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.