Schwitters Gallery

via

An Anna Blume

Today I am very happy to commemorate the birth of that amiable oddball of the avant-garde Kurt Schwitters, for me one of the most lovable of all Modern artists. Above is a facsimile of his famous poem An Anna Blume as it appeared in the book of the same name published in 1919. The entire book is available at the splendid Dada Archive of the University of Iowa.

Lady Dada

Hannah Höch (November 1, 1889 – May 31, 1978)

Calling Card

La revue Dada 2

pour Marcel Janco

Five black girls in a car
exploded following the five directions of my digits
when i put hand to breast to pray God [sometimes]
around my head there is the humid light of the old
     lunar birds
the saints’ green halo around cerebral evasions
tralalalalalalalalalala
that one sees now bursting in bombs

there’s a young man who eats his lungs
then he has diarrhea
then he lets a luminous fart
like the returning birds a poem sings
like death gushes from cannons
he let a fart so luminous that the house became midnight
the great sailboat opened its book like an angel though
     it was planned

     your leaves, spring, like a fine page of
     typography
zoumbaï zoumbaï zoumbaï di
your outline in my intestines has eaten good and evil
above all evil like a general’s joy
for since I am afraid the rats gnaw the church without a servant I have
     carried the draperies and on each one there was our Lord
     and on each lord there was my heart
my heart I gave for a drink heehee

–Tristan Tzara, translation by DTH

Wise Old Dada

VII

je dis comme je vis

je vois comme la voix

je prends comme j’offre

ma vie est ainsi

je ne dois rien à personne

je dois tout à tous les hommes

from Quarante Chansons et Déchansons, Tristan Tzara, 1954

FRÈRE BOIS par TRISTAN TZARA

frère bois
et sœur pierre
les malins
vont au bois
cueillir des pierres

sur les douves
dans les prés
on ne trouve
que regrets
parait-il

*

tu ouvres les ailes
pour partir en voyage
tu te moques de nous
cheval
à ton âge

*

tard levé
tôt couché
soleil frileux
parle-moi de Botticelli

again Tzara again

the great la-
ment of my
obscurity one

cold whirlpool zigzag of blood
i have no soul cascade with no
friends no talents lord
i don’t always receive
my mother’s letters
which must pass through Russia
through Norway and through England
memories in red spirals
burn my brain on the rows
of the amphitheatre
and like a luminous advertisement
of my soul, misfortune gushed from
the sphere
tower of light teeming ring
of blue ants
nimbus searing drought of
afflictions

come close to me so the prayer
won’t annoy you it descends in
the earth like diving suits
yet to be invented
then iron obscurity will change
to wine and salt
simplicity lightning rod of our
plants take care
lightning rods that form
a spider
thus i become the crown of an
enormous christ
formless land voltaic arc

snow eagles will come
to feed the rock
where deep clay will become
milk
and the milk will trouble the night the
chains will ring
the rain will make heavy
chains
will form wheels in space
rays
the sceptre in the middle among
branches
old newspapers tapestries
a paralytic
nimbus drought
teeming ring of blue ants
lord golden finger furnace
sphingerie
why strangle it why
after the thunderclap the military
march will burst out
my despair tinny iron tube
but why oh why?
thus thus always but the road
you must be my rain my
obscurity my metal my
circuit my pharmacy weep
no more weep no more
if you wish

TRANSLATION DTH 24MAY08

from Vingt-Cinq Poèmes de Tristan Tzara

the leprous white

giant of the landscape

salt groups itself in constellation

of birds on the tumour of wadding

in its lungs starfish and

drawing pins balance

microbes crystallize in

palm trees of muscles seesaws

hello without a cigarette tzantzantza

ganga

bouzdouc zdouc nfoùnfa mbaah

mbaah nfoùnfa

macrocystis perifera to embrace the

boats surgeon of boats

clean humid scar

idleness of brilliant lights

the boats nfoùnfa nfoùnfa

nfoùnfa

i force candles into his

ears gangànfah helicon and

boxer on the balcony the violin

of the hotel in baobabs of flames

the flames develop in

sponge formation

the flames are sponges

ngànga and strike

the ladders climb like

blood gangà

the ferns toward the woolen

steppes my chance toward the cas-

cades

the flames sponges of glass the
mattresses wounds mattresses
the mattresses fall wancanca
aha bzdouc the butterflies
the scissors the scissors the scissors
and the shadows
the scissors and the clouds the sci-
ssors the ships
the thermometer considers the ultra-
red gmbabàba
berthe my education my tail
is cold and monochromatic
nfoua loua la
the mushrooms oranges and the
family of sounds beyond the starboard
in the beginning in the beginning the triangle
and the tree of voyagers in the beginning

my brains depart for hy-
perbole
the kaolin swarms in its cranial
box
dalibouli obok and tòmbo and tòmbo
his belly is a big cashbox
here intervene the drum major
and the clapper
for there are zigzags on his
soul the reader begins to shout
he begins to shout begins to
shout then in the shout there are
flutes that multiply – some
corals
the reader wants to die perhaps
or dance and begins to shout
he’s a skinny dirty idiot he doesn’t un-
derstand my verse he shouts
he’s one-eyed
he has zigzags on his soul
and lots of rrrrrrr
nbaze baze look at the submarine
tiara that unravels in golden
seaweeds
hozondrac trac

nfoùnda nbabàba nfoùnda tatan

babàba

TRANSLATION DTH 30APR08