Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RHAPSODY OF THE DEAF MAN, by EDOUARD JOACHIM CORBIERE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RHAPSODY OF THE DEAF MAN, by                    
First Line: The specialist told him: 'fine, let's leave it at that'
Last Line: Silence is golden (st. John chrysostom).
Alternate Author Name(s): Corbiere, Tristan


The specialist told him: "Fine, let's leave it at that.
The treatment is done: you're deaf. That's how
It is you have quite lost your hearing."
And he understood only too well, not having heard.

-Well, thank you, sir, for deigning to make
A fine coffin of my head.
Now I shall be able, with legitimate pride,
To understand all on trust. . . .

Indeed by eye. -But watch that jealous eye, serving
For your hocked ear! . . . Ah, no . . . What good is showing off?
If I whistle too loudly in ridicule's face,
To my face, and lowly, it can spit in my eye! . . .

A dumb puppet, I, on a banal string! -Tomorrow,
Along the street, a friend could take my hand
And call me old post . . . or, more kindly, nothing;
And I'd come back with: Not bad, thanks, and you!

If someone shouts a word at me, I'm mad for understanding;
If another says nothing: could it be out of pity? . . .
Always, like a rebus, I struggle to catch
A word catercorner . . . No -- They left me out!

Or-reverse of the coin-some officious stuffed shirt,
His lower lip wagging as though he were grazing,
Fancies himself conversing . . . And I, gnawing within, keep still:
A grinning idiot-looking intelligent!

-Gray woolen cap pulled down over my soul!
And-the donkey's kick . . . Giddyap! -A good lady,
Old Lemonade Peddler, and of Passion, too!
Might come up to drool her sanctimonious sympathy
In my Eustacian tube-full blast, like a horn-
And I not even able to step on her corn!

-Silly as a virgin, aloof as a leper,
I'm there, but absent . . . Is he a dunce, they want to know,
A muzzled poet, or just a crab? . . .
A shrug of the shoulders, and that means: Deaf.

-Frenzied torment of an acoustic Tantalus!
I see words flying I cannot snatch;
Impotent flycatcher, eaten by a mosquito,
Target-head with free pot shots for all!

O heavenly music: to hear a sea shell
Grate on plaster! A razor, a knife
Scrape in a cork! A couplet on the stage!
A live bone being sawn! A gentleman! A rondeau!

-Nothing -- I babble to myself . . . Words I toss to the air
Off the cuff, not knowing if I speak Hindu,
Or perhaps duck talk, like the clarinet
Of a blockhead blindman mistaking the stops.

Go then, tipsy pendulum gone loose in my head!
Beat up this fine tom-tom, cracked tinny pianola
That renders a woman's voice a doorbell,
A cuckoo! . . . Sometimes: a buzzing gnat . . .

-Lie down, my heart, and beat your wing no more.
In the dark-lantern let us snuff the candle out,
And all that once vibrated there-I know no longer where-
Dungeon where they come to draw the bolt across the door.

-Be mute for me, pensive Idol.
Both of us, for each other's sake, forgetting to speak,
Say not a word to me: nothing will I answer . . .
And nothing then can mar our understanding.

Silence is golden (St. John Chrysostom).





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