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Go shoppingTranslated by Delphine Grass and Timothy Mathews
I no longer go on trips, really,
Because I know the place
And I know my rights,
And I’ve lived through rage.
In the service of humanity,
In the middle of the estate,
I know my bedroom well
And feel the night descend.
Angels take flight
In the glory of heaven
They will find God;
And the women have fun.
Tied to the table,
Sat in the estate,
The slow intensity
Of the relentless night.
At night in the estate
The slow immensity,
The cruel vision
Torn off from the sky
Of a shape that moves
Pulsating and red.
In the service of blood
The sleepy disgust,
The cruel ends of love
The blown-up bits of the real;
And all that for what?
The idea of a vision
The end of a song
Men losing hope
Waiting for rage
For exploding bodies,
Squatting, wounded,
Hoping for carnage.
I bring the ingredient
Of the final hatred,
My teeth are grinding,
Evil seeps in.
I know the tricks
Of a crushed flesh
I overdo it, I’m told
But I feel exonerated
By human suffering,
By hopes dissatisfied
By the dense crushing
Of superfluous days.
I am not serene
But I am at home,
Angels are holding my hand
I can feel the night falling.
Taken from The Art of Struggle by Michel Houellebecq, translated by Delphine Grass and Timothy Mathews, published by Alma Books at £10.99 (www.almabooks.com)
Michel Houellebecq lives in County Cork, Ireland. He is the bestselling author of Atomised, Platform, Whatever and The Possibility of an Island. He is also a poet, essayist and rap artist.
Delphine Grass has written a doctoral thesis entitled The Poetics of Humanity in the Novels of Michel Houellebecq at University College London. Her poetry has been published in various French and English-language journals. She is a member of the A Verse poetry group based in La Sorbonne, Paris.
Timothy Mathews is Professor of French and Comparative Criticism at University College London. He is author of Reading Apollinaire. Theories of Poetic Language (Manchester University Press 1987 and 1990), and Literature, Art and the Pursuit of Decay in Twentieth-Century France (Cambridge University Press 2000 and 2006).
