Ben oui. Mon sketchbook pour le Sketchbook Project s’est égaré dans la malle, probablement près des douanes américaines. Évidemment je n’avais pas gardé de traces de toutes les pages. Voici de quoi il avait l’air de son vivant.
All these things we lose…
just like i’m gonna swallow tons
of snowflakes in the white night.
the city’s so wide and bright tonight
i know i’ll completely disappear
in it, and reappear lively in my bed,
in someone-i-don’t-know-yet’s arms,
in yet’s arms
i’ll be wet with snow
-men dreams, covered with
invisible messages the someone traced
on my sleeping skin, while i was busy
waking up
every single breath fainting in my dream.
then this someone’ll fade into the morning
whiter than the night if that’s possible
at all, after not finding egg whites in the
blinding and blinking refrigerator.
i’ll rise from this no someone’s land
that’s my bed. my cat’ll make cookies
on me just like i’m a piece of sheet
or something.
i’m a piece of snow, man, can’t you see?
can’t you see
me – rolling in crispy snow, yet to discover
this someone’s message on my skin that screams,
i wanna see you
AGAIN.
*** This poem has been written for dVerse Poets Pub, tonight about invisibility. Context: tonight is the Nuit blanche in Montréal (literally white night, a series of cultural events that last all night long in the city, and prevent its inhabitants from sleeping – as this is what the expression faire une nuit blanche means: to not sleep at all during a night. I cheated and slept in my poem, somehow.***
roses
i slip under the door, leaving
them to someone else’s care
as i don’t
mind
anymore
who’s left for me
tell me
as i wear ochre and black
every day that i’m walking
(through
a forest of skinned bodies)
naked
dead
(soul)
don’t talk to me i’m busy
mourning
i’m already in disguise
can’t you see?
i’m crying
silver
make-up
rivers
is it that
whoever drifted away from sight
is considered dead
by the whitest soul?
tell me ’cause
i’m innocent
and lost
tell me
who’s left for me
to cry for?
who’s left
to cry for
me?
i don’t care
i’m sipping tea, and
slipping rose petals under gateways
i’m going to walk through soon
when i had enough
of burying myself
under heaps of earth-
en ware
when i hit home
inside
my cry will let you all
know —
all.
*** Oh, and here’s the link to today’s prompt at dVerse poets pub! We had to take the colo(u)r wheel, and play with colo(u)r symbolism. Believe it or not as my poem is sad, but I had a lot of fun including colo(u)rs into it. Make sure you check out on a few other poets’ contributions too!
By the way the picture was taken by me (and instagrammed) during a walk in Old Montreal. I wish I knew who made this beautiful doorart. ***
This is the year of dark and moist forests
of your smile piercing branches
when the moon is too big to see
what is really hidden
On a complementary day
yellow + purple
you lifted your fingers to say hi
they spelled victory
I read two, I read light
Two days before we had tea
yellow, red
if we are to give things their real names
2+3=5
just like they make purple
to my unbalanced eyesight
just like
they make sense
The coming year is one of sherbet
mango, strawberry
soft-colored on your palate
acrid on mine
because I am addicted to the brownish kind of
stories
As the moon decreases it shows
how much of ourselves
so that taste and color
can melt one into another
so that we can add numbers
to each other’s presence
***
Written for today’s Meeting the Bar, where Victoria C. Slotto invited us to write about synesthesia, which I have a very mild form (every digit has its color).
Here are a few more (see yesterday’s post) micropoems (haiku… or most probably senryu) in French. Tonight, at dVerse Poets Pub, we are allowed (even encouraged!) to write in another language than English. I then decided to write in my first language, French… and added a few Japanese words to them.
(I guess I should record myself reading them out loud like… right now and join the file, so that you can at least hear the sound of them. Sorry I didn’t provide an English translation this time.)
My reading out loud (open in a new tab)
Voici :
1.
Dans la ruelle
derrière le bar
l’odeur des croissants
2.
Ce monde
toujours plus blanc
il neige
3.
Deux adolescents
se racontent
leurs voyages imaginaires
4.
Le chawan* de mes rêves
imparfait
trop cher
5.
Lecture de haiku
au salon de thé :
issa nomi**
6.
Soir de tempête
les néons du cinéma
ciel orangé
7.
Sous la lune
impossible de mentir :
je suis une femme
8.
Il y eut une neige
il y eut une pleine lune
superpositions
9.
La théière vidée
puis remplie
un autre invité
10.
Dans l’arbre gelé
les pépiements redoublent
aware ari***
11.
Gomme balloune
qui attrape la langue
couleur de pantalon
* A chawan is a bowl made especially for tea-drinking.
** Issa is/was a haiku master. His nickname literally means ‘one tea’, ‘one cup of tea’. The noun nomi means ‘drinking’.
*** Aware is a feeling of compassion, or sensitivity to the ephemeral nature of things. I thought it interesting that it writes the same as the English word aware. (Ari simply means that it’s there.)
Her heart on the brink of
exploding concrete
she wanted to fight through
the woman in her
the bramble on her
but she counted her colours
as blessings instead.
White
her knuckles as she ruffled
depleted bones
and their crushed leaves.
Brown
a lock catching her wild eye
her least favourite colour
her own hues.
Yellow
her envy of bright gold
bullions in her pockets
to ground her in oolong leaves.
Red
the heart of the problem
sowing too many beats
around the saddened bush.
Purple
her head blossoming
in all different directions
violet – was she dancing.
Black
her sleep so tight and dear
a grip of delusions and falls
on top of her world.
And back to white
morning light that saw her temple
shining through her bark
who was she now
who was she not
risen from a day of painful strokes
on her inside skin
and left gazing at another reflection
of her own tortured being
on the sky’s infinite
openness?
*Contribution to dVerse Poets Pub – Artwork by SueAnn*
To my dear Arman & Mélodie
1.
Cancelled vacation waved like a form
a disease, Montréal-like vibe.
2.
His Copenhagen waved like a flag
a regret, Oslo-night colour.
3.
Their Berlin, vibrant still like a wave
regretted, cemetery days.
Poems written for FormForAll, dVerse Poets Pub. Photos taken at Camellia Sinensis teahouse, and modified with Instagram.
Bursting as birches do
I am left on my own
Moss
Out of town
Most of my life has just passed away in a bonfire
Blurrying as blushes do
I am staying here in the mess of woods
I’ll build myself a house out of
Myself
A sky so blown
As a rooftop under which I’ll carry on
Picture after picture
I guess I’ll just pour myself some tea
Under leaves and heaps
Over lush
Let me disappear in between
Branches
Let me connect until I liquefy into mud
Dust
Spread on a bark with a brush
Ash
Blent in with moist
This poem has been prompted by Reena Walkling’s picture – thanks to dVerse Poets Pub and their prompt of today.
Hiroshimem 