What the foot creates when the hand designs

"Roads endure longer than pyramids."

Karol Bunsch, Polish novelist and aphorist (1898-1987)
 

Edinburgh vestige

"It's starbucks o' clock on Princes Street
and droves of Ingmars, Colins and Manfreds
are let loose and white as sheet
confront the menu with scratching heads."

Thank you, Antoine, for the fond memories.

Le port

Dans le lointain de ténèbres le fanal scintille

comme une étoile trouant les nuages

le voyage s'achève à l'orée du canal

les mains, crispées au bastingage,

font les cent pas, intranquilles,

il n'a rien perdu, rien trouvé,

s'en est allé conquérir les cartes

pour revenir au point de départ

le navire usé, lui l'échine courbée

la voilure claque comme une vague de nuit

et le vent et le ressac ne peuvent cesser

ni les mers d'huile ni les vagues scélérates

rentrer au plus vite, au plus court,

le pressentiment plus fort que le sommeil

retrouver ceux qu'il sait déjà morts

le courrier passé par une frégate

son bélandre bas en eau, chargé de négoce,

il le voudrait rempli de plus encore

de ces draperies lourdes de Damas,

de ces écorces d'or du pays noir

de ces gemmes bleues du Sri Lanka,

de ce bois précieux de Sumatra,

pour envoyer par le fond, vain sabord,

la folie de cette course et de ces trésors

il voudrait lui-même plonger dans l'abyme

finir dans la vase du temps

mais ce dont la mer ne veut pas, d'une grime

elle le laisse en sillons sur l'estran

toujours cette impression, rentrant

d'un ailleurs toujours plus distant,

que le port arrive à lui, et non l'inverse

en bon marin que seul le roulis berce

il sait que c'est la terre qui se déplace

la mer, elle, en apesanteur,

immobile, fronde le temps,

contient les continents

met de l'espace là où on voit du vide

il a laissé les albatros dans les champs de houle

là-bas où l'air, rare et livide,

vient à manquer, à marquer de son fer rouge,

où le sel conserve et ronge,

où la vie se mêlant aux souvenirs

où le jour se mêle au songe

fait plonger les matelots en des plaines herbues

dans les rires tristes et sans sourires

de ceux qui pour oublier ont trop bu.

Alors, dans ce canal d'ennui où le jour poind à peine

il sent sa peine traîner comme la nuit de pierre

basse et sourde comme un battement de tonnerre

dans la trajectoire de l'horizon de sirène,

il se sent le cœur au bord des lèvres,

mais la carène vogue et au matin blême

il foulera ce sol affalé de dilemme,

écoeuré de gisement et affamé de déferlantes,

ce corps assagi qui ment, le large perlant

aux coins de ses yeux, relent de sel amer

au fond de sa gorge que rien ne fait passer

la démarche mal assurée sur le ferme

l'oreille à l'affût du moindre écho égaré

d'un goéland ou d'un cliquetis de cabestan

figuré au mitan d'une brume d'embrun

qu'aucun sextant ne saurait vaincre

encordée à l'ancre des mirages

long filin qui amène à la plage

attendant un pardon

que la mer adonne ou non

 

The Hunter

He had been told to wait here.

He had been told his opportunity would come.

He was lying on the ground, behind a few rocks.

Cold sand would occasionally trickle through his shirt.

He had been told not to move.

He had been told to wait, and to search.

He could see dewdrops hanging on bristling blades of grass.

Not a sound to be heard but the wind.

He had been told patience was key.

He had been told action was key.

Sunrays were crawling along the ridges of the plain.

Temptation to draw circles in the sand.

He had been told games were over.

He had been told he was old enough to hunt.

He had been told hunger made one more precise.

Hunger would make him a better hunter.

All had nodded, so there must be some truth in it.

He had been told that sometimes to search is to wait.

That waiting was searching.

He recalled his mother's stroking his cheek.

He recalled his younger sister's look.

He had been told to wait. To watch. To seek.

He was watching. Waiting. Seeking.

Secretly wishing for nothing to come.

He had been told to hide under the wind.

He had been told not to yield,

when the time came.

Wait and search was all he could do now.

He remembered the taste of blood, the pain

they had sought out of his body.

He had been told it would strengthen his spirit.

He had been told it would make him ready.

He didn't know what to expect.

He had been told what to do.

Shown what ancestral strikes killed.

He had been told everything.

Everything he had to know.

Yet he thought all was futile.

Yet he had rather ambush the red leaves

dispersed by the late wind.

Or scout the first shards of light

nose up in the electric air after the storm.

But the tremors in the ground echoed in his chest.

Shifting somehow made sand rougher

the air grew denser

clouds greyed the dawn.

The wait had come to an end.

The search had to be rewarding.

The time had come to hunt.

 

Hic Sunt Draconis

In the dark shade of the trees

Grow monsters hooded like monks,

Just as beautiful as peonies,

Under the aegis of the trunks.

Innocent-looking krakens

In the manifold places of their birth

Appearing from cracked earth

In the security of the gardens

In the fertile soil at the foot of walls

Or where any form of decay falls.

The neophytes, never taught but warned,

Still drawn to their shapely form

Took windrows home

And their tables therewith adorned.

Souls once immaculate

Now to the wolves thrown

The hem of their habit

Locked in their petrifying hand

Unable to run away

Or join their hands to pray.

Sheep, undisturbed most,

Thrive and graze

Feeding off these

Unminding of the dose

Which would be lethal

In vertiginous fall

For many other species.

That which kills could cure

If that which would cure didn't kill,

As love budding and dying

Which, in so doing, does death instill.

First comes the tingling, the shortness of breath

Then the numbing and the heartache

At the hands of the quiet Goliath

The flesh so weak, so weak

The mind numbed

the heart stunned

If ye need be angry, poison,

In thy tyranny be quick!

Less innocent creatures feed

Now on these fatal flowers

Born in terror and in terror breed

More formidable their powers

More potent their poison

Turn reason into treason

Deepen the hell of these bowers.

For now basilisks and asps

At leisure among these flower fields

Reshape our confidence in maps

Turn quiet lands into battlefields

Ready to rear up and hiss

For hic sunt draconis.