girl.

Under chestnuts—where the wind blows heavy like a garden of fountains
We're going to play chess
Like two old pharmacists
And my sister's going to read the news in the hammock...

Let's take off all our clothes on the hill till we're buck naked
To scandalize the priest, to delight the girls,
We're going to stroll like farmers with big straw hats
We're going to take a dip in the mill water
We're going to stretch out in the sun without shame
They're going to steal our clothes and the dogs will howl at us...

Mamia, you'll never understand
—variant—

Mamia, you'll never understand
I sing the soul that doesn't exist
Your breasts are flowers without pots
Your heart a handkerchief
And pricks the raspberry that tastes like milk
The blouse that wraps the ripe apricots

Look here, rock me, cuddle me
The one I was to marry died
Ask me who she was
Then tell me slowly, precisely when you're leaving

I'll buy you unconditionally earrings
From a Jewish jeweler
You showed up a flower garden in
My soul, interior of a metal shop

Mamia, you'll never understand!
But it's a wonderful thing when you're in a poem

Translated from the Romanian by Julian Semilian & Sanda Agalidi