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 

 

Quietly into the night

Quietly into the night

we go

the moon a pillow

and clouds eyebrows to the stars

the night, the night, my boy!

We should welcome it

embrace it

do not rage against the dying of the light

embrace it as the birth of her Nightship

to go gentle into that long night

for time has lost its grip

remember

wondrous things happen at night

too shy to happen during the day

only then can rain really be rain

only then can it matter and be complete

at night one doesn't feel so lonely

feel free to roam the wind

the dark plains of dotlighted streets

the confusion finally died down

a faint tremor in the ground

the last metro to a steaming mug of tea

do not rage against the dying of the light

embrace it as the birth of all things gay

to go gentle into that good night

for light has lost its sway

the music bounces on the rooftops

and the blades of grass crack

concrete and tar open

a whole vegetation pops up at night

only to disappear come dawn

the cracks too minuscule to be discerned

the night relegated to nooks and crannies

just for a time

do not rage against the dying of the light

embrace it as the birth of a paradox

to go gentle into that soft night

for space has been placed in a box

the abyss calls out the abyss

blinded by the night's absence of shadows

no more shadows

no more shadows

the daylight too sharp not to outline our differences

'tis revealing too much

at least at night we have the comfort of being

with the same differences, the same sins, the same silhouettes

the same tessitura and the same thirst for quietude

do not rage against the dying of the light

embrace it as the birth of a fair song

to go gentle into that endless night

back to where we belong.

 

Between

the suspended lull between the words

the unhyphened space between the pictures

between the necessary blinking

the hiatus after the shutter closes

the driving force behind the unmovement

charged impetus into immobility

this is where we belong

careful anecdotalists chartering the mindscape

us photographers, writers, painters

this fixed moment of hesitation

the story untold, untellable

the halt between the gun shot and death

unfalling body

unwinding catastrophe

the pause between this breath and the next

the brush in both the hand's and gravity's grasp

the undocumented travel

perhaps undocumentable

the quest for the self

between the lub and the dub

and then

the soldier coming home from two years at the front

the father returning to his abandoned son after two decades

the hermit descending into the valley for her yearly supplies

past lovers running into one another

finding a yearbook thirty years later

you can't bridge this gap

it is too wide to be measured

too deep to be filled

even though you know

what must have happened

the story is between the layers

it was meant to be lost

time doesn't increase the magnitude of the loss

time contracts, and so do we

memories are snapshots in-between snapshots

conflated time in the hands of serendipity

meant to be lost

The Fire

I can still taste the salt of your long-lost, faded lips.

Your face I once held in the palm of my hands.

I approached your lips like I would a cup of hot tea

and burnt my heart and soul at the fire, the fire

raging, blazing inside you.

Ages ago we could have walked away

we could have run away from Fate

and hid where nobody would find us.

We did not, and I can still feel

the texture of your parched lips.

I know now that my best years are gone.

There once was a chance of happiness,

we died before it could take shape.

More the fools we were not to heed the signs.

This happiness was too real to last.

Fate was jealous. The Gods were jealous.

We paid. You died. Effaced from this world.

You had the fire none of the others had.

Only you could kindle my soul the way you did.

The others, the others put weights

when you showed me how to soar

how to soar with the flares engulfing us.

They could not feel the way you did.

They were posthumous attempts to revive you.

But you could not be resuscitated.

My friends, they wouldn't understand.

They still don't know. They will never know.

For them you are still living, somewhere.

And that memory has kept me going,

has fed my sad love and longing for your soft lips.

I know my best years are gone,

And I wouldn't want them back.

No, I wouldn't want them back.

But looking at that worn-out picture

for the hundredth time today,

my heart and soul, now a wasteland,

are still burning with the thought of you.

I'd give my last years to have you back.

I'd give my last years for a single day with you.

To kiss your lips once again, and for ever.

To see your smile. To be consumed entirely in the fire.

The fire, your fire is in me now.