In the sun and sleeplessness I’ve spent my afternoons at the lake this week. I sit on the same bench. I sit there for hours.
On Monday a peacock approached me. Then, on Tuesday, after we’d both used the same tree to shelter from a shower (it in the branches, me on the ground), it really approached me. I could have reached out and touched it. It could have reached out and touched me. We were too close. I could see its muscles move. I could individuate the feathers on its body. I only like birds from afar. Not this close, anyway. It used to be a terrible fear, now it’s just a discomfort. Their eyes are too black, too empty and inexpressive. Their talons too prehistoric. I think they’re incredible. Same goes for all big birds. But they unsettle me. I feel the same way about octopuses. No mammal makes me feel this way. Perhaps, as the peacock inspected me, and I inspected it, it too was unsettled. It was interested in my book, that I know. It looked at it with great interest. Maybe they’re literate. Of all the birds the peacock’s literacy would be the least surprising.
In 1911 Apollinaire published Le Bestiaire ou Cortège d’Orphée, a collection of 30 short poems, 24 focussing on a different animal, with one on sirens, one on Medusa, and four on the titular Orphée (Orpheus). For each poem there’s an engraving by Raoul Dufy. Picasso wouldn’t commit.
Le paon
Guillaume Apollinaire
En faisant la roue, cet oiseau,
Dont le pennage traîne à terre,
Apparaît encore plus beau,
Mais se découvre le derrière
The Peacock
Fanning its tail, this bird, Whose plumage drags across the grass, Appears even more beautiful, But shows the world its ass
I could only find one other translation of the poem, which I read after doing my own. You can read the whole book online here. On the first page there’s a note written in blue ink, birthday wishes from the grandmother of the woman to whom the scanned book was gifted.
In his introduction, Pepe Karmel, the translator, notes that due to the brevity of the poems he was not always able to maintain their rhyme schemes. In The Peacock we both faced the same challenge and lost the ABAB rhyme scheme, but both inserted grass to get that final rhyme. I’d never usually use ass, and even now it feels wrong, but also I don’t say grass as in arse, so for the sake of the rhyme sacrifices have been made. Translation-wise, perhaps ass is not quite as proper as the more direct behind, but given that Apollinaire wrote his fair share of smut, I can’t see him disapproving of our decision.
When he spreads his tail, this bird / Who drags his plumage on the grass / May grow in beauty / But he also bares his ass
Call it daydreaming, call it sleep deprived romanticism, but perhaps, some hundred years ago, Apollinaire visited the Bois de Vincennes, crossed the bridge onto the Île de Reuilly, crossed the short suspension bridge onto the Île de Bercy, and saw the ancestors of the peacocks that live there. Perhaps he’d even seen the however many great-grandparents of the one I had my encounter with. Of course he didn’t. But… No. Impossible. Upon research, I found that the peacocks were only introduced twenty years ago. I also learnt that last year there was a murder mystery, when two disappeared and one was found dead. An autopsy was carried out and it was discovered that a fox had simply followed its instincts, and the bird hadn’t, as had been feared, been killed by a person. How this wasn’t obvious before a post-mortem I don’t know.
On Wednesday I dreamt I was at a seaside town, like a future Blackpool. I was in a giant building, searching for someone on behalf of someone. I never found them, but as I left the complex I looked up at a wall and there was a mural. It was an old band; they looked like The Animals, same matching suits and haircuts. Someone came up to me, I asked who the band was. They pointed my eyes up and painted above the mural was their name in red and green. The Paons. Even in my dream this felt on the nose. I looked down and the depiction of the band was replaced by their lyrics, all gibberish but comprehensible in the moment. In another dream, or the same dream—what differentiates them?—I just stared at a white screen, the only thing written on it, in that barely legible style of font that metal bands use for their names, was copywriting.
On Thursday, or maybe Friday morning, Oscar posted a close up from a new painting of his. A peacock’s tail, I thought, just hanging there. I texted him asking to see the whole thing. I said I was writing about peacocks. Earlier in the week we’d agreed that them, and owls too, are the sort of birds you kill and become cursed. When he replied to my request he was confused, then followed up with a full image of a painting, said it had to be that, and told me that it wasn’t a peacock at all, it was a pair of trousers. My man, he said, that’s an ass.