12:34

I've always noticed that everything changes at 12:34.

It's a hinge in time. The Crux of events.

And if they don't change at 12:34,

They never, ever do. They become a rent

in the fabric of time which we must mend,

that is – if we want to see the end.

Countless mugs of steaming tea came at 12:34.

My mum's ashes went to sea precisely at 12:34.

Whenever I turn my eyes to the local clock it's 12:34.

Whenever I wonder what fate has in her stock it's 12:34.

All the numbers added together make ten.

Isn't ten a number revered by most men?

For moving nothingness resides within.

In sequence the addition of the first and the next.

These numbers, since the world began, are in the texts.

I hold 12:34 to be the key

                                              to our innermost secrets.

12:34 it was when I was as good as dead in India.

12:34 it is when I usually brush my teeth.

12:34 it was when that grim bomb exploded in Libya.

12:34 it was when Macbeth met them on the heath.

12:34 is the exact time when you said you loved me.

1234 is the number of days our love lasted.

It's too ominous a time for it not to be watched.

It might well be then that something happens to me.

Am I bored out of my wits? Am I seeing things that aren't, that were never meant to be? Am I daydreaming? Wakewalking with my eyes closed? Sleepwalking with my eyes open? Have my senses become numb? Have my sentiments died without my noticing?

I'm falling apart, my friends. Something needs be done. No wonder...it is, indeed, 12:34, sharp.

Poiesis

"There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

Barcelona y la Sagrada Família

 Un petit bout de Tarragone

 Parc Güell

  

  

  Parc Güell (fin)

 Sagrada Família

Belle & Sebastian-Beautiful

She lay in bed all night watching the colours change
She lay in bed all night watching the morning change
She lay in bed all night watching the morning change into green and gold

The doctor told her years ago that she was ill
The doctor told her years ago to take a pill
The doctor told her years ago that she'd go blind if she wasn't careful

They let Lisa go blind
The world was at her feet and she was looking down
They let Lisa go blind
And everyone she knew thought she was beautiful
Only slightly mental
Beautiful, only temperamental
Beautiful, only slightly mental
Beautiful

She thought it would be fun to try photography
She thought it would be fun to try pornography
She thought it would be fun to try most anything
She was tired of sleeping

They let Lisa go blind, let Lisa go blind, let Lisa go blind
They let Lisa go blind
She's looking like a queen
But if you knew what's going on in her life
There'd be a thousand barren mothers there to talk to her
If you knew what's going on in her life
There'd be two hundred troubled teenagers to sit with her
And talk to her
If you knew what's going on in her life
What's going on in her life
There would be a documentary on Radio 4

She made herself a pair of orthopaedic shoes
She thought it was the answer to the fashion blues
She thought it was the answer to the fashion blues
But she walked with a limp.

La part des choses

La part des choses

est faite

                                                                Et l'on vivote

au détour d'une lettre

défaite,

                                                                au fond d'une grotte

un bout de prose

posée sur l'entête

                                                                sans espoir

d'une nappe morose

un soir de fête

                                                                dans le noir

sans cause

et désuète.

                                                                sans bruit

La glose imparfaite

en attente de métamorphose

                                                                dans le fond de la nuit

voit les nuits inquiètes

et grandioses

                                                                sans un souffle.

s'éteindre dans un souffle.

Sheer luck

"English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment, and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street."

E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)

Spectrum of possibilities

"Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

Nuage vide

Ce qui arracha Edmond à sa rêverie

ce fut l'impression d'avoir vécu sa vie

comme un long voyage à bord d'un nuage vide.

Jamais il n'avait ressenti ce gouffre en son torse

et en son bas-ventre avec une telle force

que lorsqu'il fut bercé par ce ciel limpide.

Cette impression lui resta engluée à la peau derrière les oreilles tout le jour durant, si bien qu'il ne put se concentrer correctement pour coller ses timbres bien proprement dans le cadre prévu à ce effet.

Idée pernicieuse accouchée quarante-sept ans plus tard –

Long périple, solidement nichée au creux d'une feuille,

à la fin duquel il prit un éclat de soleil dans l'oeil.

L'Edmond sur le papier n'était plus l'Edmond dans le miroir.

Alors il partit loin dans le désert du Taklamakan

Il chercherait jusqu'à ce qu'il trouve, nul ne savait quand.

Son expédition dura une éternité – non parce qu'il ne s'était pas trouvé – ceci fut tôt réglé dans un trou de glace où il prit son bain – mais parce qu'il n'avait plus rien à lui, là-bas où le temps efface, où il s'était perdu, sans presque aucune trace.

 

Cascadeur - Meaning (choral version)

Human Nature

"Society is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface; he, however, who would study nature in its wildness and variety, must plunge into the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice."

Washington Irving, writer (1783-1859)

Clamavi

"When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realising what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all. I know that would be equally fatal. It would mean that I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant for me as much as for anybody else – the beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver – would all be tainted for me, and lose their healing power, and their power of communicating joy. To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul."

Oscar Wilde, De Profundis (1897)

Where the Wilde things are

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Aciers

Il fait froid. Nous grelottons. La nuit d'acier broie nos âmes

Le vent cisaille notre peau, gerce nos lèvres,

Nos ombres courant sur les murs sont des origami

Pliages courbant l'échine

Nous aurions pu avancer fièrement

Avec un peu moins de malchance

Car nous ployons sous les croix des drames

L'acier des couteaux luit dans les réverbères

Celui des canons est de la matité de la nuit

Celui des regards comme une braise va s'éteindre

À demi-morts, à demi-nus, à demi-mots

La gêne s'installant de se voir ainsi dépouillés

Il n'en fallait pas plus pour détourner les yeux

Nos mains en coupe protégeant des œillades notre entrejambe

Exposés dans des cages de verre et d'acier

Sur les photos de mariage nous sourions, pourtant,

Alors l'acier nous nourrissait

À présent il nous a désappris à sourire

Il a tranché dans le vif des clichés

Le feu a équarri, le vent abattu, la mer nivelé,

Mais c'est l'acier qui a enseigné les plus grandes leçons

On ne referme pas aussi facilement ses entailles

Agélastes par le seul fait d'un couteau mis sous la gorge

Le jour si présent par nos paupières amputées

Amputée notre masculinité, notre féminité

Bafoué notre droit de respirer

Voilà des années que nous sommes en apnée

Alors que nous ne demandions qu'à être pendus haut et court

Nous ne demandions qu'à avoir la gorge tranchée d'un trait

Pas que nous renâclons à souffrir

Mais c'est l'attente qui nous chiffonne,

C'est l'acier qui rugine, qui équarrit, qui ruine

C'est sa capacité à surprendre les chairs encore fermées

À s'y frayer un chemin alors qu'on respire encore.

L'acier, dans tous ses usages, fait frémir.

Do not be sad

Do not be sad, when I will be away

as soon or late each one of us must hence.

It is our slow, dim fate: we are bound to decay –

Yet it is not so bad or unkind an offence.

The fact that I chose which was the un-day

that I would have death for me to commence

isn't what you would expose as cowardly or foul play –

the mere act of taking a breath is at times too intense.

So don't be down to see me leave today.

Allow me to tread beyond the dark fence...

yes, I'm dead, yet certain I haven't gone astray:

I am where all of us must drown every pretence.

The weight on my back often made me sway,

The love of my friends often was immense,

Oft the pain that offends, that nothing could allay,

painted my days black and blue and dulled my good sense

and I could find against the buffets no defence –

one shouldn't slack one's pace yet one shouldn't delay.

I'm gone to the undiscovered country

for the one I have paced was much too dense,

too wan was its sun, too harsh its reality,

too uncaring, too bitter were its sentiments,

too harrowing – and a disaster – was the fray

for me to go on facing all the evidence.

Do not cry, and I beg you, do not pray,

I chose to die and pay the last expense.

I no longer lie nor feel sorry for those who betray,

I no longer shy nor suffer from any negligence –

my current turned awry in a sudden turn of events –

I know I should have said goodbye, but I have a long way.

In memory of Luc C.

Trimming

"Art is the elimination of the unnecessary."

Pablo Picasso, painter, and sculptor (1881-1973)

Once upon a nighttime

Once upon a nighttime

At the unglad hour

When the twilit bells chime

I saw a man humped on a motorcycle

He was lour he was sour

And he never had the giggles

He knew the road to be treacherous

And full of magnificent bulltoads

When the weather was tempestuous

But on that night he was on the road

For he was remarkably jealous

His wife had been seen with a man named Goad.

Fireflies were dancing before his tired eyes

But he was mad, he was mad with rage

He knew he had to kill them to turn the page

Fireflies were prancing before his unhinged eyes.

The raving chuff-chuff of the motorcycle

Filled the night with an angry pestilence

Here and there in the marches the purulence

Thickened the night air to a charcoal treacle.

When he reached Goad's house on the moor

He saw his wife's car in the alley

So he rammed his cycle through the door

And beat them up into a jelly.

Both his wife and her wan paramour

Ended up in the bulltoads' belly.

No quiero olvidar tu sonrisa

No quiero olvidar tu sonrisa

Y tu piel que siente la vida

Je ne veux pas oublier ton sourire

Et ta peau qui sent la vie

Lisse comme les feuilles d'olivier

Et plus sauvage qu'une coulée de lave

Ton tonnerre claque chacun de mes jours

Et à chacune des marées que tu invoques

Armée de tes bras comme des faux

Capable de trancher des horizons

Tu ressacques le limon qui m'enlise

Et rien ne m'importe plus que les vagues

De ta chevelure d'automne

Et des filaments blancs de tes iris

Je n'ai jamais su faire face

Jamais su refaire surface

Je n'ai jamais su que dire

Et parfois je me surprends à sourire

En repensant au goût des fraises de Malte

Quand je t'embrasse

Et le bleu de la mer

Dans l'écho de la conque

Dans le roulis de la barque

Tu m'as appris qu'il faut savoir s'obstiner de temps à autre

Laisser de côté la fureur et marcher

Éviter le regard des méduses

La morsure des soleils de Fez

Et marcher sans d'autre prière

Que celle de clémence faite au vent

Certains se sont fait un peu moins qu'un nom

En gravant "j'étais là" dans la pierre de Corinthe

Passée par le sabre et le feu et le temps

L'anonymat ou l'immortalité

À portée de plainte contre la mort

Tu m'as appris que pleurer comme un enfant

Ne doit pas faire peur, et ça m'est passé,

Car plus d'un a péri sans un souffle conservé

Et l'équilibre est maintenu comme une assiette

Sur la pointe d'une baguette.

Tout arrive si vite qu'on n'a plus le temps.

Alors on disculpe à tour de bras

Et l'envie tourne au vinaigre

Parce qu'on ne sait plus comment faire.

Et d'une poigne de fer on plie la dune.

La nuit semble impénétrable pour qui ne sait pas que la nuit existe

La magie du doigt opérant l'entaille dans le vif de la pierre

Rectiligne car il n'a jamais eu à faire ce geste

Et il ne le répétera jamais –

Il aurait suivi une courbe s'il avait cru en Dieu.

Certains tournent la page en fuyant le jour,

Laissent une traînée incandescente de misère dans leur sillage.

Le marbre dalle nos allers et venues.

Tu m'as appris qu'on fait des choix par amour.

Tu m'as appris qu'il y a des cris dans la nuit

Dont on n'entend que la fin,

Pour peu qu'on ait laissé la fenêtre entrouverte.

Sinon on n'entend rien, car la voix s'arrête, ou on a fui.

Et les aurores reprennent dans tes pupilles

Car tu m'as appris que la vie continue

Car souvent dix mille mains tendues

N'y suffisent pas. Si on le veut, on vacille.

Et les branches des pins bruissent entre tes doigts,

Pareilles à des montagnes qui se caressent

Douze mille ans durant tu m'as manqué

Car la nuit vint s'interposer entre nous

Alors que nous marchions dans les oliveraies de Damas

Douze mille ans que je n'ai baisé tes lèvres

Et autant à attendre ta venue sur ce chemin de terre.

À présent que tu es arrivée,

Je sais que je n'ai pas oublié ton sourire

et ta peau qui sent la vie.

Ups and downs

"Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. Genius must always have lapses proportionate to its triumphs."

Max Beerbohm, essayist, parodist, and caricaturist (1872-1956)

Slippery when said

"No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous."

Henry Brooks Adams, historian (1838-1918)

Accidental purpose

"What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse."

Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

Sifting

So many times I disagree

with what people say

for I look and think differently

I'm not like them they say

and with that I'm perfectly okay

for I've learnt how to feel

because I went blind

inside

and I perspired the fear

the dark glare of that black sun

which most are content to get away from

so often I'm just glad to be alive

and to be able to remember my dreams

even if more often than not they hurt

even if so often they drive

me nuts

for they show what I spurn

and place a mirror

before my face

for days and days I've been hard-pressed

not to say depressed

but I walked on

in parks

along pavements

sifting the sentiments

scribbling messages

on the bark of the planes

perhaps I've never felt right in my head

but I tend to smile the more

at the silly lies people invent

to thresh reality

to shred their dreams

and they stay at home, content

as I sometimes am, sometimes,

to stay at home when I'm low

and stay put in bed

all lights in the red

but then I get fidgety

I want to see to see

what the world's up to

I'm full of bad habits

and of all sorts of odd bits

but my girlfriend likes me this way

she says we could open up a shop

and sell reveries

and fantasies

to all those who stopped

thinking life's bewildering array

is not too bewildering not to do away

with the oddities

I say that in time we all can learn

to fake even our happiness

and to fool the best of friends

I've been known to talk in my sleep

I've been known to blow a fuse

that's because I've seen the deep

for me darkness has no hidden hues

sometimes I hate to be alone

even lousy company suffices

to feel at home

in this mad world

bar the deficiencies

Sometimes I just hate to be alone

no word

to express

the loneliness

even a word

can shatter

Perhaps I'm mad but that's how I live

and I don't forget to give

as much as I receive

and I leave

on tiptoe

before they know

I was here -

only one line

cut afresh

on a tree

mentions

I am free.

Sunhaze

I sleepwalk all my days

bathing in sunhaze

I'm bogged-in at nighttime

swathing in moonslime

dusk and dawn offering nothing less

than a sedative inbetweenness

I lick my wounds

in the cold house

finding comfort in the relative

security of four consecutive

standing thickwalls

I pass the days half-awake

sunhaze-baked

I strut the strung streets at night

moonslime-bedight

stuck and gone where people used to sleep

where sentiments through spun shadows seep

Tomorrow I boxed-up and shelved,

yesterday-like, as null and void,

as unlookedforward to

dismissed in absentia

clammy doldrums that can't be helped

plodding through nights after nights

through moonslime and trodden lights

sunhaze stilling all my highs

sunhaze burning through my eyes

Alliteration

"Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts."

Leo Calvin Rosten, academic, humorist, scriptwriter, storywriter, journalist (1908-1997)