JE M’ORALISE[1]

by Ghérasim Luca 

Translated by Howard Slater

It is difficult for me to express myself

in visual language

there could be in the very idea of creation
something that escapes passive description

as it stems necessarily from a conceptual language

In this language that serves to designate objects

the word has only one or two meanings  

and it imprisons sound

Let's break the form in which it got stuck
so new relationships appear

Sound is exalted

the sleeping secrets at the bottom of words arise

The one who listens is introduced to a vibrational world

which assumes simultaneous physical participation in mental connection

Free the breath and every word becomes a signal

I'm truly connected
 to a poetic tradition

a vague and somewhat illegitimate tradition

But the very term poetry seems to me to be false
I prefer ontophonie

Whoever opens the word opens matter

and the word is only the material support of a quest
whose aim is the transmutation of the real

More than situating myself in relation to tradition or revolution I'm trying to reveal the resonance of my being

Poetry is a silensophone

The poem is a place of operation

The word is subjected to a series of sound mutations
each of its facets liberates the multiplicities of meaning
with which they are laden

Today I travel across a vast expanse
where din and silence collide

where the poem takes the form of a shadow
that has been set going

Better
the poem eclipses itself
before its consequences

In other words

JE M’ORALISE

See Ghérasim Luca, Je m’oralise, Éditions Corti 2018. This book reproduces the original handwritten poem and its accompanying ink drawings. It is unclear as to when this poem was first written as Luca passed away in 1994.

Thanks due to Alan Dent.