Take a pill

happenstance happened quietly

nobody yelled or beat their chest

no drama really

it was as easy as the dull rest

like an over-the-counter-morning-after pill

for minor catastrophes

just as things went downhill

up went the fees

no one cared though, it was mesmerizing

so much chaos so superbly orchestrated

a caprioling murmuration of starlings

in the vespertine dusk 'fore the endless night

we let it happen because –

no point trying really since –

something without no real cause

no real consequences

would we remember it years from now

would we remember the when and the how

best be buried with the whole shebang

lest it start growing a sharp set of fangs

 

Le grand cambriolage

Sometimes I wish somebody broke into my flat

and burgled everything – even the books

even my clothes – nothing even to be sat

and nought but dust sheeping in the nooks.

I'd then be homeless and run with the gale

cross deserts and all them little brooks

I've been dreaming of as if the grail –

I'd then be free from everything that hooks.

I frankly don't know what's pinning me down here –

everywhere I seem to be turning my looks

I see nothing but madness tier upon tier

I see nothing but what the mind snaps and crooks –

Yet everyone content with the same outlooks

– only I at peace with what reality brings –

while all seem arrayed in ready-to-burn stooks

while all see the essence in booze, drugs and flings.

Sometimes I wish somebody broke into my flat

so I could finally shirk off this pack of rooks

and go my own way for this isn't my combat –

to each their own fading bliss in their own fading books.

 

Games

Children play-pretend they're adult

playing dead

because there's nothing else to do

every day

at four on the

gameless playground

mirror shards beaming

like a sniper's red dot on the forehead

killing on sight

no cover, even in the dark of

the abandoned shack –

recreational death

mimicking that outside

the other one the adults play

and can't stop talking about

dismembering locusts

recreating death

because pain is not felt

but it feels good to bring it

– heck yeah it does –

perhaps even going as far as

dancing around the carcasses

because rituals have to start somewhen

and all those black threads

covering everything

all stemming from the one broom –

children feel like witches

riding the dark night –

it covers the sounds

muffles your footsteps

no-one can hear you or

the kite-runners of Karachi

– we know what happens to kite-runners:

they either get caught or thunderstruck –

children hopscotch from earth to heaven

sometimes on shards of botched buildings

crudely chalked on the patched playground

the game is avoid stumbling

over the pitfalls, over the graves –

to be underground is to be forgotten

if only until after the living's to return –

no children game is ever innocent

and the adults play-pretend children

contradict in terms:

children playing grown-ups

and adults pretend they're Peter Pans

because too much reality isn't fun, right –

the preferred oblivion of

a doll which will obey our every wish

a delirious dance in a nightclub

the costumed thrill of a carnival

no game is ever innocent

aiming at some lower point

the elusive in-between

where everything comes to life –

sometimes a squeaking, squawking bike

endlessly circling in a closed patio

and a little imagination is all it takes

– but is that even innocent now –

Exposition “Jeux, rituels et récréations”, Gare Saint-Sauveur, Lille, 2017

 

The quiet life

A pound of flesh is a pound of truth

the selfsame self in silence and fury

tied to freedom, unstoppable

funnelled by one's own choices.

Silence in solitude

fury in revels

silence in sleep

fury in destruction.

Dancing around ruins

unashamed and unconscious

– impressions on the mind

must be as red-hot irons –

zeitgeist margin in a satellite centre

going down as the world goes down

plummets like an asteroid

because it is bound to go down.

Chaos as the norm and the everyday

no fixed point but self-preservation

building up of one's own reality

no other voice inside but that which

exalts the brute

and feeds the drowsy rage

quieting what might have been a voice

– stifling conscience –

making sense of the inconsistencies

square will nonetheless fit into triangle

with justified ends and means

so as to sleep the sleep of the just.

Bound in fury and silence

unthinking each next step

but having prophetic dreams about it

in which truth is fleshed out –

but is silenced in the fury.

This, is her quiet life.

 

Fardels bear

"We also deem those happy, who from the experience of life, have learned to bear its ills and without descanting on their weight."

Juvenal, poet (circa 60-140 AD)
 

Innocent

She wept softly that she was innocent –

the shell of the barn still smoking

sizzling beams fireflying in the dusk –

the smoke blending in the near-darkness

stinging the eyes and the nostrils

keenly unseeing and unsmelling the body

at all costs – that she was innocent –

they had tied her hands to the oak –

anger mounting, the horses restless,

the women shivering in the chill –

judgement had to be passed quickly –

there was no way she could be innocent –

yet she pleaded, and looked harmless,

but she was uncannily beautiful –

many confessed to the blaze in their belly

which was everything but innocent –

that poor lad here had paid the price in full

for yielding to the lure of her beauty –

'twas best the barn had burnt – but innocent? –

they all knew her to be odd, and lusty –

she herself knew to be innocent – innocent –

cinders in her hair and on her hands a charred scent.

 

Within comfortable range

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum -- even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

Noam Chomsky, linguistics professor and political activist (1928)
 

Beauty on canvas

The girl with the pearl

set the world a-whirl

to then the following year

be mowed down by the Reaper

 

Last one awake

Every evening

of every day

I have to be

the last one awake

Just to make sure

– everyone's safe

– none has to be

the last one awake

The first one up

to watch over

them all even

the last one to wake

The nights are short

but all worth it

there's joy to be

the last one awake

At times it hurts

to stay awake

but I'll always be

the last one awake

And if there be

once I shouldn't

then let me be

the last one to wake

 

Reality check

"I don't believe in playing down to children, either in life or in motion pictures. I didn't treat my own youngsters like fragile flowers, and I think no parent should. Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature. Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality."

Walt Disney, entrepreneur and animator (1901-1966)
 

Centripetal gyration

"I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I will try."

Rainer Maria Rilke, poet and novelist (1875-1926)
 

Watching a glacier move

"It was not conscious. There was no recognition in it of one's fortune, or fate, and for that very reason even to those dazed with watching for the last shivers of consciousness on the faces of the dying, consoling.

Forgetfulness in people might wound, their ingratitude corrode, but this voice, pouring endlessly, year in, year out, would take whatever it might be; this vow; this van; this life; this procession; would wrap them all about and carry them on, as in the rough stream of a glacier the ice holds a splinter of bone, a blue petal, some oak trees, and rolls them on."

Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (1925)

Drifting still

"Normal is the average of deviance."

Rita Mae Brown, writer (b. 1944)
 

The Hours

She had not come, she had not yet come.

The waiting, the longing, the unmoving

in each of these stretched-past-breaking-point hours

the hole that can't be filled

in the pit of the stomach

the hunger pushing the boundaries

of the hours, of solitude, a bit further off

she had not yet come, not yet come

and she dug her absence with a pick axe

laboriously, apparition ploughing in the dark

silent against a clear backdrop

She had not yet come.

Of course, one doubted she would ever come

the hours reached cosmic dimensions

almost ridiculous in their order of magnitude,

density and aloofness

Yet sometimes in the search one would find

a smoking camp-fire

steaming coffee on the stove

wet trees and grass one mile away

whence no rain had fallen

a tinge of peppermint in the air

a hair hanging off a warm pillow

It was hard to make sense of the hours.

They were not pointing in any clear direction

they dragged and eluded description

showing and veiling

the hours, the hours

both filling and containing the void

the restlessness, the fidgeting,

the looking-for-reasons

the paralysis and the purpose to get up

to brush up one's teeth and one's knowledge

the impetus to not put commas

to par one's fingernails

They were the inherent contradiction

the dryness and luxuriance of the world

that which rendered all words empty

and gave them meaning, new meanings

sucking life out of every second

breathing her mind back into them

It was foretold she would burst like a hurricane

and turn the whole world upside-down

leaving carcasses of animals and cars

and a foot of caking mud

a glistening sense of agony

a jungle-like silence

and sudden gusts of wind

that sent shivers up the spine

and then other hours will come

freed prisoner scratching the days

before the next meeting

off the invisible wall of his cell

other hours will grip and churn

curled up, foetus-like, in pain

seeing things that are, and aren't,

unable to differentiate

these other hours one will not court

will hammer in certain intuitions

among which holding sway over one's mind

the certitude that one will hurt

will die from this last hurtle-down love

because there is too little and too much of it

giving and taking as rampaging crusaders

ruining to build anew

burning down to fertilise the ground

these hours will make wormfood out of you

they will sow anger in the lap of your heart

those same hours that have levelled

mountains down to sand

won't even cock their ear

at the crushing of your skull

the hours etching their distinctive mark

over every action and thought

even on the foam in the mug of coffee

the hours are like letting go

of that which is still yours

making a memory off a living person

off a moment that would never come to pass

and the holding-back when she wakes up

at fucking long last

and needs time, more time

and it feels this is all you have

all you have left

the time without her

even after she had come

the waiting

the hours metronoming your heart

making you dream of Maghera cave

and the waves beating the sand

into the wind

and for some reason

you yearn for the sea

for a barefoot shoreline walk

hands folded behind your back like a peasant

and your nose up in the briny air

you then understand that she was picking flowers

or was it caterpillars

dancing wildly by the roadside

the reason of being behind

and your constant glancing at the gate

for she was the hours

she was the hours

and saying this I realise

she had always been

here and now and there and then

all along

I will have to wait for hours

for her to deign glance back at me

to catch a glimpse of her like a shooting star

cowering in a corner when she flares like the sun

elbows on the gate to the prairie when she's the night

when she rains, looking ahead,

smiling when she appears in the doorway

when she leaves, smiling.

 

Coffee

She lifts the cup – the bland china clank still

above the morning murmur of the hurried customers –

to her lips only for her pen to be stilled

by the surprising absence of content –

it's like finding out one's cigarette's out

even though they're designed to burn out –

running out of coffee remains uncanny –

the story stalled until the next gulp –

time measured in punctincting china –

halted mid-air staring at the blackbrown ring –

granular negative of a near-perfect eclipse –

blended shadows of distilled words,

bitter if left to sit on out for too long –

in one movement she stands up, pushes back

the stool and lays down the cup –

the day stretches outside the bay window

people after cars after people after cars –

queueing up again – keeping watch on her things

– her things – in a haloed blur on the table –

the pockmarked, unnerved, unsmoothed wood –

the tinnital wave of the conversation floating

like bobbing flotsam in the middle of the café,

she feels aloof, stranded, a standstill runaway,

an exile without a justification, a fraud almost

though she has money, a job, club cards –

been mocked for the black hair on her brown arms –

more disturbing to her is the pulp of her skin

loosening so visibly when she drinks water –

as anyone she is the sum of her memories,

slave to them – ditching one means losing a finger –

– her things – her coffee – essential and trivial –

the café, the people, the cars, the china

keep her head down and blank and running,

the noise motions her in the here and the now –

the threads adjusted, the cup filled, the ink stayed –

disambiguates the scars from the words –

while the bland china still clink – while she lifts the cup.

(p)leisure

"The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation."

Ezra Pound, poet (1885-1972)


There are many shades to be found in this quote when one scratches the varnish, but I'll be discussing only one right now that's the most obvious to me (quick aside: I like the idea that what's obvious at one point in time, in your life, may be different at another further down the line.)

 I initially wanted to say in the title to this quote that "leisure equaled time". I realised quickly this wasn't true, and not what Pound meant. Time is part of the concept of leisure, but so is to be free of any constraint. Providing an artist with a smooth relationship when they're in an artistic process is to take part in the process itself. Without an understanding partner, no success is possible for no anchor in the real is possible. Pound didn't specify the context, so if the artist isn't in any relationship then it's much easier in one sense, but they'll need an equally understanding society to give them free reins.

Leisure is a broad term that in our modern society can encompass many things, from being free from financial constraints to some form of emotional distance -- yet with a maintenance of the strong bond -- from one's partner. Giving space, time; providing a poised, safe environment; taking care of the world around while something else is being created...all of these require dedication, respect and trust, from either society or the artist's partner. Its process is egocentric, yet humanistic in nature. This process has to be recognised as "work", just as Pound envisioned it. Leisure isn't just "free time" or spending endless hours looking out the window or staring at a blank canvas, even though a measure of maturation process has to be suffered.

Last, of all: leisure is really "the only thing" the artist needs to be given. The rest they'll take care of. Hence the title.

Agent of Change

"A society which is mobile, which is full of channels for the distribution of a change occurring anywhere, must see to it that its members are educated to personal initiative and adaptability. Otherwise, they will be overwhelmed by the changes in which they are caught and whose significance or connections they do not perceive."

John Dewey - philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer (1859-1952)
 

Se on totta, mutta se sattuu

"Puede haber amor sin celos, pero no sin temores."

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616)

"There can be love without jealousy, but not without fear."

Letters to the Son(g)

"Learning is acquired by reading books; but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading man, and studying all the various editions of them."

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, statesman and writer (1694-1773)

What Really Irritates Me In Men, Women and Poodles, and Other Sartorial Considerations Very Late at Night, Part 6

Here we go again. Blame it on the insomnia and the appeal of the late-summer, rosy-fingered dawn. Blame it also on the vanity of this pigsty of a world, on my compatriots' chlorinated confusion. The will to prove one's existence never has paved a clearer path to ridicule than now, making the happy sarcastic few even more sarcastic...inevitably making this series long-winded ad absurdum. I'm not sure one can run out of stuff to rant about when one looks long enough at the thriving state of worldly affairs, but I'm certain that one needs a hand, every now and again. Tonight, baboons will lock hands with us in a firm, brotherly handshake across the Sacred Order of the Primates to show us The Way To Go.

One disclaimer before I start: as indeed the title so titularily stipulates, it is very late at night – so late at night it is that it's actually the same night as two nights ago – ergo I shall be eternally indebted to your disregard of the syntactical, punctuational and logical lack of substance my barbarous sentences will doubtless show.

I have addressed this issue before, but I am still dumbfounded by the very-short-term memory of some men who dry their hands after “el numero uno” – those who have completely forgotten to wash their hands in the first place. Yes, those one. Sure the wetness is there, and needs to be addressed...but this...is beyond my capacity to respond rationally. Keeping toilets clean doesn't amount to how much detergent and efforts one puts into its cleaning, but how one incites – dare I say 'tricks' – its users into washing their hands: automatic taps, automatic soap dispenser, automatic hand-dryer. Seeing how some still fail at shifting their hands vectorially in the (obvious) designated spots to soap up, clean and dry would baffle a two-week-into-training baboon. The non-automatic door spells 'death by germs' on its handle.

On the podium of (literally) stupendous stupidity might undeniably stand the morning-after-pubescence-hit vacuous missus recently beheld at my local bar (there's no way she could have been 18, but hey, it'll all make sense in a couple sentences) pole-dancing (complete with ass-rubbing lasciviousness) against every man in the joint, regardless of their being with someone. Her make-up wasn't as grotesque as one might have expected, but her dress was stupidly short, and by stupidly I mean that one could almost see her buttocks when she stood up – it's actually an unsolved sartorial feat to me that it didn't pull all the way up to her waist when she danced. One understood why she was even allowed to get in when one discovered that the testosterone-bursting males – obviously the single ones and one of the bouncers – were actually queueing up (I kid you not) to serve as a pole-dancing bar. It wasn't a pretty sight: one could see glassy eyes, drooling chins and bulging zippers; one could hear coarse, ruttish laughters that only seemed to spur her on. I mean, even the women in there were fascinated by the girl's boldness, the awkwardness of the moment because she was a frigging awesome dancer, I'll give her that. Her dance was sensual and enticing and boner-inducing (even I had to look up once in a while), in keeping with the rhythm of the music. It all lasted about thirty, perhaps forty-five minutes, and then she was gone (not from some people's memory, of course).

Quick side note: I was sitting on my own with a beer-and-book combo (I know it sounds weird, but I like reading in that bar on an early Friday evening because the music is chill and the crowd usually super-friendly, so feck off) and she did glance at me, but she perhaps didn't feel up for a challenge, or perhaps thought she had enough males for one night. Or perhaps the raised eyebrow deterred her altogether. The mandrill baboon in me was touched, but not aroused...perhaps I'm really a cul-de-sac in the chain, but the girl's forlorn eyes dug deeper than I cared to admit back then. The loneliness in people is something I highly respect, not something I take advantage of.

Speaking of baboons, one never fails to recognise modern primates for what they really are in a crowd. I was attending a Celtic event this summer in a reconstructed Viking village in a small town. It was Sunday, the day was hot and the sun had this buttery quality which I like. There were workshops with metalsmiths, woodworkers, tailors. The whole modern-day Viking she-bang. Archery and thatchers. Dancers. At some point there was a call in a loudspeaker saying that some children in period costume were thrust onto a stage to perform a rather fancy interpretation of a Morris dance to the springy tune of drums, oboes, lutes and flageolets. OK, perhaps the call just mentioned that some dance was about to take place and the rest is my own interpretation. Perhaps. Doubtful Viking-y costumes at best, but a ridiculous parody of Morris dance (come on, it's a 15^th Century English thing) and an even more ridiculous choice of instruments. Flageolet, for Pete's sake. I know that organisers try their best to emulate and entertain...but that's just the grumpy me. Anyway, so these kiddos are on stage and hold hands and parents see their offspring in cute attires smiling and dancing cutely so their first instinct is – of course – to just come as close as they can to the stage and record the whole darn thing, mayhap trampling some other parent in the process but hey, that's social Darwinism. A hungry troop of baboons (or a shrewdness of apes, for that matter) would be more orderly at lunch-time in your local zoo.

Essentially, they were blocking the view of the parent behind, who was blocking the view of the one behind, and the one behind. From where I stood, at a safe distance, I could see a mobile phone screen recording another mobile phone screen recording another mobile phone screen recording another recording some fuzzy dance in the distance...a perfect “mise en abyme” that was comically farcical, because even the first parent, who obviously had a clear view, was pressed to the point of suffocation against the protective railings. Perhaps they all meant well, in some dimension yet unknown to science, but the fact that they cannot argue their case convincingly when asked not to push which pulls the WTF trigger. They either give one another the same look as a rabbit caught in the headlights' glare, or that of the driver looking at the lifeless body of the half rabbit protruding from under the tyre.

I plead guilty, on this rather hot and cloudless day, of schadenfreude watching all of this unfold.

Talking about misery and joy, let's turn to one of my favourite species which is their perfect epitome: the poodle. Of course I have to have a go at them, or the raison d'être of this rant would proverbially be thrown at them. My liebestod towards them is legendary, but this passionate hatred is well-founded, believe me. I recently learnt that their hair-do actually had a purpose back then (not the rather personal, dubiously aesthetic one it's supposed to have in our modern era): as they were used as water dogs (even though they don't have palmed paws...go figure), their self-conscious owners would shear their curly mane in strategic places so that the dogs wouldn't be weighted down by too much soaked fur...because you see: the shining coat of the poodle doesn't stop growing. It doesn't shed excess fur. Sure, you could contend that they don't smell and are non-allergy-inducive, to which I will respond that somewhere in that matted fur of theirs, in these dread-locks and impossible-to-comb knots, given enough time, there must be some bacteria or some germ snugly proliferating in silence.

I have to hit the sack now, as I sense my sagacious sarcastic side might keep me awake for longer than is reasonable, especially after two sleepless nights in a row. Sometimes, it's also good to let some things go. Alternatively, we all have other fish to fry, and baboons to feed.

 

Here and Zen

"The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there."

Robert Maynard Pirsig, author and philosopher (1928-2017, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
  

Le veilleur de lumière

Le vieil homme assis imagine qu'il peut

fasciner la lumière en de longs filins

la rendre plus malléable, plus vibrante

les faire passer à travers le givre de la vitre

à travers le chas impassible de la serrure

pour tresser une natte de photons

qu'on retiendra d'une corde fine

qu'on ondulera autour d'un vase de verre

à travers la page manuscrite filigranée

écourtés à la limite de la rupture chromatique

comme la pâte levée du pain quotidien

gorgé autrefois de l'entière lumière du jour

de celle qui fait plisser la paupière de l'oeil clair

qui creuse les rides, la mélancolie et la vallée

de celle qui cache et qui révèle

comme le souvenir d'une morte au coucher

démontrés comme un éventail de partitions

pourtant toujours nouvelles à travers le tesson

ce sable diurne cuit dans la fournaise de la nuit

de celle qui cache et qui révèle

à travers les élytres des satellites, des libellules

qu'on étendra sur le linge encore humide

pour les faire passer, constants, dans l'inconstance

en porte-à-faux avec l'espace, et le temps

ondulés comme et contre l'inertie galiléenne

cerner la lumière pour la mieux diffuser

la cacher pour la mettre en valeur

comme une monstruosité invisible

de celle qui cache et qui révèle

le vieil homme assis dans son étude imagine

qu'il est lui-même source de lumière

un cercle photonique ayant tout d'un monocle

à travers lequel il brillerait par, en et sur sa propre brillance

symétrie des symétries y gagnant en luminosité

à mesure qu'il s'approcherait de lui-même

voyant, inventant, se souvenant de tout dans une fulgurance

gardien, otage, maître et esclave de ce qui l'éclaire

 

Not just any stone

I am looking for a stone, but I don't want just any stone.

I have possessed a lot of stones throughout my life. At specific times I wanted a specific stone. I wanted a stone that shoots sparkles skimming across a lake. I wanted a stone darker than the night and brighter than the sun. I wanted a stone as smooth as a lover's skin. I wanted a stone to build a house with. I wanted a stone which would heal my wounds, repair my bones and soothe my spirit. I wanted a stone to hone a knife. I wanted a slabstone to mark a cenotaph. I wanted another to pave the way to my house.

All these stones have now pulverised. I now want one last stone, one I never had or never seen before. I am now reaching forty years of age, and I feel this last stone will define the remainder of my existence, burden it or support it, crush it or shelter it.

We carving men have shaped stones into idols, homes, watches, pencils, grindstones, troughs, canals, temples, needles. We seem to be able to make it assume any shape we want, yet we cannot bend it like we would a wooden board. We cannot fold it like we would some sheet of paper. Try as hard as we want, we don't have the energy to. I want a stone that can be folded, making it an amulet bearing the word which encompasses all moving things in this universe, from the littlest particle to the most massive black hole.

This stone has yet to be made. It's a stone movement folds, not gravity nor time. Why such a stone, I hear you wonder. It is an element which man cannot fold, yet it is made of folds. A much greater force than Man's did that, a long time ago. You cannot mend it. You cannot re-attach one bit which has been broken off and make it whole again. Unlike History. We know that History happens at the fold, and History is action and these actions necessitated a tremendous amount of energy to be shaped, just like folding matter into stone – this energy has been spent, is there, is gone, is there again. History needs equal amounts of energy to unfold and fold again, never to be mended.

I want a stone which can be folded into a shape which cannot but be perfect and imperfect. A stone in movement, because this would be the perfect material to build the world anew, to bend History so much it would fold and unfold at the same time. Yes, this is what I want to do: fold and unfold – disturb really – the universe.

This stone exists, I'm quite certain of it. Its existence has been hinted at several times in the course of our History, and many scientific papers have reasonably proved that it ought to be somewhere in our reality in order for it to sustain itself, without yet being able to ascertain where we should look, what we should look for, and how.

I don't want just any stone, for none so far recorded in our catalogue of all existing things holds enough pliability or enough resistance to be the foundation stone, the pillars and the capstone of the universe as it could be. One which doesn't require any chisel, any hand nor any will to be folded and shaped. Only this stone will do, and none other will be had.

 

De la meilleure façon de perdre utilement son temps #1

Je pratique au quotidien

la perte de temps utile,

celle qui ignore le temps qui file,

qui fait tout d'un petit rien :

lire des dizaines d'articles

sur des animaux disparus,

sur la reproduction des bernicles

ou des trucs encore plus incongrus :

sur les méthodes de survie

en cas d'attaque de zombies,

sur la meilleure façon de cuire

un cookie si on n'a pas de four ;

mon mur entier de Facebook

a de quoi réjouir tout bon plouc :

tout est possible après un tutoriel

même écrit sans aucune voyelle.

Je passe donc mes journées

à ne rien faire utilement,

comme compter lentement

le nombre de secondes écoulées

depuis que je suis né,

parce qu'au fond, j'ai le temps.

 

Understand

Would you have followed me

if you had believed in love?

Would you have watched me

die had you believed in life?

You would probably have sat down

paring your fingernails meticulously

have watched through the agony

without so much as a frown

stood up and straightened your skirt

with the back of your hand

and, if only a little pert,

said that you understand.

 

Walking with ghosts

When the ghosts come out

of that hole in space

everything freezes in place

My first instinct was to doubt

those I thought a mind projection

as they were all killed in action

When the ghosts wake up

oft before the morning cup

I feel like burying underground

But they don't let go, and like hounds

trace you everywhere you go

those who were friends now are foes

Today the ghosts are out again

but they are angrier than ever before

their contour more blurred, and more

are crying as if in pain

they ask for justice, monies for their death

ask me to atone with my own breath

Today the ghosts will claim me as their own

for why should they sleep under stone

and I walk freely and unhindered?

So as I walk under skies sundered

the ghosts tear my mind apart

guide my steps to the edge

of that long footbridge

and heave my purple heart

right over the ledge.

 

blue on blue

blue on blue

When the first shot rang

the patrol ducked on the ground

it was a shot in the dark, and some ran

and some fired back a few rounds

we were ambushed, though radio

said it could see no foe

We had two men down, one KIA

and one bleeding from the throat

but radio said it was just us on that slope

but radio said help was on the way

spark on spark

When later we came back to assess

we were shocked and awed, for sure

we witnessed the extent of the mess

even though the day was still obscure

only a finger-triggering coup d'œil

was enough to see it was all so cruel

We had not been attacked

one of us, somehow, had panicked

and had pulled the trigger

there was nothing friendly in that fire

dusk on dusk

We were privates, and it would stay private

said the officer in charge of the incident

so we were told not to dwell on it

and next time to be more vigilant

but 'neath the witching hour

the taste in our mouth was sour

We were left out of the last dogwatch

the hour between dog and wolf

perhaps because they feared we'd botch

the job again, and hell all engulf

shadow on shadow

We saw the coroner come in at the mess

he dropped the bullet in our tin plate

it banged like the seven bells of fate

it was a 5.56, confirming the final guess

we platoon watched our feet, and hate started

we wished our hearts were armour-plated

when beast eat beast, someone said

there's no knowing friend from foe

some left, some with us bled

some shrugged, some eyed the ammo

blue on blue

When the sun went down again

it seemed we were for the first time awake

perhaps it was not as much our mistake

as your decreed silence which was our bane

which would for years take its highest toll on us

as even now we cannot face ourselves to discuss

We guess that perhaps you mean well, perhaps

you mean to protect us from ourselves

from the guilt, from the mouth of our own gun

yet the blue hours drag us back in, right back in.

 

Murphy's Laws

The sound of a gun

June comes roughly like the sound of a gun

not the one you expect at the start of a race

but one like a hair-raising thunderclap

in the sky are neither holes nor patches

but superimpositions of angry shouts

patched-up silver linings contouring a map

now allow me to make a bold statement:

solitude is cliff erosion,

it makes the head spin glancing down the gap

I'm tired of being patient:

nothingness is nothingness,

empty hands stay empty, not even a scrap

the depression you thought was gone

is back again, like the sound of a gun

which snaps you out of a Sunday nap

I'm tired of being tired, tired of helping others,

tired of knowing what to do and my hands tied

tired of unsticking myself out of this flytrap

this is the end of me as I knew myself to be

I see minutes pass like years, landsliding like morass

in pitch: need to either blast or soothe my skullcap.

 

The sum of our parts

We have always been

more than the sum of our parts

more than what we've seen

more than a diary can chart.

We have always been

more than the net of our loss

more than our chagrin

more than what we have tossed.

We are less than the product

of any form of multiplication

less than the sectioned result

of any form of division –

yet, strangely, sometimes, we do find

we're more than all of these combined.

 

Granite

L'hésitation du granite aux frémissements de juin

de consommer la fissure attiédie de beaux jours,

dont l'intrusion s'est faite à l'origine de l'origine,

complétion dont l'homme peut enfin témoigner

– comme ce coup de fusil qui prend ses aises dans la plaine,

qu'on fait d'abord mine de confondre avec la foudre –

provenant de la grange pleine de foin sombre,

au pourpre du départ des manœuvres,

le coucou ayant sonné la fin de la moisson –

on accourt pourtant, on mesure l'interstice,

et l'on voudrait soi-même empoigner la pierre

pour la finir de fendre qu'on ne le pourrait,

alors on observe, et on attend le craquement final

qui survient un soir de fin de fauchage,

alors que sur le tard un ouvrier traine.

On a d'abord cherché l'éclair du regard

puis on a plongé dans le mica de l'œil incrédule

passant par les portes de la grange ouvertes en grand –

car qui aurait cru, sa dureté à l'épreuve du temps établie,

se pouvoir trancher ainsi le coin le rondin

ou bien météoriser en grus sur l'enclume des tempêtes,

qui a construit de ces monuments qu'on passe fier et serein

aux générations qui regardent la montagne immuable

et ne peuvent déceler le laccolite de peine

parce que le grenu de la croûte

a été consciencieusement gratté

chaque matin dès le réveil.

Le bloc de granite succombant à la pression caniculaire

s'affaisse en deux en un bruit sourd, la fissure devenant surface,

forme à jamais perdue, mais parfaite pour la légende.

What Drove Us Apart

To Theresa May

Not so long ago you said, Theresa,

that it was the voices of evil and hate

which drove us apart – but no offence

we may have a different answer to that,

for the roots of this stalemate

go bone-deeper than you can sense.

It's the written plea of the homeless

whose utter misery is being silenced –

even their voice was taken away, yes.

It's the omniabsence of the wheelchaired,

for their home is an island-horst

outside of which each-and-every road

is fraught with bureaucratic caltrops.

It's the little one out-of-the-blue-asking

her mom why her dad won't be home

and her, clenching to the kitchen sink,

and her head bowed in shame,

in-vain-dispelling the visions of flames,

as she can't explain a four-year-old why

her daddy died trying to save passers-by.

It's the gut-punching pictures in the papers

of people who could have been us,

praying a God who could have been ours,

who wince at the hand raised in succour

– it being so similar to that which cursed them

which, you know, could well have been ours –

trying to regain some dignity in the slums.

It's the 'apart' that in part drives us,

the further we are the better,

for the taking-parter is a meddler:

one's better off apart on the bus.

It's those who look at death in the eye

for a scrap of information, a picture

to show the world what it chose to disregard.

It's those who look at death in the eye

to mend, heal, soothe the injured,

to show the world what to choose to guard,

those who chose which world for which to die.

It's those who buckle up against insults

the coons, tramps, dems, tards and sluts,

It's those who curl up because they stood up.

It's those who step down for having stood up.

It's those who are spurned for another,

limelighting the concept of 'brother'.

It's all these bent-backs whose voice

was choked in the clangorous quotidian

because they were left with no choice,

they needed a loud-speaker to devoice,

to paint, to word, to picture oblivion.

Even then, sometimes, it's all in vain.

It's the little hurts which slip unnoticed,

the not-so-invisible indigence,

the eyes averting a raised fist,

the self-exonerated carelessness.

It's the vindicated right to be left alone.

So we choose to take cover behind our phone,

we step away, blame someone else,

we come home to check our pulse,

our children, our sundries, our affairs.

Until death strikes us unawares.

Of course, Theresa, we don't blame

you alone, for we share in this shame.

We were already worlds apart

when tragedies hit us so hard:

that which unites fails to bond

if nobody wants to go beyond

the barricades of their heart.

When I remembered the war in Bosnia

watching the ashen-haggard faces of Syria,

it's Richter's Sarajevo's voice I heard

which dug up the pictures, the words,

the agony watching the telly, the insomnias

when I was thirteen and yes, Prime Minister,

even twenty-five years later

I still cry when I think of Sarajevo,

because it's just a new shame starting de novo.

What drove us apart is ourselves,

Theresa May. We forget what makes,

who makes our lives, and we delve,

hurtle headlong without brakes.

Sure, we've grown used to unfair

– blood-and-tears the new wear-and-tear –

sure our life isn't so bad after all,

but we forget how much better it can be –

life isn't just so-be-it shawl-and-pall

or work-hard-play-hard philosophy,

it's also caring for people

and by people I mean any,

people-in-general any,

not just family

nor the polls

or albocracy

because unless we start

showing our real heart

unless we stop looking

and start scrutinizing

unless we stave off ignorance

and start world-educating

unless we dispel the rants

and start accepting

unless we sit down

and start listening,

yes, Theresa, we will be driven

further apart.

 

La Marche

A couvert du murmure des ramondies

l'ombre du vent louvoie l'air de rien

entre les pierres chaudies d'après-midi

obombre les fourbes ophidiens.

Intranquille, l'enfant suit son père,

foule sa foulée, comme instruit ;

il suit son regard aux cieux,

mimant l'inquiétude, mais curieux

des signes décryptés par son père –

Regarde bien, c'est un jour de vipère,

les nuages ne mentent pas comme

le font si souvent les hommes –

la marche alourdie, pesante,

est aussi un signe de serpent.

L'air est sifflant, touffu, crissant au toucher.

L'ombre de l'enfant dans l'ombre paternelle

frémirait si elle avait des ailes –

l'envie d'empoigner cette énorme main calleuse,

cette pogne pleine d'une volonté féroce,

est si forte qu'elle en noue sa gorge –

mais le colosse au cœur de roche veille,

il sent la peur de son enfant qui le suit

couler comme la lumière sur la treille,

il avance comme son père avant lui –

sa bouche est pâteuse comme après l'hostie,

pourtant il est plus confiant à suivre son père

que le berger des grandes eucharisties,

dans le sillage de l'idole aux pieds de fer,

de battement de cœur en battement de cœur,

la peur un poids qui sale les perles de sueur.

Et en un instant,

l'herbe n'est plus herbe, le champ devient ciel,

le ciel devient champ devient herbe

devient le soleil seul œil à ne pas cligner

devient le chant oppressant des criquets

suspendu ou accompli

l'horizon aboli

un pas après l'autre,

un pas devient l'autre,

un éclair, peut-être noir, peut-être bleu

divise soudain le vaste monde en deux.
 

The Seaside

Footsteps shuffling on the shore
Far away surfs distill monotony

Mirroring tears through the entropic

Window pane on a rainy day

Build your fell-fated castles

Write your name as upon water

Leave your marks like echoes

Tread on the sand, trace trails

Foottrails woven in zigzagging pawprints

Discard burnt logs and orphaned bottles

Everything beyond the seashell-line

Is within the salvageable Pale

Everything else the sea will claim as its own

Never to be seen and remembered,

Never to be claimed and saved, ever again.

 

Lone Wolf

"The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely."

Lorraine Hansberry, playwright and painter (1930-1965)

Song for the dead

J'étais qu'un pauvre cul-terreux

Dans un village poussiéreux

Ma belle toi t'étais un torrent

Qui balaie tout en un instant

Je t'aimais et tu brisais le temps

On était tous les deux

On se dit que l'amour est émouvant

Quand on veut être vieux

Parce que l'amour faisait pas semblant

Il était chaleureux

Il voulait nous donner des enfants

Il était sulfureux

On était portés par un grand vent

On n'était plus frileux

Mais l'orage s'est levé brusquement

Puis y'a eu un grand creux

J'étais qu'un pauvre cul-terreux

Dans un village poussiéreux

Ma belle toi t'étais un torrent

Qui balaie tout en un instant

On a l'envie d'aller de l'avant

Oui, l'envie d'être heureux,

Pourtant faire le moindre pas devant

C'est déjà dangereux

J'ai parfois fait le mort, oui, avant,

Pour éviter les bleus

Les coups bas, on s'en est pris tellement

Parce qu'on est amoureux

J'ai traversé les sables mouvants

Je voulais être à deux

Mais t'étais un putain d'ouragan

Et moi trop généreux

J'étais qu'un pauvre cul-terreux

Dans un village poussiéreux

Ma belle toi t'étais un torrent

Qui balaie tout en un instant

L'amour du coup devient décevant

Respirer douloureux

Et toi t'avances, tu dis : « Au suivant. »

Et moi je suis comme un gueux

On a des balafres de survivant

Je croyais que tout irait mieux

Mais je marchais comme un mort-vivant

Comme un vrai miséreux

Alors j'ai fait la guerre dans le vent

Avec les yeux vitreux

J'étais comme un bateau dérivant

Et qui sauve ce qu'il peut

Je suis toujours qu'un cul-terreux

Y'a rien dans mon coeur poussiéreux

Qui attend le prochain torrent

Pour être balayé en un instant.

 

Fragment #68

She appeared out of nowhere on that street

She was like a cornered deer

-- Listening to music, her hair slightly messy --

Darting defiant looks from under her brow

Her face closed -- if a little tense --

Her lips pursed with no apparent emotion

Staying her restless feet

-- She came forward packing up her earplugs

said her name a little too loud

And shook my hand firmly

Her profile had shown no picture

Her messages were to the bullet-point

Yet she was here now, larger than life

And smaller than her voice suggested

In a black mousseline dress

With red embroidered flowers 

Bright red lipstick and deep mascara

She looked hunted nonetheless

Her hazelnut eyes flitting about

And past my left shoulder

Everything about her said:

"Come and get me, I dare you"

I knew it wasn't my battlefield

Yet I answered the call to arms

And all of a sudden I realised

That I probably had the same sort of face, every once in a while,

That hunted expression

She was going to a ballet, she said

To justify her smart outfit and make-up

She sported a tote bag with spare clothes

And a smile to damn yourself for

I clearly damned myself the second I saw her

To recognise a hunted look means

you must have hunted something, once

And gorged on the fear before the kill

We had both hunted and been hunted

We had killed and spared

It was time to joust

Now the memory of her is tainted

The plain mockery of the finger

Finding the flaw and rummaging

Through the wound

She was hunting

Now she appears as in a haze

Distant and aloof

Condescending even as I messed up

Me wishing I hadn't said anything I said

The coup de grace was coming

I pity her, in a way,

For having to endure this ordeal

Yet she had the art to be hunted

-- To keep the hunt going I mean --

To worm herself into my waking dreams

Her perfume is now fading away

Her embrace yet remains intact

Her last lie a stone in the edifice

That will crumble and fall

Her last words already echoes

Everything is trite now and useless

The longing so damn strong yet gradually fading

Eventually falling apart, amid sighs and

Shoulders shrugging into the darkness

The mere

the calm pounding of our heart

like a slow marching-drum

waits and waits and waits

by the mere where no sound was ever made

rests in the vibrating nightlight

we feel drowsy with sleep

while the night kisses us

with heavy lips

rests our head on polished stones

tucking our body in the autan

still without a sound

– no bang, no whimper by the mere --

our hand, stayed at the first touch,

wishes for silence and a kiss

for the soothing blanket of music

like slow ripples on the surface

or like the longing for the warmth

of a hand, of a look

one meaningful look

there would be a familiar smell

an eyelash lost on a cheek

there would be a familiar step

and the evidence of the self

an embrace which neither

pity nor comfort commanded

the possibility of conversation

and – however transient –

the luxury of happiness

by the brooding mere

silhouettes brush past us

like leaves at the foot of a sycamore

nestled in oblivious postures

the night does that to us

brings us all sorts of visions

for it never is complete darkness –

this only do we achieve in our heart

-----------------------

time was wasted in colourless activities

now we observe, witness, record

the mind takes in, like hands on a clock

carefully penning an intricate story

which will only make sense

after it stops – yes, after it stops

yet by the mere, don't forget

that feelings are all and one

like the memory of the juggernaut crowd

its blind surge enveloping all eyes

this memory threshing afresh

our logical rage which prickles the skin

like ants riddling the body

– reminder of the machinery within –

the harpoons in the flesh

the dumbfoundness because we thought

our fears buried deep, so deep down

so far down we could forget them

yet we carefully curb the need to search

lest the darkness closes in upon us –

for the darkness lurks

its eyes spangle in the night –

so that we can put our mind to rust

staring with raised eyebrows at our white knuckles

and forgetting why it is we gnashed our teeth

-----------------------

shadows drift like shafts of light

on the coruscant mere

– 'tis a peaceful place

so distant from troubled times

that no sound reaches its shore

– silence magnifies its size –

the mere with maternal palms

caresses the tussocks, the trees

the stars on its surface

expertly fingering the tear on our cheek

as one would turn the page of a book

– we are close to falling asleep now

stillness does that to us –

our heartbeat ever so slow

our thoughts quieted

ready for the motionless flânerie

– and if, for a second, we expect sounds

to be made when we stir

we can rest assured the mere

will deftly cover them

in immeasurable silence

and wait, soothing and patient, for

the calm pounding of our heart