Senses

Most of the time, people are faces for me. Sometimes they're just eyes. Or lips. Or some conspicuous facial feature. Some I recognise by their gait or the sound of their heels striking the pavement, or their back - specially their back, as I continue watching someone long after we've parted ways. Some people are chomping noises, or gurgling noises. Some are rasping voices. Whatever they are to me, I don't see or remember anything else of them.

Apart from her. If only I could draw what's in my mind, I could limn her down to the last beauty spot or to the last scar. If only I could detail her smell, you would know. You would fall in love like I did. If only I could describe the grain of her skin, or make you hear her laugh, you would, no doubt, fall for her, like I did. Three days ago, she was still but a murmur in my mind. Now she is so meticulously, incredibly loud and painstakingly vivid my senses hurt to remember, and not to feel.

Mordoré

Il y eut, pendant un instant, un rayon de soleil accroché dans tes cheveux, sur les remparts, puis un filament de nuage enroulé dans ton sourire, un peu plus tard. Lumière éteinte, j'ai vu un éclat de nuit en suspens dans tes yeux et un grain de plage qui s'étendait dans ton soupir. Le noir passa, le jour se fit. Tu étais bien là.

et moi, que la solitude guettait aux abords des fenêtres, des chemins de ronde, des mondes sans monde qu'un seul de tes gestes a rendu immondes, j'attendais, j'attendais et je souhaitais.

et dans le mordoré de ton regard j'ai vu cent mille batailles et le chamarré des grisailles que laissent les oaristys blafards, j'ai vu les assauts du temps et les arrhes que la vie prend à ceux qui ferraillent

et j'attends, j'attends, je ne sais que faire d'autre, je n'ai rien envie d'autre que d'affronter le temps et l'on ne sait ce qu'est le temps tant qu'on ne s'est pas mesuré à l'attente d'une femme, tant que l'on ne s'est impatienté de longues heures durant dans l'espoir d'un télégramme, des mots de quelques grammes, qui anodins, qui inconséquents, font pourtant retrouver la gaieté, et resoulignent le charme de celle qu'on entend

et je me prends à sourire en ré-entendant ton rire qui engloutît l'huître sur la plage et hésita un instant avant de rejeter sur le rivage la coquille vide – tu venais d'avaler un souvenir – et de ces quelques jours nous fîmes des ressouvenirs, et en ces instants nous n'avions plus d'âge

et en quelques jours tu m'as fait retrouver le goût des huîtres, le goût du cidre et du sel sur les lèvres, le goût du vent et des cheveux aux doigts emmêlés, le goût de l'amour, du sable et des pantalons retroussés, le goût de l'horizon et de la mer sur les pieds, le goût du risque d'un baiser, celui de l'inquiétude et d'une main qui caresse, celui de la quiétude et de la tendresse – ils étaient pourtant morts, ces goûts-là, je les ai vus de mes yeux las, inertes et tors, un couteau fiché dans le corps, terrassés sans pugilat

et toi, d'un coup, tu as redonné vie à tout ça.

à elle.

The Pilgrim

The pilgrim, that's what they call me.

For I wander from home to home,

from vale to vale, from country to country.

People know that I do nothing but roam

and that I have no home, no home

and that I am sad, unable to be free.

I, the pilgrim, often wonder about love

as I see the people tearing apart,

and I cannot stop the thinking so I rove,

glimpsing into men's heart, into men's heart

and I go where there's no chart

for there is the trove in the cove.

Often they see me trudge up in the snow,

bent against the winds, with a rosewood cane,

my red cloak flapping high and low,

sometimes walking silently among the slain,

tutting and cursing that dreadful bane

which makes men suffer such tales of woe.

Long my steps have haunted the darkness

for men have, in their folly, turned me into a pilgrim.

I have oft beheld vast expanses of emptiness

but nowhere have I found them so grim

than in men's mind, none so dim

than in men's eyes. And none so lightless.

The pilgrim, this is now how I am called.

I walk and I count each step and each breath.

I tread on a path leading from cold to cold,

always seeking that which is most uneath,

and I seek solitude and I court death

for I have grown weary of men, and much too old

to continue living among the dead.

And too many think that I can bless

because the world I have seen and read,

while I solely pursue my grim progress

with the only things about me that I possess:

my cloak, my cane and a heart that bled.

...or in oblivion.

"Life is an adventure in forgiveness."

Norman Cousins, author and editor (1915-1990)

Master and Servant

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you CAN make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."

Lewis Carroll, mathematician and writer (1832-1898)

L'ordre des choses

J'ordonne au jour d'être clément avec toi et de ne point obscurcir ta blonde chevelure. Je lui ordonne de briller sur toi, quoiqu'il arrive.

J'ordonne aux nuages de ne point pleuvoir sur toi, sous peine de poursuite impitoyable.

J'ordonne au vent de ne point souffler sur toi, de simplement mettre cette frange au milieu de tes yeux qui étincellent et s'illuminent de milliers de lueurs comme autant de lucioles cherchant leur chemin dans une nuit d'encre.

J'ordonne au crépuscule d'attendre que nous soyons réunis pour se coucher.

J'ordonne au temps de ne point poursuivre sa course sans notre consentement.

J'ordonne aux éléments, d'un signe de la tête, de donner leur assentiment pour que, dès lors, sans un bruit autre qu'un bruissement d'aile de papillon pris dans une tempête, je dépose un baiser sur ces lèvres que je n'ai su amadouer au dernier regard de pluie.

à elle.

The best of us

"In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have."

Lee Iacocca, automobile executive (b. 1924)

12:34

I've always noticed that everything changes at 12:34.

It's a hinge in time. The Crux of events.

And if they don't change at 12:34,

They never, ever do. They become a rent

in the fabric of time which we must mend,

that is – if we want to see the end.

Countless mugs of steaming tea came at 12:34.

My mum's ashes went to sea precisely at 12:34.

Whenever I turn my eyes to the local clock it's 12:34.

Whenever I wonder what fate has in her stock it's 12:34.

All the numbers added together make ten.

Isn't ten a number revered by most men?

For moving nothingness resides within.

In sequence the addition of the first and the next.

These numbers, since the world began, are in the texts.

I hold 12:34 to be the key

                                              to our innermost secrets.

12:34 it was when I was as good as dead in India.

12:34 it is when I usually brush my teeth.

12:34 it was when that grim bomb exploded in Libya.

12:34 it was when Macbeth met them on the heath.

12:34 is the exact time when you said you loved me.

1234 is the number of days our love lasted.

It's too ominous a time for it not to be watched.

It might well be then that something happens to me.

Am I bored out of my wits? Am I seeing things that aren't, that were never meant to be? Am I daydreaming? Wakewalking with my eyes closed? Sleepwalking with my eyes open? Have my senses become numb? Have my sentiments died without my noticing?

I'm falling apart, my friends. Something needs be done. No wonder...it is, indeed, 12:34, sharp.

Poiesis

"There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion."

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

Barcelona y la Sagrada Família

 Un petit bout de Tarragone

 Parc Güell

  

  

  Parc Güell (fin)

 Sagrada Família