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Really I Know/Je ne sais rien en verite

African American Review,  Fall, 2007  by Leon-Gontran Damas

Really I Know

   nothing sadder
   or more hateful
   or more frightening
   or more lugubrious in the world
   than to hear love at the end of the day
   repeating itself like a low mass
   once upon a time
   a woman happened to pass
   whose arms were full of roses

Je ne sais rien en verite

   rien de plus triste
   de plus odieux
   de plus affreux
   de plus lugubre au monde
   que d'entendre l'amour
   a longueur de journee
   se repetant a messe basse

   Il etait une fois
   une femme vint
   une femme vint a passer
   dont les bras etaient charges de roses

Damas, Leon-Gontran, "Je ne sais rien en verite" and "Elle s'en vint," Pigments. Paris: Guy Levis Mano, 1937. "Banalite sans aucun doute," Black-Label. Paris: Gallimard, 1956. Translations: =Really I Know," "Trite Without Doubt," and =She Left Herself One Evening," The Poetry of the Negro 371.

COPYRIGHT 2007 African American Review
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning