That thick tarred roof,
grainy under my bare feet
Raspy and warm as a cat's tongue
Darker than the summer night
I step into a beer you spilt
And that I couldn’t see in the faint starlight…
It sizzles between my toes.
It tickles and I giggle.
The roof is warm and wavy with air bubbles
Jagged with pipes we covered with candles
The warm breeze teases them
But kisses us.
The rows of houses go on forever
Music drafts through the leaved courtyards
And we have assembled here
In a city across the river from the city.
We wear the trinkets of our youth
Plain colored cotton clothes
Rhinestones in our hair
Lacquered nails, painted eyelids.
Glitter sparkles on our skins.
Orange moths signal cigarettes
Chuckling sounds the dark green
Sturdy bottles
I lie down, for I know I’ll find a whole sky to embrace me
And my friends’ beautiful presence
Fireworks may be sent skyway tonight
I am grateful
As for any intangible and freely given gift
That makes this moment perfect
As nothing - ever - is
I snatch those moments when my year ripens
When the summer dies of its own tenderness
I will leave in the morning when our bodies
Are heavy, content and weary
I will kiss all goodbye lightly, until the new summer comes
And though the thought is truly unbearable
Those moments are infinite, all of them beads
Of soul in my life
Each of them defined, but as all-encompassing
As a universe.
Oh, let me remember that night always
When all was peaceful
And I relished my friends’ warmth and glow
Even as I knew one of those planes would (soon!
Too soon!)
be taking me away
the following day maybe
When, feeling the breeze
I could still keep my ancient fear at bay
The fear to lose all, all over
Repeatedly
The beauty of summer
Short and long lived as my joy
dimanche 9 septembre 2007
Weaving Family
I am weaving my own family
They said to use blood
But I am done with wounds
I want your free spirits and your love
In the recipe
To share memories
And my heart, laughs, home keys
To know our unshed tears
To be entitled to our inconditional support
And bitching in no small degree
Thanksgivings and Christmases to be of thee
The first numbers in my phone
My unborn children’s real family
I love you improbable companions
Scattered community
Of misfits and beautiful aliens
And me
We are gathered at last
The way I always dreamed it would be
I am there for you
We are there for we.
They said to use blood
But I am done with wounds
I want your free spirits and your love
In the recipe
To share memories
And my heart, laughs, home keys
To know our unshed tears
To be entitled to our inconditional support
And bitching in no small degree
Thanksgivings and Christmases to be of thee
The first numbers in my phone
My unborn children’s real family
I love you improbable companions
Scattered community
Of misfits and beautiful aliens
And me
We are gathered at last
The way I always dreamed it would be
I am there for you
We are there for we.
The 5-year old sleeper spy
English is the answer
I lost a language when
I lost my family
My home, my country
I gave it up it in mourning
To round it all up
Nothing seemed worth saving anymore
I drove it deep inside.
To comprehend all that I’d lost
I could have cut off my hair
Slept in soot
Ribboned my flesh raw
Tattooed my face
But these things were not culturally acceptable
So I divorced a part of myself
As all was going astray
Haywire awry disastrous
All bonds stretched and painful
Razors slicing me back
Remodeling me
Into who I should have been
So this was my offering
My token, my symbol, my sacrifice
I would become other
I would go undercover
I would sleep
I divorced my soul
I gave my language away
I buried systematically it
When all was lost around me.
But I was smarter than I thought
A fiercely protective 5 year old
I hid my soul in the language
That I had smothered,
Like a nugget of gold
Like a universe in a bead
A safety device for years to come
A treasure search within myself
The lock was hidden
And the key carefully placed into Oblivion
A dense quality of forgetfulness
I set signs for myself
For later
And went as far as to forget
I had.
I was the consumate sleeper
They had betrayed me you see
They put hooks inside my heart
And then, they yanked them hard, strong, again
Teasingly, diagonally, and yet more
To see if it still hurt
They held me
They had a map of me
So I pretended the hooks had come loose
And there was nothing left to hurt
All the while keeping myself hidden
Hardly breathing
Like the child Zeus fostered
By deaf and dumb nymphs
I would show them nothing
You can never find my heart
For
My heart is in a box
Swallowed by a fish
Swallowed by a bird
Swallowed by a cat
Swallowed by a phoenix…
No, that is a tale for children
My heart is in English
And the key, quite simply
Is the language itself
Nothing you can hold
But a song you can sing
Vibrations that purr and croon and comfort
French is make-do
French is for deceiving
For structure
For adult-pleasing
French is a decoy
For a zombie
For a sleeper.
I lost a language when
I lost my family
My home, my country
I gave it up it in mourning
To round it all up
Nothing seemed worth saving anymore
I drove it deep inside.
To comprehend all that I’d lost
I could have cut off my hair
Slept in soot
Ribboned my flesh raw
Tattooed my face
But these things were not culturally acceptable
So I divorced a part of myself
As all was going astray
Haywire awry disastrous
All bonds stretched and painful
Razors slicing me back
Remodeling me
Into who I should have been
So this was my offering
My token, my symbol, my sacrifice
I would become other
I would go undercover
I would sleep
I divorced my soul
I gave my language away
I buried systematically it
When all was lost around me.
But I was smarter than I thought
A fiercely protective 5 year old
I hid my soul in the language
That I had smothered,
Like a nugget of gold
Like a universe in a bead
A safety device for years to come
A treasure search within myself
The lock was hidden
And the key carefully placed into Oblivion
A dense quality of forgetfulness
I set signs for myself
For later
And went as far as to forget
I had.
I was the consumate sleeper
They had betrayed me you see
They put hooks inside my heart
And then, they yanked them hard, strong, again
Teasingly, diagonally, and yet more
To see if it still hurt
They held me
They had a map of me
So I pretended the hooks had come loose
And there was nothing left to hurt
All the while keeping myself hidden
Hardly breathing
Like the child Zeus fostered
By deaf and dumb nymphs
I would show them nothing
You can never find my heart
For
My heart is in a box
Swallowed by a fish
Swallowed by a bird
Swallowed by a cat
Swallowed by a phoenix…
No, that is a tale for children
My heart is in English
And the key, quite simply
Is the language itself
Nothing you can hold
But a song you can sing
Vibrations that purr and croon and comfort
French is make-do
French is for deceiving
For structure
For adult-pleasing
French is a decoy
For a zombie
For a sleeper.
The relevance of Children
Is this what I want
Is this what I want?
Produce children
Who will bear my poor eyesight
My imperfections, my inadequacies
My idiosyncrasies
Who will be bound to me
For I will not let them go
And when they think they do
I will know with grim satisfaction
I have clothed their spirits in flesh
And for that alone
Though the chain may be long as antipodes
It is incorruptible and
I am not letting go…
Children to do some vulnerability-watching again
And hate it
Again
Theirs, mine, my awful new vulnerability
That comes from having a vital organ
Outside my body
Who may die when I am not looking
And then what -
Have children and learn the fierceness
The violence of that love, possession
Hatred
Hatred for making me so utterly theirs
And yet not being perfect
Not being able to ever hurt them
Bringing them forth to an aquarium of racism
Injustice
Inequality
And not leaving them out of the fight.
Find the point.
What is the point?
What is my need to summon you here
To make my life make sense around you ?
I have been made utterly responsible for it
I have been made utterly responsible for it
And as every decision may -and should - be questioned
For purpose, meaning, degree of necessity
Even sugar cravings and even love
Thus I question this
What got into me to bring you into being?
You got into me.
You that we created from the rawest materials ever
Ourselves
Nothing else
And yet
You who are ours even less than
The furthest stars of the galaxy
Why?
What was the necessity
The twisted desire?
Is it like faith, that you may have it
And yet not understand or want it?
I still fight it, tooth and claw
For I know that when you come
I will be overwhelmed by you
And not question it again
Both me(s) will think the other one deluded
A prisoner of madness
What my dream personae are to me
Or vice versa.
We will ignore each other
But I foresee a time coming
When I will need the answers
Of my frantic angry younger self
The answers of the seeker
Appeased by logic, meaning and sense
Appeased by the masculine
An island in my ocean of motherhood,
Nurturing which is self-explanatory
I still do not understand why I would want this
My body a slave to yours
My life a slave to yours
My life which is now slowly become
Scrumptious magnificent fit to breathe
After pain and effort and madness and death
And you would send me back
To those who know better
They would shackle me again
In their bonds of propriety
For you need propriety to raise a child
I need to know
I need my own stronghold
For my life
For child raising
Where we’ll be like us
Where we won’t be like them
And be safe
Don’t you see, we’re both running away from them
But I run much faster without you
So you’ll have to come later
When I can
When we can
I want the world to be safe for both of us
So for now it will just be me
I’ll find the place
And build it
And imagine it
Paint it grow it mold it
And when it’s grown beautiful
I may feel an ache, an emptiness
A remembrance that you haven’t come yet
A remembrance the garden can’t be perfect without a child
And that’s why Eden was so wrong
Forever unblessed, forlorn
From the laughter of children
I will remember then, maybe
The point of the garden.
It would be no real garden
If it were unfit for children
May the whole world become such a place
One day
I want you to come with the blossoms
Of the trees that I planted
But don’t make me sprout
Don’t make me sprout
Before my season
Is this what I want?
Produce children
Who will bear my poor eyesight
My imperfections, my inadequacies
My idiosyncrasies
Who will be bound to me
For I will not let them go
And when they think they do
I will know with grim satisfaction
I have clothed their spirits in flesh
And for that alone
Though the chain may be long as antipodes
It is incorruptible and
I am not letting go…
Children to do some vulnerability-watching again
And hate it
Again
Theirs, mine, my awful new vulnerability
That comes from having a vital organ
Outside my body
Who may die when I am not looking
And then what -
Have children and learn the fierceness
The violence of that love, possession
Hatred
Hatred for making me so utterly theirs
And yet not being perfect
Not being able to ever hurt them
Bringing them forth to an aquarium of racism
Injustice
Inequality
And not leaving them out of the fight.
Find the point.
What is the point?
What is my need to summon you here
To make my life make sense around you ?
I have been made utterly responsible for it
I have been made utterly responsible for it
And as every decision may -and should - be questioned
For purpose, meaning, degree of necessity
Even sugar cravings and even love
Thus I question this
What got into me to bring you into being?
You got into me.
You that we created from the rawest materials ever
Ourselves
Nothing else
And yet
You who are ours even less than
The furthest stars of the galaxy
Why?
What was the necessity
The twisted desire?
Is it like faith, that you may have it
And yet not understand or want it?
I still fight it, tooth and claw
For I know that when you come
I will be overwhelmed by you
And not question it again
Both me(s) will think the other one deluded
A prisoner of madness
What my dream personae are to me
Or vice versa.
We will ignore each other
But I foresee a time coming
When I will need the answers
Of my frantic angry younger self
The answers of the seeker
Appeased by logic, meaning and sense
Appeased by the masculine
An island in my ocean of motherhood,
Nurturing which is self-explanatory
I still do not understand why I would want this
My body a slave to yours
My life a slave to yours
My life which is now slowly become
Scrumptious magnificent fit to breathe
After pain and effort and madness and death
And you would send me back
To those who know better
They would shackle me again
In their bonds of propriety
For you need propriety to raise a child
I need to know
I need my own stronghold
For my life
For child raising
Where we’ll be like us
Where we won’t be like them
And be safe
Don’t you see, we’re both running away from them
But I run much faster without you
So you’ll have to come later
When I can
When we can
I want the world to be safe for both of us
So for now it will just be me
I’ll find the place
And build it
And imagine it
Paint it grow it mold it
And when it’s grown beautiful
I may feel an ache, an emptiness
A remembrance that you haven’t come yet
A remembrance the garden can’t be perfect without a child
And that’s why Eden was so wrong
Forever unblessed, forlorn
From the laughter of children
I will remember then, maybe
The point of the garden.
It would be no real garden
If it were unfit for children
May the whole world become such a place
One day
I want you to come with the blossoms
Of the trees that I planted
But don’t make me sprout
Don’t make me sprout
Before my season
Prayer for Sleep
I wish I could sleep at night
Like other people do
Rest in the dark
Forego the dread, the doom
But I can’t - I have to stand guard
I can’t go to sleep
I can’t go to Sleep
Like a foreign town
The train has left long ago
Carrying all there but me
Left alone, left behind.
I can’t go to Sleep.
The monsters will come
And the monster is me.
Like one bitten by a vampire
I feel the growth of horror within
Called out by the night
When babies cry and dogs howl
- They know best and better
Dawn and dusk balance our lives
In perfect harmony
But I rage against universal laws
I am prey to a beast
And every night we dance
To death, to exhaustion
All night I fight the angel
And find no forgiveness at dawn
Like other people do
Rest in the dark
Forego the dread, the doom
But I can’t - I have to stand guard
I can’t go to sleep
I can’t go to Sleep
Like a foreign town
The train has left long ago
Carrying all there but me
Left alone, left behind.
I can’t go to Sleep.
The monsters will come
And the monster is me.
Like one bitten by a vampire
I feel the growth of horror within
Called out by the night
When babies cry and dogs howl
- They know best and better
Dawn and dusk balance our lives
In perfect harmony
But I rage against universal laws
I am prey to a beast
And every night we dance
To death, to exhaustion
All night I fight the angel
And find no forgiveness at dawn
Orgy Material
Are we a perverted generation ?
Could it be our education?
Can ecstasy stem from monotony
Now or ever?
Can we forego the thrill of discovery
And be content with just someone’s complexity?
Just one person
Fidelity closes the door
Just one desire
Faithfulness suppresses the multitude
But maybe we never wanted
The multitude to start with
Not everyone is orgy material
Not everyone’s lust is quenched after one night
A quick tour, the sound of his moans
Skin texture, dexterity, originality.
We are consumer material
We are consumed without burial
And the demands for emotional safety,
Ever at odds with sexual diversity
We split, wisely, taking consequences to their end
My friends hold me
My lovers only have access to my loins
I crave intimacy
Yet I lay traps every step of the way
To abandon
I foresee trouble, loneliness
We are everything but unique
But only by ourselves.
Could it be our education?
Can ecstasy stem from monotony
Now or ever?
Can we forego the thrill of discovery
And be content with just someone’s complexity?
Just one person
Fidelity closes the door
Just one desire
Faithfulness suppresses the multitude
But maybe we never wanted
The multitude to start with
Not everyone is orgy material
Not everyone’s lust is quenched after one night
A quick tour, the sound of his moans
Skin texture, dexterity, originality.
We are consumer material
We are consumed without burial
And the demands for emotional safety,
Ever at odds with sexual diversity
We split, wisely, taking consequences to their end
My friends hold me
My lovers only have access to my loins
I crave intimacy
Yet I lay traps every step of the way
To abandon
I foresee trouble, loneliness
We are everything but unique
But only by ourselves.
Old Tears Wanted
I wonder what happened to the tears I didn't cry
What they turned into, sediments or bones
Put on an explorer's cap, kakhis and a shovel
Now,
Go for a hike inside myself
Will I work my thumbs?
Will I stop in flashy diners with dull strangers
Or vice versa?
Is it long highways,
my inner landscape
Or a tropical jungle, a soft underbelly
A ticklish child, a mountain of broken china
Archetypes of old, ripe valleys untold
Temper tantrums swallowed whole
Like ostrich eggs
A billowy she-bear sleeping in a hole of candy
A swarm of bees from the North Pole?
Am I mountains or caves?
Ocean or tundra?
What is my inner temperature?
Funny I never cared to check
Funny I never tried...
But most of all, where are the tears I never cried?
A school of orphans used to live here long ago
The peasants would say
And when they left, the land dried up
Some would have seen a flock of old maids
Flying south into the sun
White wings stiff with arthritis
Maybe the salt mines to the east harbor them
Or they turned into dry sticks
Travellers make fires with
Maybe they hide in various closets
Forgotten like old socks
Or they dance the limbo
While drinking martinis on the rocks
on a Caribbean-cruising yacht
Have they truly left me?
Or will I discover a humid cave
and glass panes foggy with condensation?
What truly worries me though
is the Dam.
I'm sure they made one
Because now I can't cry at all.
Oh, I get the occasional leak from time to time
In extreme cases of torture, raw onions and soaps
But I lost my cry-baby persona in the bathwater
What they turned into, sediments or bones
Put on an explorer's cap, kakhis and a shovel
Now,
Go for a hike inside myself
Will I work my thumbs?
Will I stop in flashy diners with dull strangers
Or vice versa?
Is it long highways,
my inner landscape
Or a tropical jungle, a soft underbelly
A ticklish child, a mountain of broken china
Archetypes of old, ripe valleys untold
Temper tantrums swallowed whole
Like ostrich eggs
A billowy she-bear sleeping in a hole of candy
A swarm of bees from the North Pole?
Am I mountains or caves?
Ocean or tundra?
What is my inner temperature?
Funny I never cared to check
Funny I never tried...
But most of all, where are the tears I never cried?
A school of orphans used to live here long ago
The peasants would say
And when they left, the land dried up
Some would have seen a flock of old maids
Flying south into the sun
White wings stiff with arthritis
Maybe the salt mines to the east harbor them
Or they turned into dry sticks
Travellers make fires with
Maybe they hide in various closets
Forgotten like old socks
Or they dance the limbo
While drinking martinis on the rocks
on a Caribbean-cruising yacht
Have they truly left me?
Or will I discover a humid cave
and glass panes foggy with condensation?
What truly worries me though
is the Dam.
I'm sure they made one
Because now I can't cry at all.
Oh, I get the occasional leak from time to time
In extreme cases of torture, raw onions and soaps
But I lost my cry-baby persona in the bathwater
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