Souffle II

Plus tard hier, il fait nuit blanche

et l'envie de voir la mer, forte,

tentait l'ombre de ses doigts filigranes

elle, danseuse à sensations,

était responsable de cette envie

car penser à elle retenait le temps

en courbant l'échine de la lumière

plus tôt demain, il faisait l'harmattan

la lueur de la page cessait d'être alléchante

recoulait le lait dans la jarre

chassait les corbeaux des gouttières de toit

le courage retrouvé dans un verre de vin

sur le plancher silencieux du matin

vidé il y a cent ans par pure jalousie

il n'y avait plus d'hésitation

plus d'envie de percer les mystères

finie la vie à songer, à mordre

le voyage immobile n'était plus

il fallait à présent parcourir

insensément fini et infini

faire fossile des ballasts

aller, laisser, vibrer le cycle

étreindre la voie du tout

à défaut de le pouvoir comprendre

de son rire de fin du monde

coulait une rivière folle

comme un rideau battant contre la tempe

emportait les équations

effaçait les souvenirs

rendait le temps et l'espace

insupportablement présent
 

freedom

The Truth is out

the Truth is out

the lights went south

as predicted

books no longer needed

living echoes in echoed chambers

tunnel without walls

all connected

old life in bonfire's embers

darkness closing in on

I have perfect vision now

I have to leave

I had to

I wasn't afraid to stay

I am unpredictable

even to myself

always wondered

where is Lara

where is Lara

riding up to no consequence

flitting in her robe

dainty as a daisy

where is she

I wish I could talk to her

listen to her cithara voice

even though she's here

she's here inside

as inside that enclosed garden

it's all in here

yes everything is in here

the books the words

the memories

the sensations and the colours

the numbers, the numbers!

piranesic bridges building themselves

interalloverconnected –

the world can burn to the ground

I can build it from memory –

so I can finally know where Lara is.

 

The Letter

He came with shuffling feet and halted gait,

He had a message for me.

The letter was written in black ink on black paper.

When I asked him what it meant

He simply shrugged – perhaps it was a shiver

but under that hood of his it was hard to see –

And said to follow him, and so I did

knowing it was foolish to be candid

knowing I would ultimately

be made to sit down and see

what I wanted to remain blind about –

but there was no more time to waste,

so I sat down, looked and was afraid,

stared at all the mistakes that were made,

and saw that all was beyond help.

I wanted to unsee but couldn't, so I wept

and with a shuffling hand and halted breath

wrote a letter to myself in death.

Because sarcasm doesn't convey in unspoken text

"I learn that ten percent of all the world's species are parasitic insects. It is hard to believe. What if you were an inventor, and you made ten percent of your inventions in such a way that they could only work by harnessing, disfiguring, or totally destroying the other ninety percent?"

Annie Dillard, author (b. 1945)

Cold shower

My friends here assembled tonight:

I propose a toast. A toast

to the thousandth life I haven't lived.

Another I couldn't possibly live

for it only exists in my mind, alas,

and will never come to pass.

I am sure each and every one of you present

has at one point dreamt of a better existence,

of a better prospect, of a better dream.

I am also sure that you have dreamt

for every or no reason at all,

just for the sake of dreaming a good dream,

even if it were just a five-minute daydream,

or to escape a sanity-shattering moment.

To be honest, a short daydream in the shower

is worth more to me than any of the dumb hours

I spend doing something I hate

or talking to people with whom I can't relate.

Today was my thousandth of these fantasies.

I won't tell you what happened but let's say

that apocalypse always had for me

more modelling power than the finest landscape.

More appeal to me had my own mindscapes

where I would lay the first stone to my empire,

defying all the laws we have here on earth.

Today made me realise

I am the Crowhurst of literature –

even if my death did serve

no other purpose

than to make me feel more alive –

accepting this as my very nature.

Nothing I wrote will ever be put in quote,

yet it's all good, all good, for once I stood

on a pulpit and received a Nobel gloat,

which made me stop knocking on wood.

Now my dear friends, whose realness

must be questioned against facts,

regard daydream as dismissing with tact

all that smarts and defines and brings,

for one can bear too much of real things.

So I am left with the one stunt to do today:

go take a shower and put the water so hot

that my skin will flake and peel and clot

and in the most painful way will pass away

ridiculously curled up at the bottom of the tub.

And good luck to the one who will have to scrub.

Last daydream of mine, but the only one

which will obey enough laws of physics,

social determinism and thermodynamics

to be able to come to be a home run.

Eventually, though beaten

and exiled and spurned,

do what you will to quieten,

reality always has the last word.

Toast!

 

Obviously not so obvious

"Evidence is the only good reason to believe anything."

Richard Dawkins, biologist and author (b. 1941)

The Coincidence Squad

We are the Coincidence Squad.

Contrary to what you may think, we do not roam aimlessly – for we have an agenda.

We find whom we seek, and act according to the plan.

We are masters of – and mastered by – serendipity.

When you suddenly realise that you are not the only one to wear that particular shade of mauve like your heart on your sleeve, you know we have been hard at work.

When you notice a recurring word, expression, oddity, we have been there to nudge you into realisation.

Whether there be epiphany or not is not up to us.

We billboard your life with unmistakeable signs,and these need to be interpreted.

We multiply the semes – in our jargon we say that we shift the occurrences of incidences to the red – for we believe that the oftener you are lead to see, the likelier you will see.

Serendipity is a spring of coincidences with an aim to open. Your eyes to see, your heart to feel, your mouth to laugh.

We officiate when your back is turned so as you do not suspect anything else at work but randomness.

We operate at night when no light can be shed on our activities, yet we are the eye-openers of the quotidian.

We know that our work breaches the very fabric of the world you live in. It allows you to see the strings and levers, the pulleys and the gears.

You may even think that the world revolves around you.

That the concatenation of events is an unbroken chain leading to you being you.

That a higher instance factualises your presence on Earth.

Consternated as you may be that it might not be so we in the Coincidence Squad work hard to making you think you can see what you believe to be the sign.

We vindicate you into your existence. We validate the connection between the dots which draw the general design.

We legitimise fights, thoughts, beliefs, actions. In more ways than one we are the engine, the fuel and the natural laws which bind and govern.

We make things happen when things can happen. Nothing has to happen, but anything can – and we are here to make sure it does.

We barge in the aporia, we storm in the hiatus – that door left ajar – we make things stand side by side and without pausing to step back to take a look at our marvels we press on, for some of you like to pay attention to the details – indeed for some, details are all that matter – and we would hate to disappoint.

After all, whether the signs be interpreted or not does not ultimately befall us, or matter to us – after all, all things are relative to one another and to the observer – for we shall continue mirroring, juxtaposing, abutting, against every single one of the odds.

For we are the Coincidence Squad.

 

A minute ago

A minute ago, everything was fine.

Right as rain, as folk would chime.

Not particularly unlucky,

not necessarily successful,

yet I was as fine as can be.

A minute ago, I was whole.

Fit as the proverbial fiddle.

Taken for granted by my family,

I was the beacon they followed,

I was still fine as can be.

A minute ago, I was myself.

My life lined up on the shelf.

I just learn that I have cancer.

I should feel like I'm in hell,

I should be looking for an answer.

But a minute ago, I was inert.

Now I'm a wrecking ball let

loose down the hill

– no engine, no purpose, no driver –

for there is neither good nor ill.

 
 

The Raid

The dogs, restless, barking

and gnawing at the ropes,

egged on by the smells of burnt flesh,

lapping at rivulets of fresh blood.

And crows, crows, crows everywhere

blackening the lowered skies

impatient for the feast

cawing at the resting men.

The blades of grass briefly bent

expectant of rain, and wind,

oblivious already, uncaring,

rising to the men arising.

Songs of fell deeds hummed

knelt down on the riverbank

the swords, cleaned and whetted,

ready for the next raid.

Tardago

Is it going to beg a colourful each moon?

Absolutely maybe, I read in the flight of the pelican –

they drink the blood of their young, I heard,

or the reverse in blue, or shades of blue.

Nowhere did it say you were half bat-shit crazy,

cunningly concealing your full-blown tardago

as you hovertrembled over cobblestones

like velum in the sleekthroat of the wind:

the vibrato of the last lines of Lord Jim,

pelican-like pelicans schmaltzing around

in the smokeguise of a snaking river.

Not once did you subtlemention your obsessions,

the stripes of coal-blue black tarcoal of your soul,

and you hopscotched till your shins hurt

and your mouth utterly wordparched.

Carbon-dated humour plastered on the wall of a cave

deepdown in the Larzac region of your heart,

that's what the mindspelunkers found

studied, edited, reported and archived,

patting their back and elbowing their sides,

unwondering what the use of the whole shebang was.

Yet the new moon came and your tardago with it!

The slyfooted auguries were caught unawares,

their nose too often skywards bent

while it should have haruspicised the omen.

You of all people know how to screenfathom,

how the tardago firesparks one into being –

you have been there. But you came back insane,

unfitted for shopwork or human relationships,

blind among the feathered, leading the pelicans

where they should have waitperched all along.

The new moon waned, and you and your tardago

went with it, thank god, never to be unseen again.

I am left herenow to lick my wounds and uncringing

slowly decipher murals in the candledark.