2009 translations and transvaluations

THE HAMMER WITHOUT A MASTER
by Rene Char 1934

common presence

You are pressed to write,
as if you were late on life.
If it is like that, make a solemn procession to your sources.
Hasten yourself.
Hasten yourself to transmit
- your part of the marvellous rebellion of wellbeing.

Effectively you are late on life,
the inexpressible life.
It is only at the end that you accept to unite yourself.
that which you refuse everyday from beings and things
that which you obtain laboriously,
from this, from that, some emaciated fragments.
To the end with thankless battles!
out of these, everything is a submission to agony, a coarse end.

If you meet death during your labour,
receive it like your sweating neck receives a dry handkerchief,
incline your self to it,
if you want to laugh-offer your submission, never your arms.
You have been created fro such precious moments of communion.

Modify yourself,disappear without regret
at the mercy of that smooth rigor,
as district after district the liquidation of the world proceeds
without interruption
without misgiving.

Swarm with the dust
No one will disclose your union.

personal and unprofessional translation from the French
humbly submitted to your research by
a.livingstone

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