niluferplum songs poems stories thoughts

I did not finish my script because... (Letter to TTR)

2012-02-25T02:54:00.002-08:00

Dear TTR,

I did not finish my script as planned. I did one lesson then spent the afternoon with my sister and her baby. The baby's eyes - green - are half moons with the bases perfectly straight and the tops perfectly round with long long eyelashes. When she smiles, the half moons become waning crescents, little sunshines and bells. She has discovered new sounds and is experimenting with them this week - it's very musical. The development of the brain is fascinating to witness. This morning, she apparently watched a whole episode of Sesame Street (well, Elmo Street) with undivided attention (at 3 months!!!), and when it finished, she cried. (Attached is photographic evidence.)

My sis and I had a good conversation - we usually talk about writing and what makes a good book etc.

Cycling home, I listened to a perfect song by George Brassens - the man was a master and you know how wonderful it feels whenever you encounter the work of a human being at the top of their art.

Then there was a piece by Mozart, followed by Leonard Cohen's "Nancy". I was about to skip that one because I thought I knew it too well but then I stayed with it and I found new depths to it. I had never thought before about what "the House of Mystery" meant... Another master.

Then there was a Caprice of Paganini whose violins reminded me of John Cale's. The last song that came up as I arrived home was a mediocre Japanese pop song, but even it gave me some pleasure because of the beauty of the Japanese language with its pure and clean syllables.

I had a cup of tea and a daifuku with a fresh strawberry inside and thought about my script, and then it was time to go to Aikido. Great classes - I did both and I'm sure I must have lost some fat.

Voila. It's time for bed. A very pleasing day. Tomorrow and Sunday, I shall work on my script then send it to you.

n.

PS: And the reason why I had such a good day was the relief and the pleasure to chat with you last night.

Little baby Forrest

2011-12-01T06:39:00.000-08:00

Little baby Forrest
My baby sister's baby
How could this be?

We watched in awe
My baby sister's body
Become a busy, busy factory

The ultrasonic examination
Revealed your big cheeks
Very much like the ones I saw
In 1974

Ookiinaaa baby
Turned her mum into a belly
Under the watchful eyes of Jeremy

We'll try not to spoil you
We'll teach you to respect all sentient life
May you find your time on this boat
Full of enchantment

You'll count amongst your friends
Carl Sagan and Jacob Bronowski
You'll love the universe and this planet
There'll be piles of books by your bed

My little darling Schtroumpfette
May your exotic birthplace
Lead to an exotic life

I wanted you to be a girl
So I can take you to tea
So when the clock shows 4 or 5
Put on a tea hat, be ready!

Grow a taste for posh tea
I know a place, it will be
Our secret hangout

For my little bundle of a niece, born on 30th November, 2011

Ancient Studies

2011-10-01T08:36:00.000-07:00

The British Museum and my Latin and my Greek, and my Ancient Egyptian studies, lose their value as your airplane races you back to England.

Fragrant Olive

2011-10-01T08:01:00.000-07:00

He is packing
I play the DJ
Exit the sunflower
Enter the fragrant olive
Life will be long
All those wretched moments
That coiled around our necks
To extract some last tragic word
Will fall like fiber, diminished in the rain
We will live longer than our tragic moments
In the vastness of our lifetimes
Their modesty revealed
We will have other stories to tell
So pack well
I'll play you a song
That was there before we had started Act I

James Coburn

2010-09-15T14:43:00.001-07:00

It's nearly 4 in the morning
And sitting here, at my desk
I select the elements of this world that I want to remember
In case, one day, the soul survives with its inlays of cut gemstones and glass
And valuable shards

Over and over I refer to the 'soul,' but I know
I am relying on a cheap and volatile definition
Perhaps it's nearly nothing when we're alive and nothing at all when we die
For now, I will imagine that the soul is
A cloisonné pot with hungry compartments and gold wiring

I capture with my mind a blue sky and bite-size clouds
Hanging over a tea house in Shropshire
And the sound of a violin playing to the grass
On a hill I dreamt about

Another hill in my hometown enchanted me for being so near
I couldn't believe in those days that such a quaint piece of land
A mere hundred meters away
Could be part of a life so ordinary

Then there were the summer nights in France
With our windows wide open
The stars pouring in
The air exquisite
I hear the crickets chirping to the score of a Hitchcock film
I remember my sad young beautiful mother's yellow jumper
And her pair of jeans
Again and again, I remember the balmy air

I want to remember the lanky build of James Coburn, his chiselled grin
His villainous accent in Charade, and Cary Grant's faultless suits
I mix into my dish Emma Thompson's impeccable tears
And an artist teaching an electric cello
To talk of convolutions and trouble and beauty in trouble

Now it's raining gracefully from merciful nocturnal skies
It's raining harmonically over my weary old Japanese tiles
This is how it started, my desire to spend the night with words
I caught sight of the rain pounding the asphalt outside my house

Coming up the stairs,
I glanced out the open little window in the narrow hall
And it felt as if I had walked in on the rain and caught it naked
This newfound intimacy, I pour it into my soul
All this water will wash the recent agitation and dust

It's been a few hours and now the rain has stopped
I will turn my lamp off in a moment as natural light sips in
All this night has also been about my affinity for you
But I think I can let you go too, there will be other men, no doubt

16th-Sep-10
Composed this morning from about 3 to 7 am

The Moon, the Sun, the Electric Angel

2010-09-08T19:17:00.000-07:00

I invited sleep to overcome me in broad daylight
In the open, under torrents of sunlight
I invited multitudes to pass me by
On the streets as I boldly lay
I welcomed those who cared
And loved those who did not

I provoked anxiety
Into sitting at my table
To play a game of cards against my better self
I let it come to bed with me
I knew its prize
A rich coat of fur
That I did not need anymore
As the sun enveloped me

I asked darkness to come, and the moon to come
And their shadows and their threats
I summoned a chemical angel to kneel by my bed
And pour me a drink full of deceit
I let it sit there untouched

I am forgiven for something I did
I disarmed the guilt
I watched the unfolding of time
Its hands dispensing sweet medicine
I crossed a vast desert
I walked day and night
I slept the sleep of the innocent
When I reached the end

As I heard a delicate breeze
Passing through miraculous treetops
I defied night to resurrect certain events
Which took place in my life
My heart had ceased to race at the thought of them

And then
As a last measure to prevent the crafty seeds of all that I reject
From slipping into my peaceful realms
And bringing dissension again
I paid an electric angel
To sit by my side
And in the dark hours
Watch over me

(Sometime between the year before last and this year)

The Eater

2010-09-08T09:09:00.000-07:00

The elegance of a mouthful of rice being attentively chewed by a female Japanese mouth, with the chopsticks and the bowl hovering gracefully above the table between slender fingers. The elegance of a subtle smile, a head held high and her eyes glancing sideways. She is listening to her friend next to her and would never suspect that she was being woven into a sort of a poem.

5th-Sep-10, Slow Cafe

Go Public

2010-09-07T08:31:00.001-07:00

Here is the library in Ephesus, and there Abu Simbel
There, the Grand Canyon
Me in front of a temple in Japan

Here is the back of a picture postcard I am sending
"A very good morning to you from Cairo, my friend
I fell in love with this exquisite XIXth Century French wooden screen
Which belonged to a Dutch Ambassador..."

Here is a snapshot of a person's soul
It's a girl, she's playing guitar in a pretty little cafe near my house
There are the men who are taken by her voice
And those by the sadness they perceive in her
And those of course who like the anatomical parts
She favours those who admire
The shape of her mind
Or recognize it
But even they will not see

There are the very rare men who esteem
Her juggling skills as a wordsmith
They admire her remark about the little tin animal noise makers
And the coat made of grains of sand
They hear with bliss that she collects
Beads and buttons from the street
Some of the men have perhaps drunk with her
And heard her talk about a choice between
The perfection of the grave
The cold smooth marble of forever and never
And the dizzy mess of blood, sweat, pain, laughters, love, colours and pain again
It is an impossible choice for a perfectionist who loves life
The only salvation seems to lie in the crafting of stories and poetic lines
In the defining of the true nature of things
Something pushes the girl to go public with her soul
Perhaps all the better to renew what once was

Today she wore her long sleeves for the first time in a long time
She is feeling the first subtle signs of Autumn today
It's September again
She is grateful for the gaze that lingers on her
For but a moment

I know that even though you noted all of those fine details
With your lyncean eye
You do not really know
All of those things that appear to some compelling and revealing
They remain outside of who I am
There is no room for them in the smallest soul particles
Of who I am
I see what you see
But that is not it

(Written some months ago)

A Noir Architectural Adventure

2010-09-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

Shadows, facades, street corners, cafes, missed rendez-vous, an invitation to explore a vault and a dome and everything in-between, ...

Jerry Gordon

Meeting as we meet
Departing as we part
The sun or moon or
some other artifice of illumination
always never

comes between us

niluferplum

A sip of bourbon
The sky to the left
An invitation to a room

Jerry Gordon

How many doors can be
hinged to the sky?
It's a long hallway
to wander
wondering what made us

imagine a word
to enclose all of
what we made.

niluferplum

‎

It had always been there, what made us imagine that word. It lay dreaming behind a sealed door. The door had seemed perfectly innocuous amongst the rows of doors within a maze of hallways.

niluferplum

We build a dome beneath the sky
And a crypt to house our motives
The structure hangs from above by a thread
A whisper can make it fall
But for now, we float, admiring the frescos

Holding our breath
Our flashlights perform a familiar dance
We will unearth something out of a seam
Coal, a quiescent beast, or its beautiful carcass
We look and we look into the dark and into the light

Jerry Gordon

Taking part in this
inhalation,
begun some 1000s of
years ago, we fall with all
we've made to last until

the end of our last
exhalation. Our dome of sky
comes down atop us. Our infinite tombs
of futures go down beneath us. All,
falling as synchronization likes its gravity.

Inexplicably, we step outside of time
and watch it pass us by
on its way to memory and our other
catalogues of complicity.

niluferplum
Someone somewhere
With dust in their hair
Remembers the old domes imitating the sky
Their bellies full of dreams and invention
The tired and passionate hands that elevated and painted them
Someone remembers it all and writes it down
And this is the only happy ending worth waiting for
That memory is the key to unlock the riddle of time

The Thief

2010-08-24T21:01:00.001-07:00

Is it OK to touch your shoulder
When I talk to you
In a false demonstration of camaraderie?
Is it acceptable for me to pull you and push you
And tease and look at you
With eyes not of a friend
You say something mocking
I hit you playfully
I'm a thief, can you see?
I steal moments of proximity
You don't know maybe
Those moments do not belong to me
You did not give them to me
The Texts forbid
This lonely affair I am having
The prevalent values that we were taught
Condemn this miserable desire
The rules of decency dictate
That I bury this craving
I tried, you know, but it screamed like a body buried alive
Your smile burned my skin
And your laughter made me drunk
Cursed was I when once I was loved and I did not
Cursed am I now that I love but she cannot
I watch you be you
You are not mine to have
Someone else's wife
Has stolen this thief's heart
But everything shall pass, my love
The beat my heart skips
Death, bad food

Western Canadian Border

2010-06-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

He knows now what it is
He knows that it exists
He saw the twist in the mind
It struck when lights were down
In a hut in a forest
In a maze in the mist
Towards the western Canadian border
Where the horizon died forever

Was he programmed for this?
Is this a social case?
His mother recalls his joy
Back when he was a boy
Every new day was a gift
A piece of heaven in a sandpit
Then joy left all of a sudden
His lips were sealed with a question

He now knows the great appetite
Of the witches in tales read as a child
World-wide fame is one of them
Desertion lies in the stem
A hand reached for the gun
And the chamber coldly spun
And the horizon died forever
Towards the western Canadian border

1999
Song from the album papeR madE bodY - listen to it on http://soundcloud.com/niluferplum

One of my favourite songs on the album.

The story of a happy boy whose sunshine got taken away. He grew up and became famous but blew his brains out somewhere near the Western Canadian border.

One of my best friends' sister, Belma, a beautiful young woman with a cutting intelligence, committed suicide in 1992. The reasons for the suicide, if exposed, would efficiently document the difficulty of being a young person born to a family of immigrants, stuck between two incompatible cultures and whose aspirations were crushed by the ignorance of the people who tried to rule her life. Perhaps her sister will write that book one day. Perhaps I will.

So back in 1992, my friend and I spent a great deal of time listening to Nirvana's Nevermind, talking about David Lynch, walking the nocturnal murky suburban streets of the Region Parisienne where we lived. Graham had left my world. Inside we were screaming. Two girls born to Islamic tradition, raised in France, facing tragic events, full of a desire to leave an artistic mark on the world, with an appetite for life that was strange to our parents.

This song, I wrote in London in 1999. I thought of Kurt Cobain and Twin Peaks, a cabin in the woods in Washington, my room in France, I remembered the dark and wonderful thoughts that inhabited it and the dreams that came true, I thought of Belma and her sister's grief, and I wondered, "What motivates a person to strive for fame with all their might, what drives them to self-destruct?"

Purple

2010-06-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

Purple was the colour of my dress if you remember
Underneath the bare light bulb of the grey staircase
They saw me stumble down fast as rose the flames
Purple was the colour of the night as I remember
Something pushed me over, I was a barefoot scared wild creature

Drive me through the city, take me underground
Wear the night on your skin, shush, don’t make a sound
Go fast on the highway, melt the lights and burn our trail
Hide me from the light of day or I must wear a veil

Don’t let them catch me (don’t)
Don’t let them get me (no)
Don’t let them put me into a cage again
Don’t let them marry me to their chosen man

Here’s the crime, I struck a match and ran to meet with dawn
My windows were on fire, teenagehood is done
Velvet blossom of the night, flower of the swamp
So much freedom to be had but only crumbs of fun
I gave this freedom all I had but it slapped me down

Drive me through the city, take me underground
Draw the night on my sin, love, don’t make a sound
Go faster on the highway, melt the lights and burn our trail
Hide me from the light of day or I must wear a veil

Don’t let them get me (don’t)
Don’t let them catch me (no)
Don’t let them lock me up, you be my exit plan
Don’t let them marry me to one of their clan

We’ll go to the ends of the earth, I and my chosen one
We’ll hide in the desert from a father's gun
Purple is the colour of the sleepless nights
Tracing their lines with no mercy underneath my eyes

Darkness comes, we come alive but I have to admit
When we play our illicit games, we pay with my guilt
What kind of freedom is this that comes with this price?
What kind of freedom is this that cuts you up inside?

Don’t let them catch me (don’t)
Don’t let them get me (no)
Don’t let them put me into a cage again
Don’t let them marry me to their chosen man

December 2004

China

2010-06-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

First unaware that I looked like Asia
 That porcelain in English is called china
 I then learned that a break can be mended
 You will keep the mark as a fingerprint  
And your beauty lies in the chip
 And the quality of the stitch  

One day I forced myself by the mirror
 To see with the eyes of another  
And I saw the features of China
 I know now every face bears a scar  
That you have to meet yourself some time
 Your changing skin and your guarded mind  

I like now that I look like China
 I don't break when they call me Asia
 My past fractures are blue irises  
That I paint now in wild shapes and sizes
 
I like now that I look like China
 I like now that I look like China
 I like now that I look like China
 I like now that I look like China

ca. 2000
Songs from the Past

Reading YOU, Poems by Jerry Gordon, Three Cornered Moon Press, 2007

2010-06-09T21:17:00.000-07:00

How is it I'm
content with this
perfection?

A poem of sorts about a collection of poems:

Like a diamond miner, YOU extracts the beauty in all the places - the celestial and, more delectably, the mundane. A probe is lowered into "a room beneath the street," an exceptional ear is exposed to "a sutra sung for every train car and every crack in the concrete," and a "mind breathing close."

I plugged myself into the delicate machinery of the photocopied pages, I let it inject into my poetic vein what is outside of myself. The stuff, in a flash, travelled through the intimate vessel and spoke to the parts that do not know language but know all. I bathed in beauty, I was happy, enveloped in a poetic daze, with a spark in lieu of a heart, born out of the meeting on a torn page of an author with his reader. Beauty was floating all around me and pushed the ecstatic rose to bloom inside. I was linked by a golden thread to YOU, to all. I knew I was safe in this quantum writer's laboratory where minute details are observed with no other bias than the benevolence that should always accompany the extraction of truth and beauty. I knew I was saved.

The room, the street, the crack, the breath, perhaps indeed they were outer trivial occurrences, but it is his fortunate eye and it is his ear - it is the shape of his soul - that sculpted the folds and the secret corners into reality. I contemplated the contemplation and his arrangement of the external elements. I witnessed "a torn piece of gold paper from a cigarette box" turn into a monument. I marvelled at scraps of the hidden inner material, which so freely seem to offer themselves to the filigree worker's attention, to be woven into such miraculous moments.

How beautifully you are "talking about architecture." Perhaps because the architecture is breathtaking and there is no other way to talk about it.

niluferplum, a reader's poetic orgasms, 10th June 2010

Visit a beautiful space: http://moontriangle.blogspot.com/

Rainy Voice

2010-06-03T08:28:00.000-07:00

I never wanted to be this mess of a girl
I was born to be perfect
A clean punk of a diva
A good many victims kicked me in the rib cage

Now some 30 years later
6,000 miles away from the Suburbs of Paris
Bill Callahan is singing in my earphones
In the diluvian rain at 4 am
I am drenched, I am drunk
I am riding a bike that is too big for me
And I have too many bags
And in these bags
The ink from the purple fabric of a pouch
Is dripping onto my white fighting gear
And the ink on my precious pages is being smudged
And it is a task to hold this big umbrella
I nearly got hit by a car tonight
This is this minute's mess

But Callahan's rainy voice makes my heart complete
I decide I could retire into the desert with this recorded quenching voice
And the words and the miraculous arrangement
The moment - and perhaps my life too - is perfect
They kicked me in the rib cage
And really I don't mind what happened anymore
Because the poor lost souls who hit me released a pair of wings

And now I cannot express my joy, nor can I contain it

May 2010
Excerpt from The Moon, the Sun, the Electric Angel

Okinawa (The Heft)

2010-06-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

In Okinawa again.
Grief.
Good grief!
Seaside resorts in winter are brutal.
And all is bright and all is sad in summer with the cold season blowing in your soul.
"I told you about the heft, girl."
Yeah, you did.
Before you left.

Excerpt from When My Mind Goes To Jake

Golden Package

2010-06-03T08:10:00.001-07:00

I am sad about not sending enough love
To the creatures who live at the bottom of the sea
They are awaiting a golden package from me

Sketches for Flowers for the Drunk

Le Desordre

2010-06-03T08:05:00.001-07:00

La cigarette au bec
Le desordre
La salete
Tout cela forme une beaute
Tout se marie, la vie et la mort, la laideur des impulsions et la noblesse de certains coeurs et des moments incertains
Tout passe
Tout court, tout s'arrete, tout continue
Tout meurt
Tout s'oppose, tout s'aime a la fin
Le megot du blanc-bec flotte a cote du nenuphar un soir d'ete

Extrait de Demain, le sel, les epices et le vin

Perfect Skin

2010-05-31T11:08:00.000-07:00

Oh, I want, I want perfect skin
She struggles all day long to fill that rusted tin
All she wants is a spoonful of rice
One fruit from the tree, but she cannot pay the price

‘Cause they ship before the harvest
Every fruit to my house
In my misery, there is little room for your moan
Miss Ethiopia, I’ve got troubles of my own

Oh, I want, I want perfect skin
She wants my problem, she’s dying from famine
Pray to the elements, will it rain from this sky?
Pray to the Occident, will they drop some supply?

‘Cause they ship while we sit and condemn
All these guns to your house
In my misery, there is little room for your moan
Miss Ethiopia, I’ve got troubles of my own

Oh, I want, I want perfection
She mourns her children, and the last breath is drawn
There’s a camera on her face but she’s dying alone
In my misery there is little room for your moan
Miss Ethiopia, I’ve got troubles of my own

Autumn 2002
Songs From The Past

Missing

2010-05-31T10:51:00.000-07:00

You were missing that morning
I thought it was strange
I had heard you say something
Seen your colour change

Who was that who was talking
To you over the phone?
They must have been rubbing it in
I could guess their tone

So I rang your bell
It did take you a while
I thought someone fell
When you opened, shaking, with a smile

I could see a war going on
Underneath your grin
I said, “I’d like to know what’s wrong”
And you let me in

There were drops of blood on the floor
There was blood on a chair
You went pale as you closed the door
You said, “What do you care?”

There is a gesture, a word
So simple and easy
If you knew those I have curbed
It did hurt, I did care, you see

I had rivers of tears inside
But I shut the floodgates
Your speech citric, your face moonlike
We dismissed the case

1999 maybe
Songs From The Past

Cracked Sink

2010-05-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

Mother, I will spare you
the details of this story
Father, you don’t need to see
what is beyond your remedy
There’s no need for you to
know the squalor and the pallor
The damp walls and the cracked sink
and a heart in the gutter
Joy and sorrow march along
side by side, hand in hand
Everybody knows the pattern
of what Ying is to Yang
But you spent your life in the dark
saved the light for your children
Well, I'm trying to be merry
and to fix what is broken
You don’t need to know the grief
that’s never really left me
And you don’t need to hear of the vice
which you so well have taught me
If I ever told you
I don’t think you could take it
There would be interference
on the part of your instinct

Well, I have a good man
I have a good job
Every now and again
We go to a coffee shop
We travel when we want
Catch the bus to the cinema
Have a meal in a restaurant
Wonder where we will cast anchor
Sure we have a fracture within
Still, we’re better off than most
My folks work in a factory
My heart bleeds for their bones

I've watched you all these years
walk away from your dream
You talked and I listened
in the kitchen 'til morning
Your body stood upright and strong
but your heart did surrender
An old blade smashed to smithereens
what lies beneath the armour
I have watched you through the years
sink deep into the crack
I, behind you in the bathroom
wished that I were intact
The mirror looked back at your soul
blood trickled down your throat
Your fist was clenched, your back was hunched
and I knew what you sought
Father, do you need this drink
to cry over the buried?
Won’t you perform the last rites
and come back where you’re needed?
You were always a fine soldier
with a poor choice of weapons
You made sure that I acquire
the tools to climb those mountains

And I have a good man
I have a good job
Every now and again
We go to a coffee shop
We travel when we want
Catch the bus to the cinema
Have a meal in a restaurant
Wonder where we will cast anchor
Yeah, we have a fracture within
Still, we’re better off than most
My folks work in a factory
Oh I pray for their bones

Mother, I will spare you
the details of this story
Father, you don’t need to see
what is beyond your remedy
Mother, I will spare you
the details of my story
You wanted me to be happy
I don’t want you to worry

June 2004
Songs From The Past

Help Me Jesus

2010-05-31T09:31:00.000-07:00

Help me Jesus, help me God
Help me silver, help me gold
Help me anything, anyone
Help me rock & roll
Help me man of power
Heal my soul somehow mother
Help me Mr. Greg Graffin
Help me Mr. Leonard Cohen
Help me wine and Valium
Help me friends and enemies
Help me glossy magazines
Help me history, help me science

Save me from myself
Save me now
Save me from myself
Save me now

Help me Jesus, help me God
Help me silver, help me gold
I’m a flow of troubled water
I will breathe when this is over
See the straight face in the mirror
Under the belly, a house on fire
I put all pretty things on a hanger
I pushed the guitar into a corner
You grab the thorns if you are falling
The stinging nettles, you catch anything
The moment calls for a desperate measure
Can I make this any clearer?

Save me from myself
Save me now
Save me from myself
Save me now

2003
Songs From The Past

I Had a Husband Once

2010-05-31T08:38:00.001-07:00

I had a husband once
And where he sits in me
Resembles a domain whose sick king
Cannot be overthrown
Nor can he be healed

We no longer occupy the same rooms
But the place he dwells in within
Could be occupied by no other soul
No one's shape would fit into the bed we made together in me

I had a husband once
He loved my foolish feet that get so hot in summer
I cannot sleep
And icy cold in winter
You wouldn't want them against your feet
He loved my odd thumb
And the way I brush my teeth
He knew the core of me
And the parts that I disliked and despised
He felt tenderly about
And I feel tenderly about them now on his behalf
He called me sweet names
That I will allow no other to pronounce

There was a garden nobody knew about
That a witness would have winced at
In this garden, we were always five years old
And he protected me fiercely
Against the bullies of my childhood

He has tremendous eyes and a darkened heart
And you have never met a mind like his
Whoever else is to come into my life
Must not try to sit in his seat
He must find a vacant plot
Show me things I have not seen before
I will love him as best as I can

That is what it means not to be twenty anymore

For River, of course
Excerpt from The Moon, the Sun, the Electric Angel

Little Girl

2010-05-31T07:25:00.001-07:00

I was a little girl
In a little body
But the size of my soul has never changed

When My Mind Goes To Jake

2010-05-31T07:10:00.000-07:00

When My Mind Goes To Jake
The pearls I wear around my neck
Are snatched back violently
By faraway seabeds
Reclaimed by the oysters
They were extracted from for beauty

To The Moon I Prayed

2010-05-31T07:09:00.001-07:00

I joined my hands at dusk
And to the moon I prayed
A crescent elephant tusk
Because it was there

Had it been a piece of trash
An object grotesque or mundane
I would have in my despair
Prayed to it all the same

I wished for horses to grow wings
For chickens to bite with teeth
I kept looking at the entrance gate
I exhausted my will in the wait

You did not come, that is all I know
I saw no one on that busted road
Just a few perfectly indolent cows
And some poor little lost goat

That is how we chose to weave them
The threads of our attachment
The human heart ever so uneven
Like the road I stared at

I implored that you emerge from the dust
Dear God, let me have what I must
Fever brought a chill from Siberia
God loves me too much to answer that prayer

I'm counting no more on your remorse
I trust the water under the bridge
Will pursue its therapeutic course
And soothe the parched bed of the river

Excerpt from When My Mind Goes To Jake

Orange Tree

2010-05-31T07:05:00.000-07:00

Last year, I watched an orange tree hang its fruits over the street by a canal, here in Japan. From November until the end of March, the orange balls were on display. I passed the tree once a week with a heart that sometimes smiled. Little packets of sunshine, sweet fat perfect berries of joy, they store the sun, they trap its heat, they deliver it when the temperatures go bleak.

I lived in a room with a broken heater for the most part of last year's winter, and so the season seemed endless. I waited in the prison that vain expectation creates. You see, I longed for this man. Ha! How perfectly prosaic. I knew he had spent his years in barren lands, I thought that perhaps he was finding his way back to humanity, I desired that we be man and woman, I thought I saw some sweetness tucked carefully inside and that the advancing season was assuredly pushing it to the surface. I imagined the sweet cascade in my mouth of a slice of orange. I imagined all that. The orange tree, always full of the past summer's sunshine, is indifferent and beautiful. That is the prerogative of nature perhaps. Or rather, it has its own intricacies to attend to.

It's November again and I have healed the most part of being unwanted. The new harvest is hanging from the branches over the street by the canal. I wish to be warm, I wish to be held from time to time. But I wish no more for Jake to come forth. He lives in all the winter fruits that have gone sour.

Excerpt from When My Mind Goes To Jake

Almost Perfect

2010-05-31T07:04:00.000-07:00

My perfect evening, my good life
Homemade food served by my friend
On a large calm white dish
The last and the best part
Of a bottle of red wine
Two or three sips of it shared for taste
The conversation, always good
The friendship, rare and perfect
I run home and put on a dress
And a touch of rouge
I cycle back to the friend's house
The friend is ready to go too
We cycle together to a poetry event
We read, we write, we watch, we laugh too
Something shines through
It comes from the solar plexus
From the guts
And two inches below the navel
This is freedom
At the party, we shake new hands
We fulfill our mingling part
But I have to say
We both miss some absent friends
He wants his children back and a woman that he loved
I... I... well, you know who you are, that I wish for

For Michael
Excerpt from When My Mind Goes To Jake

2 am

2010-05-31T07:03:00.000-07:00

Remember the girl of 2 am
The hour of strange when you and I
We drank until the night turned pale
We talked fast, we spoke well
And the clock stopped in its track

If angels had been allowed into
A place like that, a bar
With its barman wearing only
A diaper and a bra
An anxious breath would have pressed
Against the nape of my neck
I would have heard a murmur
Being brought to a halt
I'd have glimpsed a prayer's hands
I'd have known they were there

Perhaps they did come up those stairs
And taken by the desert
A kind of famine that lives in your eyes
Perhaps my angels left my side
To wrap you with my love
Yes, love leaked out of me like thin blood
Spat out by a wild dancing hose on a street
The Devil himself played the Devil's beat
But love, with no appetite to receive it
Rushed straight into a gutter
You haven't seen my heart lately
All curved inwards

Our mouths produced unscripted repartee
We drank with skill
We had film noir chemistry
The night was handsome and strange
You see this too
That those few hours held eternity
You kissed the girl, and soon I knew
She would fly her tiger moth into
A blazing Saharan sun until
She'd crush it against the cold steel
Of your disavowed sorrow

How your arms religiously remained
Clasped behind you, and your tongue
Tied in cryptic battle talk
How I longed for warmth and ran into fire

Now I pray, I entreat
That with mercy you restrain
Who next flies inadequate wings
Towards your barren heat
May you henceforth intervene
With a hand that does not quiver
You were a soldier after all
When it came to pull the trigger
Could you witness that again
Watch the finest membrane
Caught in sombre molasses
Will you remember the girl of 2 am
The odd talk, the remarkable plea
Will you remember that you were loved
You were loved immeasurably

Excerpt from When My Mind Goes To Jake

The Peace Bed

2010-05-31T07:02:00.000-07:00

From under the low skies of industrious Britain
The stamp of desolation on its back streets
- In the moment, irreversible, the feeling -
I bring you the peace bed

From the heart of abandonment
From the love absent but then
Received in strange ways
After the fracture had already been caused
From a cold city which grew on the edge of the world
From the lassitude of a working class household
I give you the peace bed

From Northern England to New York City
From the top of the world I became accustomed to
The Olympian bed, I give you
That I shared with one I loved
She offered her oriental otherness
I gave her England

I never imagined I would dine with kings
And sleep with mortal gods
Or maybe I did
I must have imagined this life for it to unfold
Did I also dream the way it ended?

I do suppose I should thank my mother and my father
For not giving me what a child needs
And thereby making me exactly how I should be
My life was in the order of things
I sleep now a peaceful sleep

October 2009
Excerpt from The Moon, the Sun, the Electric Angel

Raison d'Etre

2010-05-31T06:58:00.000-07:00

When beauty is gone
And shape and bone
When all things are said and done
When the body goes wrong

You'd better have understood a thing or two
Slayed a dragon of your own
Raised a child, written a book
You'd better have put your soul in a song

When beauty is done
You'd better not be on your own
But if left with prayer for sole company
Then so be it, say it, chant it until dawn

When I become properly old
There'll be wine, always, on my table
And a book of old and new poems
There'll be Beethoven and Cobain

I will remember my perfect love
How I wrung its perfect neck
And the written will be my raison d'etre
When my body becomes a wreck

14 September 2007
Excerpt from The Moon, the Sun, the Electric Angel

Poor Little Cow

2010-05-31T06:57:00.000-07:00

Poor little cow
Wants to live
Wants to love
Wants to roll down the hill
And challenge cascades
To run faster than her
But the little waterfalls
They laugh their little bell laughter
And fall with grace

Cow looks up to the sky
Dripping along her lashes
Water flows, wind dances
Rain falls more dramatic
Than a great empire
Rain is lighter than a pas de chat
Poor little cow wants to jump
Not from a cliff but over the fence
Cow wants to fly, see the country
Be a ballerina

Poor little soul of a cow
She is a ponderer
Weighs in her mind the pounds of flesh
She is made of
I am not her, I can see her beauty
I am her, I know her bovine sorrow
Dear little cow has all she needs
But I think she has never been smooched
By the bull she watches every day
From behind the posts and the wire

25 November 09
Excerpt from The Moon, the Sun, the Electric Angel

Plastic Jesus

2010-05-31T06:56:00.002-07:00

I want the Jesus with the old washed blue robe
I want the beaded and sequined postcards
The vintage purse with the kitchy print
The boutique Korean trousers pursed at the ankles
The lacquer imitation tortoiseshell comb
Inlaid with mother-of-pearl
And the crude silk cardigan
The black taffetas dress
The red satin night gown
The tin box with the dry flower in its enamel lid
I want the porcelain cat and the pearl choker
I want the tea in China
The hands of a queen
The thighs of a soldier

And the ornaments
Now that I have named them
I do not need them
Anymore

Postcard from Seoul, visa run - January 2006
Excerpt from The Moon, the Sun, the Electric Angel

Bed of Stone

2010-05-31T06:56:00.001-07:00

All hell's agents have broken loose again
It's that season again, I sense
When they are called to descend
To help us carry out a sequence
In the human cycle

They cut their way through our chests
With their shining blades, guns and fists
They poke the tender parts
They want us to find an unwanted jewel
In the rotten part of human experience

I know where perfection lies
It lies on a bed of stone
I want a still heart
But the price for that
Is the cold of the grave

Excerpt from The Moon, the Sun, the Electric Angel

Angel of Stone

2010-05-31T06:53:00.000-07:00

Angel of stone standing in the cloister
Of this hot church,
Watch over my burning red candle.
And you, Padre of stone,
Yes, even you,
Whom I would not confess to,
Hear my request,
I need forgiveness, not from God,
But from myself.

Cebu, Philippines, 14 April 06
Excerpt from The Moon, the Sun, the Electric Angel

17 Haiku

2010-05-31T06:45:00.000-07:00

1. Why A Poem?
Must one write a poem?
Must one wave a pen?
Must I swallow these rocks?

2. What Is Going On?
See this face, it does not
Show the high or the low,
It drips, sure and slow.

3. Erik's Coffee (1)
A paper cup, a cracked plastic mug,
An ordinary water glass.

4. Erik's Coffee (2)
A tin cup, good quality coffee,
Cheap beer, good company,
Farewell.

5. Beethoven's 2nd Movement of 7th Symphony
The funeral march told my story,
Every song I know speaks to me.

6. Rooftop
Cold feet in flipflops,
Wind blows on rooftop,
Should be dainty but I'm not.
(Orange House)

7. Japanese Roofs (1)
Picture grey roofs,
This is not Paris,
Handsome fish scales
Hung in mid-air.

8. Japanese Roofs (2)
Roofs finish into dragon heads,
Compare them to tiles of grey-blue slate.

9. Japanese Roof (3)
The third floor window of the Orange House
Opens to waves of roof tiles.
(I want to remember this.)

10. Japanese Roof (4)
A sea of roofs in the crisp autumn sunshine whispers,
"Still in Japan."

11. Japan's Secret
Neat rows of persimmons on the market stalls,
Black ink dances on walls.

12. Osaka (1)
And so I will see the face of Osaka,
The face but not the heart.

13. Osaka (2)
I will kiss the sun in the hollow of its cheeks,
I will learn to part.

14. I Love A Poem
I'm in love with a poem,
His name is Oda,
He will never come.

15. A Place Is A Place (1)
But a place is a place,
What matters is the matter that weaves the heart.

16. A Place Is A Place (2)
What troubled you in Paris
Will trouble you in Japan;
Death must come.

17. The Death Card
So death must come
Like the death card from a Tarot deck,
So dawn can break.

Composed during my first years in Japan in 2005-2006
Excerpt from Ode a Oda

(Intra) Muro(s)

2010-05-31T06:42:00.000-07:00

I see, on the streets, a thousand men
A thousand mountains between me and them
I meet one in an unlikely place
Hellraiser's hairstyle, sweet open face
I cross the mountains, expose my ends
Nothing happens, we are "friends"

After a night at Clapper, AmeMura, with Muro, 29 April 07
Excerpt from Ode a Oda

Wild Man Came To Me

2010-05-31T06:36:00.000-07:00

Black and blue within
I ventured south east in pursuit of a young man with a hermetic soul
I went to all the bars where we'd drunk together
And walked the streets we'd walked one single morning

Hermetic Man's silence was deafening
The worst kind of beauty is the beauty found and lost
I said goodbye to the sea and the sun
I would never travel to these parts again

And Wild Man came to me
A wild butterfly with bright tremendous wings
A magician libertine
One toe in the mud, a fingertip in the sky
I did not see his eye
But I felt his words
He placed a golden box in front of me
I sat and wondered at it

I compared it to another box I'd had
Black lacquer with a secret combination long forgotten
Its dark moths buzzing inside
Its promise of an impending storm...
As my mind went to Hermetic Man again
The golden box clicked open for me
And exposed hand-painted flowers

There too was a storm, of technicolour visions
Of angels flying by and ghosts of sorrowful women
Playful, pulling at his mad hair

Snakes hissed and rattled and danced
In a friendly desert, to reveal the voice of the land
Fossils sprang from the earth
They too wished to make known something about the valley
The deadly creatures they had belonged to

Shark teeth and cow skulls smiled at me
There was the scent of coconut oil mixed with the smell of sex
In the yard full of sunshine
Then a brooding night hung over it
Like a silk robe you throw over your bare shoulders after a wash
There was an immense hard desire that spoke in tongues
If the desire had had hands too beside a voice
They would have ripped the black lace worn underneath

All this, the artist shaman spun for me, yarns and yarns of it
He said, "Here, take it, weave it for me."

"You're fragile," he said, and I thought he would
Take himself away and his visions
But he stayed a little more
He told me of his antics, his fights and his spirits
Of all the outrage and the whiskey and wine
The mistresses, the threesomes, the foursomes, the blood
The weeks in prison
And I thought I would walk away but I didn't
We talked a little more
We sent each other butterflies
To heal the burn of the obsessed moths
And parachutes that open

Sketches for Flowers for the Drunk

The Second Coming

2010-05-31T06:35:00.000-07:00

It is white wine and fresh oyster!
I tasted the fruit of my labour
To the touch, the cascading flesh of a persimmon

The soft Cantaloupe melon, the colour
The dripping from a messy peach
Bitten into on a hot summer night

I worked at it for half an hour
With the precision of a filigree worker
And the skill of a harpist

I observed the engineering
Which pushed the flower inside to bloom
Ooh! It was no territory for a lover

That impossible second wave!
I wished good luck to the man who would try his skills
At such millimetric a piece

The first wave, I had ridden for quite
A few eternal seconds before it
Had crashed on the shore...

I whisper the name of an absent man
When it happens
And I called the name of God the second time

Stranded for now with no one to love
Imagination and instrumentation
My nocturnal companions

Sketches for Flowers for the Drunk

I'll paint your nails, Medicine Man

2010-05-31T06:34:00.000-07:00

I'll paint your nails, Medicine Man,
Turquoise blue, black and pink.
I'll paint your mouth vermillion
Give you my back to mark with ink.
I'll raid the shops, the hidden ones, for you
Buy you boas, blue and cinnabar,
Thick fur collars for hot winters,
That no one can find anywhere,
I'll buy them cheap but very rare.
I'll dress you up, undress you fast,
Give you my undergarments to wear,
Beware, I will have worn them first,
Our scents will merge in the fabric thus.
We'll lock ourselves in for days,
Then we'll swing the doors wide open,
With no warning,
Like dynamite,
Indecent,
We'll descend upon the crowd,
And everybody will frown.
We'll be vulgar to the world.
I'll announce who I am,
The latest mistress,
We'll be the electronic talk of the town.
We'll make them wince,
Like lime against their gums.
We'll be perfect that way,
And they'll love us in the end.
We'll have a whitewashed open house,
And wine from the best vineyards,
Oaky, deep ruby, thick as honey,
Awaiting who wishes to come in.
But love will flow free from us like water,
Our guests will be drunk and merry
And think it's the wine.
Those we love and those we don't,
Those we know well and those we've never met,
We will serve them all, we will serve them well.
I'll kiss your nails, Medicine Man,
You'll paint my thighs,
White roses and hydrangea blues.

Sketches for Flowers for the Drunk

Antique Pink (Intoxication)

2010-05-31T06:33:00.001-07:00

Cut just above the knee,
The dress,
Antique pink.
When the weather gets cold,
Nipples burst out,
A strawberry plot.
His hand goes wild
Underneath the fabric.
Little red mushroom heads sprout,
Floods come to the land.
"Aren't you cold? You should be cold.
This is no season for a single layer over your bones!"
Haven't they noticed the antique rose
That's come over her cheeks?
And the crimson rush on her lips?
And the sweat on her temple?
She's no angel, she's no virgin,
But the Devil wants her.
He wants the hell out of her.
Waste her break her make her have his kittens.

Sketches for Flowers for the Drunk

Soldier In Hot Pink Frocks

2010-05-31T06:31:00.000-07:00

Of course you cannot see
Behind the porcelain face, the battle
Through the pristine manner, the rubble
Few would think to look that way

Desolation is loud at times
At times a hidden plague, and hers
She has dressed it in hot pink and pearls
A colourful fanfare for a secret despair

She blends in with the light like a spy with the night
Inside she's running
Marshland, barren miles, looking for a regiment
Nothing betrays the strider in the cocktail dress

And if betrayal there ever were
Hot pink and strass and Venetian blue
Soon would convince the party they misconstrue
Indiscretion is dealt with thoroughly

A languid aria from a requiem
Has been playing forever in a back room
But all you can hear is a jazzy brass section
Because the lady of the house, a carnival figure
Entertains every night

She is Japan to chaotic India
The perfection of the gesture that compels
Some hands like mine to lift the curtain
What will I find (if I retrieve my hands intact)?

Shame and secrecy, whatever it is that you did
Or happened to you, I am sure it happened to quite a few
A once delicate juvenile heart, was it, that met the world?
A pool of joy, was there, that mixed with blood?

Oh you do wear the most exquisite dresses
And there is beauty in desolation sometimes, wouldn't you agree?
Do you have to cut off my hands, seal my eyes?
Scramble my voice too, because I saw and I heard?

I heard it was quite common
That the louder the laughter, the darker the mood
She laughs, she runs in heels, never halts, never sleeps
Good morning, ma'am, the discotheque is closing

I knew a boy who did just that too
He ran and he ran, he'd been a soldier too
He knew the dark hours intimately
But never gave in to their melancholy

Flamboyant speech, fast noisy wheels
Expert at mixing drinks for strip-club patrons
I stumbled once into his aria room
He did what he knew to do, abscond

Excerpt from Booky Goes To Town (Chansons Baroques)

Odd One (Out)

2010-05-31T06:30:00.000-07:00

So I watch people follow precut patterns
The girls next to me are talking
About what kind of frock is fashionable
What colour suits their complexions
I roll my eyes. Because I
Am sitting by myself writing lines
About the liberation of the soul
Is this why you find me so odd?
Well... I too love frocks!
And I too am a girl!

The pretty boys sitting at the table next to mine
Are trying to catch my attention
But I frown
Silly boys. Because I
Am engaged in the study of etymology
How could their vacant hearts
Possibly compete with history?
Is this why you find me so odd?
I will have you know that
I am flattered by their attempts
They are boys
And I am a girl

Excerpt from Booky Goes To Town (Chansons Baroques)

I Got Myself A Boy For The Night

2010-05-31T06:27:00.000-07:00

"It is chichi, and an unrealistic approach to self-impressions as well as economics"
Jo Stockton, Funny Face

The girls say, "Don't be queer, paint your lips,
Don't be a stranger to the game.
Come on, sway those hips..."
Look here, I was a partridge before.
Now must I parade for sport
Like a pheasant, run like a deer?
For venison, it's close season.
"Oh darling, you're a crashing bore!"

My friends lecture, "Bally old girl,
We will teach you the art of drawing
A man's attention, if you would listen..."
I'm not listening, that's that.
I've got an artistic soul,
I've got a broken heart,
I like talking about origins
And martial art.

I hear the clamour of the ditzy crowd,
I hear the call of flesh.
"Join the ranks of the breeding stocks!
Hips, tits, lips, pelvis, glitz now on sale!"
There must be a man in this city
Who wants the girl and not the lies,
Cares for the eyes, not the lashes,
How long they are, how well they flap.

So... I quieten a certain voice in me,
I will experiment with loose morals,
I will teach myself how it's done.
I choose a bouffant dress, copper and saffron,
Sequined organza, embossed taffeta
The underskirt, lace trimmed, peeks from underneath.
I put on false eyelashes,
Powder my face to make it shine.

I never really cared for powder and such like
But tonight I apply some rouge called Diva,
I spray a capricious perfume,
Spices of Ispahan, colours of Venice,
The temper of Paris.
I have a mazarin cut rhinestone on my finger,
A lady's purse in my hand,
The shoes are heeled for once.

I travel in style tonight,
I ditch the bike for a black cab.
I ask the driver to stop on the way
To buy a packet of those chocolate flavoured cigarettes.
Did I mention I disapprove of smoking?
Oh and I hate the clubs in this town,
But I make my entrance into the smoky joint.
Here I am tonight, tonight a queen of vice?

How they mix and remix the tasteless
Chart music and call it talent,
And all the chart boys and girls
Shake their mammalian assets
To the mediocre sound combinations.
Quiet woman! Don't arouse suspicion...
Yes, yes, I'm ready to whore,
Mingle with those whose musical values I abhor.

I examine the bar counter area and the dance floor.
One man has an enticing sense of rythmn,
Another, a suaveness about the way he drinks
And talks to his nocturnal companions
And smiles with dimpled cheeks.
I head for the dance floor, I'm Rita Hayworth,
Unashamedly I shake my bare shoulders
In the space that belongs to the dancing man.

The dancer will take me home if I nod,
But I'm looking at the drinker's face.
I am near him now, there is a smile in his eyes,
I ask him to kindly light my ridiculous cigarette,
He says he does not own a lighter,
He says he is not a smoker but will find a match,
I say, "I don't smoke either, you have found your match!"
And we both laugh with warm sincerity.

He liked me instantly perhaps, and perhaps not.
I move away quickly and nod at the dancer.
Come and dance in my bed, silly boy,
Let's do our business and part with no regrets,
No wish to meet again in the morning,
No languorous waiting in vain,
Things to do, places to go, people to see,
I've got contempt to dispense.

And so we danced in my sheets all night,
And I thought of the dimpled mouth,
The eyes who liked what they saw within,
Who would see me again if I tried.
But life will take a precious hour and turn it to mess.
Yes, I thought of the other man, I won't have him smudged,
As I used the body of my disposable lover,
Again and again 'til the first trains started to run.

Excerpt from Booky Goes To Town (Chansons Baroques)

"Temper, Lucy, Temper!" (When the Door Comes Ajar, Postcard from an Edwardian Closet)

2010-05-31T06:23:00.000-07:00

I want to be in a punk band
Break expensive commodities
Oh to be loved and to be banned
Hang like a swallow on the high wind
Fall a sublime fall, full of sin

I want to explore the end and the origin
To my peers, let me be shocking
I know the heights are but within
I can sense the dizzy possibilities

"Temper, Lucy, temper!"
But Lucy looks at the mad mad skies
When the door comes ajar

If I lived in a different era
I would travel aboard a starliner
But I must be a hundred years behind
I shall make do with a cargo steamer

I'm leaving this house of 1907
My flight will leave you scarred, no doubt
But I hope you grow from my absence

It is the way she plays Beethoven
"It puts her in a certain disposition"
Later will come Rakhmaninov and fever
And later still, electronica

She is beautiful but unconventionally
As she should be
Her cheeks have gone crimson now
From the fire she's pouring onto the keys
With her fingers like a spinner's
From the want of oxygen in the room
From the heaviness of the drapery
And the tightness of her corset

What would they say if you
Untied your thorough collar?
They put a swallow in a cage
Its soul flew deep inward into the light
As she sat at the piano

"Temper, Lucy, temper!"
They murmur but they feel galvanized
And often they do not know it themselves
Or they would never admit it if they did

She will be consumed then
She will ignore the recommendation for cautiousness
Perhaps luck will be on her side
And make her shine above the crowd
But to see that in her lifetime
Perhaps she is a hundred years behind

I shall be in a punk band
I shall marry Beethoven
To noise and distortion
In my own way, if I can

Now, Lucy is a young woman
There must be a lover of sorts in this adventure
Other than Beethoven and the suitable suitors
She did notice a pair of eyes
Blond as the sand, absorbing
Which reflected, still! the sun from the faraway lands
They had immersed themselves in
She saw in them the things she wanted for herself
And when she understood this, she ceased to want him
But boarded with him a cargo steamer
In pursuit of the qualities she saw in the man

Every one of us needs a love that is human
That we know not to confuse
With a divine image adored until you open your eyes to
The clay at the base
She is keeping the door ajar for a being that is human
If he wishes to step in
But he will have made himself a good pair of wings
And have no desire to tamper with her wiring
He will have explored his own humanity
And know that this woman is no goddess

First and foremost, let us look at the world and the turmoil
In so doing, I will surely know my own heart
Some places and some moments have the power
To dissolve the mental grids that are not ours

For my sister who understands all of this very well
Excerpt from Booky Goes To Town (Chansons Baroques)

Un apres-midi dans l'atelier de l'artiste

2010-05-31T05:39:00.000-07:00

On flotte au-dessus de la Terre dans ton atelier
Peu importe les guerres en cet instant
Je me desengage des lendemains aussi
Ou peut-etre plus justement
Je les protege en n'y pensant pas

On a peint
Moi, des motifs enfantins
Toi, des velos
On a parle, parle, parle
Moi beaucoup trop

On a ri
Au coin de la bouche
J'en ai de nouvelles rides
On a regarde des images
On a ecoute beaucoup de jazz
Et des chansons francaises melancoliques
Et des morceaux de trip hop

On a peu mange
On a bu beaucoup de vin
On a fume
On a consomme nos corps d'homme et de femme
Dans ton atelier au-dessus de la Terre

J'ai somnole
Ta maitresse est arrivee
Trop tot avec trois cafes
Elle est repartie seule et, j'espere
Avec un peu moins de plomb dans le coeur
Ta femme est arrivee, quelque peu mecontente
Je sais, la logique interdit cet etat d'ame
Car c'est elle qui a voulu tout ce qui est arrive
Mais comme je l'explique souvent
Pourquoi veut-on que l'affectif
Se conforme a une logique mathematique?
Et l'on nous a cache peut-etre aussi
Que nos vies sont des projections de l'ame et de la pensee

Je te dis: Vous buvez trop, Monsieur
Vous fumez trop
Vous avez trop de distractions feminines autour de vous
Occupez-vous bien de vos enfants
Les yeux qui vous en restent
Gardez-les rives sur vos toiles
Renvoyez toutes vos femmes...
Tu ne me dis pas de me taire

C'est l'aube de nouveau
Et l'atelier de l'artiste fait escale sur la Terre
J'en descends pour prendre le train
Et alors que les corps des gens du matin
En costumes de bureau insupportables
Se reunissent en une densite violemment ecrasante
Je me souviens pourquoi je prefere me deplacer a velo
Meme quand ma destination est etonnamment lointaine

Extrait de Demain, le sel, les epices et le vin
31 Mai 2010

Demain, le sel, les epices et le vin

2010-05-31T03:25:00.000-07:00

La joie tout a coup s'est envolee
Un oiseau qui logeait dans mon sein
En quelques battements d'ailes
A rejoint le ciel

Et maintenant, comme j'aimerais
Me laisser porter par les courants marins
M'endormir de froid, ne plus etre un soldat
Silence! Debout! Attends le matin!

Un mot a perdu le vaisseau qui me conduisait
Et la douce cargaison a glisse dans le flux argentin
Algues languissantes, nouez-vous a mes pieds
Attrapez mes mains. Mais il faut taire ces voix morbides

Comme ce mot fut amer, je me souviens
Demain, le sel, les epices et le vin
S'echoueront avec la maree
Sur une plage chanceuse

Demain, si l'on continue a nager
Noierons-nous peut-etre le chagrin
Sans nous perdre nous-meme entierement
Debout soldat! L'oiseau reviendra

Extrait de Demain, le sel, les epices et le vin
31 Dec 2006 - Pour River

J'aime Dalida

2010-05-31T03:16:00.000-07:00

C'est un politique, il est pas tres beau
A le regarder, on se doute qu'il a une femme
Qui n'est plus aussi douce
Des enfants, une belle maison
De l'argent et bien sur des relations
Sa vie est bien rangee
Ou il cache bien son desordre
Ses soirees sont monotones
Au travail, il porte des costumes sombres
Bien coupes, bien mesures
Changera-t-il jamais de vie?
Il revise des lois
Il prepare un budget national
Il serre des mains attachees a des attaches-caisses
Il ne semble y avoir aucune poesie
Dans ses activites mais...

Il aime Dalida
Car tout le monde a besoin de chaleur dans la vie
La caresse d'une diva
Et un verre de vin mele de melancholie

Extrait de Demain, le sel, les epices et le vin