Spectrum of possibilities

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

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

Nuage vide

Ce qui arracha Edmond à sa rêverie

ce fut l'impression d'avoir vécu sa vie

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

Jamais il n'avait ressenti ce gouffre en son torse

et en son bas-ventre avec une telle force

que lorsqu'il fut bercé par ce ciel limpide.

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

Idée pernicieuse accouchée quarante-sept ans plus tard –

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

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

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

Alors il partit loin dans le désert du Taklamakan

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

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

 

Cascadeur - Meaning (choral version)

Human Nature

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

Washington Irving, writer (1783-1859)

Clamavi

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

Oscar Wilde, De Profundis (1897)

Where the Wilde things are

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

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Aciers

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

Le vent cisaille notre peau, gerce nos lèvres,

Nos ombres courant sur les murs sont des origami

Pliages courbant l'échine

Nous aurions pu avancer fièrement

Avec un peu moins de malchance

Car nous ployons sous les croix des drames

L'acier des couteaux luit dans les réverbères

Celui des canons est de la matité de la nuit

Celui des regards comme une braise va s'éteindre

À demi-morts, à demi-nus, à demi-mots

La gêne s'installant de se voir ainsi dépouillés

Il n'en fallait pas plus pour détourner les yeux

Nos mains en coupe protégeant des œillades notre entrejambe

Exposés dans des cages de verre et d'acier

Sur les photos de mariage nous sourions, pourtant,

Alors l'acier nous nourrissait

À présent il nous a désappris à sourire

Il a tranché dans le vif des clichés

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

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

On ne referme pas aussi facilement ses entailles

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

Le jour si présent par nos paupières amputées

Amputée notre masculinité, notre féminité

Bafoué notre droit de respirer

Voilà des années que nous sommes en apnée

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

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

Pas que nous renâclons à souffrir

Mais c'est l'attente qui nous chiffonne,

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

C'est sa capacité à surprendre les chairs encore fermées

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

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

Do not be sad

Do not be sad, when I will be away

as soon or late each one of us must hence.

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

Yet it is not so bad or unkind an offence.

The fact that I chose which was the un-day

that I would have death for me to commence

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

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

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

Allow me to tread beyond the dark fence...

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

I am where all of us must drown every pretence.

The weight on my back often made me sway,

The love of my friends often was immense,

Oft the pain that offends, that nothing could allay,

painted my days black and blue and dulled my good sense

and I could find against the buffets no defence –

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

I'm gone to the undiscovered country

for the one I have paced was much too dense,

too wan was its sun, too harsh its reality,

too uncaring, too bitter were its sentiments,

too harrowing – and a disaster – was the fray

for me to go on facing all the evidence.

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

I chose to die and pay the last expense.

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

I no longer shy nor suffer from any negligence –

my current turned awry in a sudden turn of events –

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

In memory of Luc C.

Trimming

"Art is the elimination of the unnecessary."

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

Once upon a nighttime

Once upon a nighttime

At the unglad hour

When the twilit bells chime

I saw a man humped on a motorcycle

He was lour he was sour

And he never had the giggles

He knew the road to be treacherous

And full of magnificent bulltoads

When the weather was tempestuous

But on that night he was on the road

For he was remarkably jealous

His wife had been seen with a man named Goad.

Fireflies were dancing before his tired eyes

But he was mad, he was mad with rage

He knew he had to kill them to turn the page

Fireflies were prancing before his unhinged eyes.

The raving chuff-chuff of the motorcycle

Filled the night with an angry pestilence

Here and there in the marches the purulence

Thickened the night air to a charcoal treacle.

When he reached Goad's house on the moor

He saw his wife's car in the alley

So he rammed his cycle through the door

And beat them up into a jelly.

Both his wife and her wan paramour

Ended up in the bulltoads' belly.