Freedom Of Love Poem by Andre Breton

Freedom Of Love

Rating: 3.1


(Translated from the French by Edouard Rodti)

My wife with the hair of a wood fire
With the thoughts of heat lightning
With the waist of an hourglass
With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger
My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude
With the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth
With the tongue of rubbed amber and glass
My wife with the tongue of a stabbed host
With the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes
With the tongue of an unbelievable stone
My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child's writing
With brows of the edge of a swallow's nest
My wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof
And of steam on the panes
My wife with shoulders of champagne
And of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice
My wife with wrists of matches
My wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts
With fingers of mown hay
My wife with armpits of marten and of beechnut
And of Midsummer Night
Of privet and of an angelfish nest
With arms of seafoam and of riverlocks
And of a mingling of the wheat and the mill
My wife with legs of flares
With the movements of clockwork and despair
My wife with calves of eldertree pith
My wife with feet of initials
With feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinking
My wife with a neck of unpearled barley
My wife with a throat of the valley of gold
Of a tryst in the very bed of the torrent
With breasts of night
My wife with breasts of a marine molehill
My wife with breasts of the ruby's crucible
With breasts of the rose's spectre beneath the dew
My wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of days
With the belly of a gigantic claw
My wife with the back of a bird fleeing vertically
With a back of quicksilver
With a back of light
With a nape of rolled stone and wet chalk
And of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinking
My wife with hips of a skiff
With hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers
And of shafts of white peacock plumes
Of an insensible pendulum
My wife with buttocks of sandstone and asbestos
My wife with buttocks of swans' backs
My wife with buttocks of spring
With the sex of an iris
My wife with the sex of a mining-placer and of a platypus
My wife with a sex of seaweed and ancient sweetmeat
My wife with a sex of mirror
My wife with eyes full of tears
With eyes of purple panoply and of a magnetic needle
My wife with savanna eyes
My wife with eyes of water to he drunk in prison
My wife with eyes of wood always under the axe
My wife with eyes of water-level of level of air earth and fire

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Emma Young 20 September 2005

I've read other translations of this poem, and the one give here is pretty bad. There are places where the language seem childish, I dont think this is the way Breton intended it. There are even typos. Come on.

8 3 Reply
Fabrizio Frosini 21 January 2016

IN ITALIAN: _________ 'La mia donna: capelli di fuoco di legna' La mia donna: capelli di fuoco di legna Pensieri di lampi di calore Vita di clessidra La mia donna: vita di lontra tra i denti della tigre La mia donna: bocca da coccarda e fascio di stelle di ultima grandezza Denti a impronta di topo bianco sulla terra bianca Lingua d'ambra e vetro lucidati La mia donna: lingua d'ostia trafitta Lingua di bambola che apre e chiude gli occhi Lingua di pietra incredibile La mia donna: ciglia di aste di scrittura infantile Sopracciglia a bordo di nido di rondine La mia donna: tempie d'ardesia di tetto di serra Vapore sui vetri La mia donna: spalle di champagne Fontana con teste di delfini sotto ghiaccio La mia donna: polsi di fiammiferi La mia donna: dita d'azzardo e d'asso di cuori Dita di fieno tagliato La mia donna: ascelle di martora e faggiola Notte di San Giovanni Ligustro e nido di scalari Braccia di schiuma marina e di chiusa Miscuglio di grano e mulino La mia donna: gambe di missile Movimenti d'orologeria e disperazione La mia donna: polpacci di midollo di sambuco La mia donna: piedi a iniziale Piedi a mazzi di chiavi, piedi di calafati che bevono La mia donna: collo d'orzo imperlato La mia donna: gola di Val d'Or Appuntamenti persino nel letto del torrente Seni notturni La mia donna: seni di monticelli di talpa marina La mia donna: seni di crogiolo di rubini Seni di spettro della rosa rugiadosa La mia donna: ventre spiegato di ventaglio dei giorni Ventre d'artiglio gigante La mia donna: schiena d'uccello che fugge verticale Schiena d'argento vivo Schiena di luce Nuca a sasso levigato e gesso bagnato Caduta di bicchiere nel quale si è bevuto La mia donna: anche di navicella Anche a lampadario e penne di freccia Nervature di piume di pavone bianco Bilancia insensibile La mia donna: natica di arenaria e amianto La mia donna: natica a dorso di cigno La mia donna: natica primaverile Sesso di gladiolo La mia donna: sesso di giacimento aurifero e di ornitorinco La mia donna: sesso d'alga e vecchie caramelle La mia donna: sesso di specchio La mia donna: occhi pieni di lacrime Occhi di panoplia violetta e ago magnetizzato La mia donna: occhi di savana La mia donna: occhi d'acqua da bere in prigione La mia donna: occhi di legno sempre sotto l'ascia Occhi dei livelli d'acqua d'aria di terra e fuoco André Breton

7 1 Reply
M Asim Nehal 29 November 2016

Never ever thought something like this an honest poem on love with wife.10+++

2 5 Reply
Tim Stensloff 20 June 2012

It's good to see Andre Breton get a feature as 'Modern Poem of the Day.'

6 1 Reply
Michelle Claus 20 June 2014

I'm titillated by the similes in this lascivious poem of adulation. With that said, it is difficult for any young or aging woman to live up to the idealized beauty into which Andre Breton and other poets cast her, but the woman-worship is creature-natural and appreciated. What would a poem sound like if it were written about a silver-haired 60-year-old, who has been through pregnancies, surgeries, etc.? An 80-year-old woman? An infirm woman? The fire-breathing exultation becomes tiresome for me to read, and, like a youthful love tune reverberating throughout the day's pop culture, I turn away in search of something else.

3 4 Reply
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Chinedu Dike 12 June 2022

A beautiful, descriptive composition.

0 0 Reply
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Dr Antony Theodore 26 April 2018

My wife with eyes of wood always under the axe My wife with eyes of water-level of level of air earth and fire. very poetic description of the wife....... thank u. tony

1 0 Reply
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