13 shtator 2008

«entre nous»

Je dois me rappeler parfois
que je m'aime
car loin de toi
même mon narcissisme
se noie
se perd et plus ne se voit
dans la distance
que tu as créée.
Il est bien triste
que je sois triste
que je ne te résiste
comme aux autres qui voulurent mon cœur.

(Parfois je me rappelle, aussi,
—dans une haine née de mon amour pour toi—
que je t'aime:
bien plus que corps et cœur
bien plus que moi-même.)

«tabula rasa»

Only empty days remain
to be filled by numbers
counting down to new beginnings.
Only empty days remain
between an old life and a new one
waiting, looming in the horizon
to meet my expectations,
dispel all tribulations
or crush my excitations.
It is all too new,
though not yet come;
and in this novel air
I breathe in what remains
of former atmospheres
and taste it like good and bad smoke
on my tongue;
and it burns my lungs,
and I cough out what
I make out to be the last remains of a past,
'till I am left enjoying the high
of a life of memories carefully culled
and one I have yet to try.

?-13 September 2008

«airport-bound»

The plump gray clouds
that rise above the low mountains
make daybreak arrive with a spark.
The new day barely started
within and around me
continues its steady, pointless
track to its end.
It has nothing to look forward to anymore;
the sun has learned by now
it will never catch the moon.
But I have a purpose:
the lure of hastily cooked,
barely warmed airport food.

Hungry at 06.10 on 9 October 2007 on my bus ride to Logan Airport.

09 shtator 2008

poetic discourse

«question»

the element of surprise is the building block of the body,
the substance of quotidian life -
what, with even the sturdy beams and frames of bones,
pivoting and shifting
all at once like a house on hinges,
you didn't know?
your schedules that pepper
your strict lined papers,
crossed out with the same ballpoint pen that etched them,
routines pried out of a day's pine tree,
as much like lovers' initials as you can make them,
what else is there to rely on?

Jonathan BEARD


«answer»

i rely
on listless days and sleepless nights,
that constant that pervades my days
like graph lines across axes of variables
i do not recognise
they twist and turn and startle me from behind
and wrap around my limbs
and overwhelm the time in my watch's arms...
and only then... with hands tied and feet bound,
am i led along paths where time is skewed
and made to see what to my eyes
has theretofore been mewed

so right you are, my friend,
to say the element of surprise
—though a constant and a strife—
is the very essence of my body,
the substance of my quotidian life...

Solvi

05 shtator 2008

«Ulysses»

...

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alfred Lord TENNYSON

«withdrawal»

to me
you are a bad habit
the viceroy of vicedom
worse than
smoking
to my lungs
drinking
to my liver
narcotics
to my brain
you are a stubborn weed
that makes me fly
high
as a kite
the caffeine rush
to later make me
crash
and a chronic
hormonal cocktail
of testosterone
adrenaline
raging through my veins
to keep me in
flight
to make me stand and
fight
in vain
to let you
go
for
no patch
no hypnosis
no cold-turkey will
help me
rid of you
save perhaps a face
as fair as yours
that will appear
in the
buzz
or high
or low
of your intoxicating
infective
hallucinogen
to lead me
to elsewhere
to anywhere

until that day
i seek
to enter
a temple
a haven
to embrace
a foreign
god
any god
to whom
to pray
and nevermore
to have
to kneel
to you

02 shtator 2008

«Pour toi mon amour»

Je suis allé au marché aux oiseaux
Et j'ai acheté des oiseaux
Pour toi
mon amour
Je suis allé au marché aux fleurs
Et j'ai acheté des fleurs
Pour toi, mon amour
Je suis allé au marché à la ferraille
Et j'ai acheté des chaînes
De lourdes chaînes
Pour toi
mon amour
Et puis je suis allé au marché aux esclaves
Et je t'ai cherchée
Mais je ne t'ai pas trouvée
mon amour

Jacques PRÉVERT

«alien to me»

You needn't try so hard, my love, to alienate me:
With the nights growing longer and colder,
with your body remaining far
and your love farther,
I myself exceed you and become an alien to my being,
and exile myself from
or in my feelings,
as the night dictates:
for there are those moonlit slumber hours
when all is too clear and I'll none of you;
and those very somber hours
when in my blindness
I become blinder by my love,
deafer by your silence,
and harder by your absence,
until all I see and hear and touch
is alien to me...

01 shtator 2008

«mine»

i have the audacity to call you my own
not because you call me yours—
for i painfully know you don't—
...but when i spend every waking instant,
every slumbering moment in your presence—
with you in mind and in the spirt
i am starting to believe i possess—
i cannot but think you are a part of me,
that you are in me,
that you are the me i'd love to be

«Dear Shakespeare—»

If love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,
then to thy word I'll be steadfast
and henceforth
speak not of my love in transient terms,
think not of it in transitory thoughts,
look not upon it with ephemeral glances,
nor hold it with volatile arms
or bestow quixotic qualities on 't.

And I'll let all that is fleeting thus remain,
save for my love, my darling—
that ever-fixèd mark...