Les rires et le clown - Yves Jamait

Ce soir trangement, le chapiteau repose.

La mort a fait main basse sur le rire des enfants.

Le clown s’en est all et la lune rpand

Sur son lit les onguents de la mtamorphose.

La fanfare afflige et l’cuyre en pleurs,

Les petits poneys blancs aux toupets de velours

L’escorteront demain grands coups de tambours

Sur la butte escarpe o sera sa demeure.

Lui, drap dans l’azur, ira dire aux plantes

Naissantes et toutes pleines de vie dcanter,

Le secret lourd et bleu des rires dsenchants

Qui sonnent en mineur les flonflons de la fte.

Dans un cirque toil tendu de nues blondes,

Pour des soleils enfants aux rires incandescents,

Le clown fera revivre, ridicule et savant,

Les rires o sont caches les dtresses du monde.

Le rire du vieillard prs de l’arbre palabres,

Cassant comme un regret sous le poids d’un jour neuf.

Le rire du coolie reint comme un boeuf

Ou le rire du fou, afft comme un sabre.

Saltimbanque des rires qu’une larme enchevtre

Il jonglera si bien, le clown, que l’infini

Refera le calcul de ses cosmogonies

Pour renouer les fils de ses pantins terrestres.

Mais il taira le pire, le rire impardonnable,

Ce triste rire d’enfant si las que dj vieux,

Pour qui le clown ira botter le cul des dieux

O qu’ils soient, dans leurs Olympes improbables.

Ce soir trangement, le chapiteau repose.

Strangely tonight, the marquee rests.

Death has taken over the children's laughter.

The clown is gone and the moon is pouring out

On his bed the ointments of metamorphosis.

The brass band afflicts and the squire in tears,

Little white ponies with velvet forelocks

Will escort him tomorrow great drumbeats

On the steep knoll where his home will be.

Him, draped in the blue, will tell the plants

Nascent and all full of life decant,

The heavy blue secret of disenchanted laughter

Which sound in minor the blare of the party.

In a circus stretched canvas of blonde nudes,

For childish suns of incandescent laughter,

The clown will revive, ridiculous and learned,

The laughter where the troubles of the world are hidden.

The laughter of the old man near the palaver tree,

Brittle like regret under the weight of a new day.

The coolie's laugh runs like an ox

Or the madman's laughter, sharp as a sword.

Mountebank of laughter that a tear entangles

He will juggle so well, the clown, that infinity

Will redo the calculation of his cosmogonies

To retie the threads of his earthly puppets.

But he will silence the worst, the unforgivable laughter,

This sad child's laughter so tired that already old,

For whom the clown will kick the ass of the gods

Wherever they are, in their improbable Olympus.

Strangely tonight, the marquee rests.