Following on from a brief mention in Peet’s; I couldn’t post this there because I’d be modded for copyright. A fine example of the work of the obscure French Dadaist poet Paul Déaveroin (1883-1913) whose cause the current Earl of Portland has been espousing for many years now:
Reine d’Europe s’equipe faux ligne en mailles et deux, Injuste laïque souk ail, ou suffit tart tout bique fort hisse bête, N’affine si me ce tout fil te Vose, Reine d’Europe s’equipe faux ligne en mailles est de, D’équipe faux ligne
(The Queen of Europe equips herself with a tasteless line in chainmail - and buys two
Is the cruel preacher selling garlic in the souk, or is it enough that a picture of an old crone can lift up an animal?
Her chainmail does not make her more refined
The Queen of Europe, from Vose, was conned into buying two suits of chainmail by a group of phoney armourers)
Ha! Took me ages to get it. Here’s one in the same vein:
Un petit d’un petit
S’étonne aux Halles
Un petit d’un petit
Ah! degrés te fallent
Indolent qui ne sort cesse
Indolent qui ne se mène
Qu’importe un petit
Tout gai de Reguennes.
And you in a bilingual country! Small wonder you have egg on your face
TB’s book is great fun - just do your best (i.e. worst) Clouseau accent and all becomes clear. Only available as an ebook, sadly, but the upside of that is it’s cheap!
The last word should come from the great Déaveroin himself, though:
Dise au le bout qui s’accompli de Pise ce tais que. Y dis sol beau luxe
(Say, in the end, this is accomplished worse than silently.
The ground there is luxurious)
Yes, I’m rubbish at it. I suppose it’s a knack, the Clouseau thing. OK, I more or less got that bit above with some effort, just not quite the start of the third line:
‘This whole book is a complete
Piss-take
something … is all bollux.’
What’s the little bit I’m missing? I think I need three columns as in the wiki entry here for Mots D’Heures: Gousses, Rames.
And the title of the book, ‘Avant Garde a Clue’. That one was easy but I am not getting ‘Mais les paroles, que disaient au juste les paroles, imbécile?’ which is in the product description for the book on Amazon. Can you put me out of my misery, Joe?
