We played two games with poems from Éluard’s Capital of Pain. The first was a translation game. We chose a poem and covered up the english translation, then took turns attempting to translate a section of the french. (None of of know french…)
To Touch a Leafy Day
To touch a leafy day, so unlike a tire pour
A Motley and senseless pastry lens
We dance the night like ants, we embrace the castle moat
We extend vibration under the bruise of the sun
Without a center or along the edge of vegetal fear
Lies a luxury of peril and regret of night
Without the hands of the sun the body lies somnolent
Grottos of idea retire behind your eyes
Souvenirs of bovine hearts, brewed tame.
I reform one chamber, then two.
That I may encounter life’s paradox.
The terrible loss of a glass creature.
The second game was a reversal game. We look the poem Marsha was beaming and each reversed it, according to our idea of what the opposite of each line would be.
Steven
Max has Darkened
The eternity’s stillness is at the height of opened death
Some ugly scaly toad slower than a gallon of porcelain
Throws stringy life across a void
Triangles of moon harden in the dirt
And the boat of its tunneling awakens the dark
the worst is always lost close by
Megan
Asthma was fractal
The second firm at the leaf of unbound breath
Settled a whole youth inside a dark pool
Isosceles of shade harden its feet
And the stillness of its death endears darkness
The worst was not near here
Casi
Many seconds stand still at the branches of linear eternity
The hideous naked worm slower than a multitude of planets
Pushes a many-headed baby away from a black hole
Cubes of moon harden its legs
But the doldrums of its landing calms the dark
The worst will be hidden inside you
Formine has been Shrouded
