Voyelles (Vowels)

This poem was the first performed preceding the first movement of Richard Meale's "Incredible Floridas" on 9 March 2011.

A Black, E white, I red, U green, O blue : vowels,
I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins:
A, black velvety jacket of brilliant flies
Which buzz around cruel smells,

Gulfs of shadow; E, whiteness of vapours and of tents,
Lances of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of cow-parsley;
I, purples, spat blood, smile of beautiful lips
In anger or in the raptures of penitence;

U, waves, divine shudderings of viridian seas,
The peace of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of the furrows
Which alchemy prints on broad studious foreheads;

O, sublime Trumpet full of strange piercing sounds,
Silences crossed by Worlds and by Angels:
O the Omega, the violet ray of Her Eyes!

- Arthur Rimbaud, as translated by Oliver Bernard: Arthur Rimbaud, Collected Poems (1962)

Find out more about Arthur Rimbaud and his poetry at http://www.mag4.net/Rimbaud/index-en.php