Claude Royet-Journoud
from "Theory of Prepositions"
translated by Keith Waldrop

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

French text

1.         I went into the image mutilated

2.         one brushes aside what the hand retrieves

3.         constraint of passage

4.         vocalisation

5.         as if he were leaving his body

6.         the pack springs from the point
            in the world's bend and square
            lost lip
            "that child is my father"

7          lamp whose periods of light, called flashing, are significantly shorter
            than its dark periods, called eclipses

8.         consolidation of the intelligible
            this word we open in sleep
            first and foremost, inert adjective color

9.         she saves the stroke, gives it a framework
            a word that confines the voice
            aims at the back

10.       the body reads from left to right

            on the board, shaky language
            this comes from outside
            knees bent and, here, fatigue

11.       in the implicit ordering of gesture, of history
            desire does not end with the mouth
            it proceeds in another flesh
            a ceramic heart shifts the motive

12.      three things sideline and primary
            some faces observed by way of conversation
            a body's intonation seeks its margin

13.      this incoherent part sets its own stake
            name like distance
            each element contributes to the fear

14.       voice suspended in childhood
            "till tomorrow!"
            incomprehension holds the space live
            "mirror image"

15.       temple, fist, hip, ankle

16.       safe from eviction, she gives way
            a question of dispossession
            insistance on snatching this term from other mouths

17.      I have watched you at the window growing

18.      before the leap
           a form is achieved

19.      square after square
            a little sense remaining in the palm of the hand

20.      the number of the surface

21.      they give the total architecture

22.      from the face on down

23.      a particle of heart or of brain breaks off

24.      the father's the end of the image
            he marries a mannequin and jumps out the window