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.