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[The French poet Denis Roche was first published in the Winter 1962 issue of Locus Solus, edited by John Ashbery. Roche went on to become associated with the journal Tel Quel, to write the 500 or so pages of his collected poems, titled La Poesie est Inadmissable (published in 1996 though the last poems in there are from 1972), and then to stop writing poetry and become a photographer and devote himself to editing at Seuil. At least that's the sketch of his life I have klunking around in my head. Here are the three poems from Locus Solus; in them you can find several phrases that have eerie resemblances to things Ashbery would later write, such as Roche/Ashbery's "a kind of undulation which overtakes me delicately" presaging the line "and then I get this feeling of exhaltation" from I believe the book Rivers and Mountains. The "Denis Roche bootleg" is forthcoming on this site, and following that I hope to edit a book of translations of his complete work.]
Three Poems for Locus Solus
As a matter of fact that bird how many
Chances didn’t I have to know its identity
However it let its spoor die and
The effluvium underneath lost with perfetion
Why should I throw myself
In this hot marsh weather putting in
Diplay windows for a virgin of whom
The memory is enough for me only at the
last noise of the
Battle here I am come toward the dying pine
Two cents would be enough to buy it
A new root and a pitcher so that once
Again would shine in it the black values of
The earth The only effect that has on me is a
Kind of undulation which overtakes me delicately
What silk doesn’t waken in me orisons that I
Don’t know are rapid and final?
Tears allowing one to think that there are
Memories whose beauty surprised in the bath
Introduces itself in another dimension
I no longer restrain myself through things
I pass by them whistling
Lowering my window as I pass and they
Constantly recur in various tonalities
It suits me now to be
A follower of leaves and to be admired for it
Like a slightly bigger leaf
Lived-in perhaps but undernourished
I content myself with being glimpsed
And carefully I cultivate existence
Which is supple says my girlfriend the sensitive one
Which is woody says the tropical vine which is coming
Toward me half president wife and half negress
For she too knows these natural outbursts
If you look closely leaning over and weeping
The sensory organs watered
Continuing to slide at a speed which
Could be considered normal for
Machine-tools vegetable strainers
In front of little cars in which we
Practically haven’t slept at all
Enigmatic we were passing the ointments from
Hand to hand very much at ease feeling
Furtive noises float
But what actually happens?
Necklaces of men lying down in the allée
Pigs who seem innocent departed
Henceforth on a spree like us
Not even looking for the road to the station
Leaving there every time
Mother of pearls trails