Max Jacob
based on Avenue du Maine from Les Œuvres Burlesques et Mystiques de Frere Matorel, Mort au Couvent de Barcelone 1912
Off the Avenue du Maine
The managers can’t manage
Unless they’re managing menageries
On the Avenue du Maine.
The badger is
An animal whose adage
Is: I’m no man and not of an age
To manage managers or men
On the Avenue du Maine.
I live in badgeries
With budgies I engage
To man the set way home when
Menageries cause mayhem
On the Avenue du Maine.
But ‘Budge’ is the word I use to them
Should they lack acumen.
It’s all so undermining for badgers, man!
Mind! undermanagers all
Still manage gadgies
With pledges at the edges of credibility
Where managers stand to fall.
If undermanagers can’t span
The archness of bridges
Between managers and men
Miners and minors might manage
To manoeuvre the undermined from their den
To deny ostriches on the rampage
And manic apemen in carriages
Without my vigilante budgies
Becoming twitchy hitmen
Of the Avenue du Maine
But since last-ditch kitsch is
Here to stay, many stand to freeze
Out on a bridge of civility
Badgering to budge menageries.
Translated by Christopher Pilling
Page(s) 139
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