Olchar E. Lindsann

696666…6  9…
by Guillaume Apollinaire

The inverses 6 and 9
Took shape as one uncanny numeral
69 :
Two fatal snakes.
Two maggots.
Wanton and kabbalistic number :
6 : 3 and 3
9 : 3 , 3 and 3
The trinity
The trinity everywhere
Which is rediscovered
In the duality :
For 6 : two times 3 ;
And trinity 9 : three times 3;
69 : duality, trinity.
And these arcana would be more dreary
But I’m afeared to plumb them ;
Who knows but therein lies eternity,
On the far side of pug-nosed death
Who with zest
Creates horror;
And ennui cloaks me
Like a nebulous shroud of lugubrious lace
This evening.

from Littérature, No. 9, Nov. 1919 [unpaginated, 8-9]. 


Synthetic Criticism
by Pierre Reverdy

After myself my art and several unrealisable hopes there are in painting several rare things which I love

The thing is unheard of which can hold in common both art and this pleasant scent of thoroughly clean 
stables mixed with that of the tobacco which the ostlers smoke
The morning
With the sun entriangled
Before the door
Yet this sympathy exists — it can be affirmed

And it can no longer be denied that between the steps of the horse far out in the countryside it ought to be 
born in the middle of the trail of umbrella-shaped mushrooms 

		(Despite the distaste I have for this literature I must accept it as the best)

			All the world agrees
				The ranks are confused and we
				start out with symbolism

		No.1 light up the room
And speak to me constantly about MYSELF
		To spare me this pain
		And this concession of my overweening pride

Painti i i ng…

Background black or other tone as long as it’s the entire sky

At arms length I’m announcing the object which makes image it is placed noticeably close to the very precise 
large white plaque which gives better definition to this form which leaps out at your eyes 
You love seeing clearly here
And then it’s no use rolling your head in the eiderdown to obtain the extrication of lines and other matters 
which have right to life to the same degree
	The other black plane1 cuts the page in two
				Very little green
							Everything is balanced
In order to be able to place a nude hand upon this table without anything displacing it
				The flask
						The card
							And the violin
	One feels the wood of the parquet by the least sizeable detail
It’s a definition
			An interrupted description
	I slice the air
			The canvas is limited
But it always lacks the organ- or poker-player
						Against the wall

	With reservations


_____
1 plan could also be interpreted as “drawing” or “design”.

from Littérature No. 3, May 1919. pp. 4-5. 



Chapt. I of Screwdrive
by Céline Arnaud

At the Theatre of Newborns

	—   Fast — Get going fast.
Always lamentations! Ah, yes — the sun. What an imagination you’ve got
The sun — gorgeous — coppery — bottom of the pan
So leave all that and don’t forget that it must cry and weep at the same time today – especially laugh
	—   Laugh!
	Mirador1 turned toward the one who was speaking.
	—   Listen to me! Firefly2 died of cold at the end of this pallid winter and the spring weary 
of waiting has died as well.
	—   Ha! Winter. But my child the chill lasts as long as the winter   —​ and when the winter goes, 
finito with the cold!
	But seeing as you love the sun so much, why haven’t you run after it?
	All of this signifies nothing. Think about what I’ve told you: to weep and laugh at the same time – 
especially laugh. When to Firefly…    go then!     Cantanette’s here and she knows how to laugh.
	Mirador stepped forward furiously clenching his fist
	—    Crooks — Crooks
	He had never seen more clearly — blood in the air and vengeance — everywhere.
	—    My Firefly is dead.
	The scarlet curtain slowly split itself in two, posing on either side of the entrance, like 
two cops at the arrival of the king.
	Before Mirador a motley crowd of black and white waited in anguish.
	Behind him someone snickered in his ear:
	—   In the country of the Sun
	An ardent whistle
					Is this him
							the star which wanted to burn him alive giving him the heat destined 
for the other all in one go
	—   Lord!
	This cry of despair leapt from the mouth of an infidel. On the edge of the abyss
                                                                                               he believed
	The Ogre, hands on his haunches, awaited the signal to gobble someone up.
	On the other side of the balustrade, a polar bear was passing a tongue as delicate as a rose 
petal over its lips.
	There was also an old artist eaten away by pride but whom defeat had rendered so kindly, so 
indulgent that he had been chosen as animal tamer. Sole human figure he discovered my eye hidden 
in the huge star which served as decoration.
	The jester Matassin balanced his head too heavily on his shoulders while watching it sideways, 
never head-on, for it seemed to him that the star was alive, so strongly was it glowing.
	And when he worked out the enigma blocking his way, he moved into the middle of the stage, 
gazing for a long while at the little wax head, leaned in, placed a kiss on the closed eyelids
and skedaddled while emitting a sigh of relief.
	All the same he had a beautiful soul.
	Having arrived near the star, a single glance burned him so much, that had he not placed his hand to 
his ear, it would have gone poorly for him. 
	Upon the bed still tousled from agony, Firefly’s head reclined amidst funereal lights.
	A white veil mottled with black pearls spilled over her ears. The hair was cropped since its weight 
had attracted the boogeyman. 
	A lace so delicate that the aurora enveloped this meagre body which had made Gadifer the juggler suffer 
so much.
	There were women too: the one who had so desired and criticised the lace with black pearls, approached, 
placed a kiss with the tips of the lips on the right cheek, caressed the object of her covetousness one last 
time while waving goodbye and left attempting to feel stirred.
	Another deposited a kiss upon the left cheek and when she was quite sure that Firefly was no longer 
moving she went off twisting her head around to hide her joy.
	But dolour was obligatory for the one said to have loved her. She kissed her on both cheeks, and 
believing herself stirred, thrust her head aloft toward the star.
	The tears weren’t coming. On the decor a grimace.
	The eye swelled up
						turned black
								In its place
								                a mirror
				She zestfully carried the hand in her mouth
       Horror
       The lipstick from the first kisses stuck to her cheeks
	Mirador shot a quick glance around him
	— Was it true then?
						     Firefly here on this bed
      Imagination
			Imagination my child
						Look at the sun then.
	He turned toward the star, brought a menacing look to bear
				The eye remained black
	In the mirror droplets of blood. At the edge of the stage as on the edge of the abyss he invoked the name 
of the one from whom he awaited deliverance.
	— Lord!
	Firefly is utterly ashen
	A morsel of ice melted over her eyes and she could no longer open them.
	Icicles are hanging from her eyelids — tears are sliding down her moon-coloured ruff.
	The sun has been on a voyage in the country of harlequins and monastic swallows. It returned today burned 
and red with heat — but my poor Firefly has turned utterly ashen.

	A terrible shock was produced offstage.
	The scarlet curtain split itself in two
							Nobody on stage
	In the star the eye became incalculably huge.
	An athlete appeared.
	Two hemispheres were rolling over the floorboards.
	The eye appeared naked and clear and was about to land on the sleeping Firefly’s forehead.
	With a slow movement she touched the hand of the one who thought themselves blind
						saw more clearly than the astral eye
	In a carriage pulled by the polar bears and the ogre, they set off into the cursed forest of Marly, where in 
yesteryear the
							SUN KING3 
								yearned to be loftier than the sun
      It was there
				 one day when it was gorgeous out that Gadifer of the feverish eyes, followed with his gaze 
a doe which flashed past as fast as a falling star.
	And it was there too that one spring day a soul in trouble was prowling among the ferns. But, tired of 
seeking rest, it went to sleep on the marge of the royal well
	Upon waking
					the pail rose back up full of holy water which had baptised the birth of a poet 
	Now in the glory of the Maytime sun Firefly and Mirador were installed on the most elevated spot in the forest.
	At their feet the bogieman was contorted with hunger — the old artist dug into his brain to unearth an alexandrine.
	The clown Matassin strove to discover the key to the enigma. While looking askance, he strode straight ahead and 
was going to glue his ear to the foot of the mountain.

	In the star, the eye remained black

	At the bottom of the well

								The moon was weeping


_____
1.  Mirador is, in both French and English (rare in the latter), a word for “watchtower”, derived from the Spanish.
2.  Luciole.
3.  Louis XIV, “The Sun King”, whose palace at Marly served as a vacation spot to escape the, er, “rigours” of Versailles.


from Céline Arnaud, Tournevire. 1919. Éditions d’Esprit nouveau: Paris. n.p.

Olchar E. Lindsann has published over 40 books of literature, theory, translation, and avant-garde history including The Ecstatic Nerve and five books of the ongoing series Arthur Dies. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in The Lost & Found Times, Brave New Word, Fifth Estate, The Black Scat Review, BlazeVox, No Quarter, and elsewhere, and he has performed and lectured extensively in the US and the UK. He is the editor of mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press, whose catalog includes over 175 print publications of the contemporary and historical avant-garde, and of the periodicals Rêvenance, The in-Appropriated Press, and Synapse.

 
 

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