October

The wind still smells the same
and brings nothing
but all my memories in one shot
down the gust, down my guts.
Time is flying inside me
one shot, strong spirit
drawing back my stomach
from under the soils.
Another internal flight,
another domestic crawl.

January

The cold still feels the same
and brings home
a suitcase that’s heavier than me
starting now
snow will punch holes in me
will patch me with holy
sheets
shared from winters in.
Love organs:
another all-white horizon,
another night on the sofa.

October

If it hasn’t killed me leaving
will have worn out
my string of days, so fragile
of a hundred twenty five million hai‘s
before my eyes. What’s close
is not even able to make it
-self another place among them,
another pace among traps.

January

If it hasn’t awakened me coming home
will have called me again,
recalled the string of years, the knots, the ribbons
and balls behind the sofa.
Being back is leaving again
in the past, in the vast
nothingness that’s pretense of nostalgia
that my eyes sniff in those cities of yes‘s
and yet without finding
anything else than wanderlust,
anything else than punishment.

October

Deliberate, my exiles stick
a bar into my mouth
a nail into my foot
and my other, rusty.
Every cure will have to be
geographic, metallic.
There’s an earth spinning around me,
months pass but don’t stop.
Other red leaves straight in my teeths,
other dead words rummaging in.

January

Deliberate, my escapes smash
a shot of wine down my throat
waste this body that’s suffering
too much alcohol.
Strangled memories,
estranged futures.
« Paris is spitting on us », he said
with love in his eyes
and am I not also
just another nostalgia hunter,
just another raincloud stirrer?

*This poem has been published in its original French version in the magazine La Tribune juive. I am still working on this English translation, but because the theme of this week’s dVerse Poets Pub is exile, I thought I could share it with you.