Ooooh, so tired. No matter how much sleep I get, it's always the same bald sense of fatigue. The cat won't wake up under the umbrella of curtain. She lies all day, barely turning, then with hardly a cat stretchof arm, she gracefullyslides from sill to side table to floor to mosey over to her kibble dish, then back to her perch to sun herself in the graying light of a rainy spring morning.
I'm hardened into this couch like someone broke by madness. I've broken the clock and the bank of all the minutes I've wasted lying here in thisdark room with a tv drone and a time bomb to help me remember my pills. Not even wanting to hear your footfall on the stair, for you to come home from the piano lessons you give to hyperactive children and fascinating men and women, to attend to me with food and drink and a little bit of talk before you must take your daily nap.
I'd rather be alone like this princess kitty who bristles at my hand, who jerks awake with peeping eyesand stiffened back, andI look at her and say, "Sorry, darling, I was feeling a little guilty." (Perhaps how you feel when you must attend to your own needs.)
Then I lay back down, assume the position, and wistfully, irritably, uncomfortably fall into the arms of Morphée.
Recently, my partner Ron took photographs of all my original artwork that I've done over three plus decades. These four canvases are postcard size and were painted with an eye on four antique french postcards, using black and white watercolors. Of all my art, if i had to choose, these paintings would be my favorites. The first represents Brittany (Bretagne) for me; the second a pious little town with a lovely church, perhaps Amiens; the third warm southern France with an orange grove; and the fourth, la Dame Paris herself. Which one are you most attracted to?
mon homme, je le déteste quand
nous parlons de la mort
je ne veux pas aller par là
penser à notre départ parce que
ma vie ne vaudrait rien sans la vôtre
qui a compris des belles choses,
trop à énumérer, sans parler
du visage que j'aimais tant
et vos boites pleines débordantes
de toutes vos créations qui me parlent:
les articles que tu coupais chaque jour
du journal sur les transports et les ponts
les ports et l'Astoria que tu adorais
avec ses bateaux de pêche roulants sur
la grande fleuve columbia et puis calme
sans aucun mouvement, des mouettes criants
en sillonant dans le ciel gris-noir foncé
mais tu n'étais jamais triste quand il pleuvais
même à Paris quand nous voyagions
à la mauvaise saison
tes disques durs pleins de jouets à acheter
tu étais toujours enthousiaste pour la jeunesse
tes avions de bois que tu as donnés au petit fils
mais tu as gardé tous les trains et leurs rails
pour le petit village que tu ne rêvais que de construire
et les voitures anciennes, vielles dames américaines
et les deux-chevaux citroën, les deuch que tu aimais
dans l'époque à Paris avec la sombre petite amie
ton premier amour dans les années soixante-dix
et à Barcelone tu es tombé amoureux d'Europe
mais tu perdais ta jeunesse en face la traître de
ton propre cœur car tu as choisit une autre femme
puis regrettais ton choix mais trop tard, mon vieux
tu as appris un tas de choses dans cette aventure
et avec moi tu as pu retrouver ta jeunesse
et ces trains qui s'en sont allés
et ces trains qui reviennent
tant de cartes-mémoire pleins de musique
dont je ne sais absolument pas comment écouter ou
sur quelle machine de ton techno génie
car tu suivais chaque innovation comme si c'était
la première fois sur ton premier instrument
mais je pourrais entendre toutes tes chansons
si je fermais les yeux en silence
le silence que tu cherchais toujours
mais qui t'échappait à cause de l'acouphène
comme tu souffrais de cela, en voyant
tous tes jolis sons deviennent des fracas!
mais tu n'arrêtais jamais de composer et
peut-être c'était ça qui t'a sauvé à la fin
j'ai joué de ta musique un jour dans
les corridors du congrès dans la capitale
beaucoup de gens m'approchaient, demandant
"quelle est cette belle musique?"
et j'ai parlé de toi et de ton talent pendant
des heures et il y a une joie dans
cet immeuble orné de l'or sans que
personne ne comprennent de quoi qu'il s'agit
c'étais de toi, mon amour, et je me suis demandé
pourquoi tu n'es jamais devenu célèbre
puisque, oui, il y avait un temps où tu avait été
mais que tu l'évitais après ce temps car
tu n'aimais ni l'ego ni le jazz comme ça
et puis tes photos prises
à toutes les saisons, tu as eu d'elles
des extases et des blessures sans limites
que la vie te donnait en essayant de
comprendre chaque facette, chaque geste
et tes vidéos et pellicules en 16mm
des diapos, de carton en carton
de toutes les jeunes années
et de toutes tes petites jolies femmes
toi si beau et si mince comme tu étais
le jour ensoleillé de l'été où
j'ai fait ta connaissance, presque sage
presque garçon, avec ta grosse moustache
que tu as coupé car elle pinçais mes lèvres
tu étais toujours gentil et patient
avec moi la rock star qui
ne pouvait pas m'arêter de parler
ou de pleurer ma mauvaise chance
mais tu m'as dit, "mais si, c'est vrai"
et tu m'as emmenée vers la guérison, toi
et tes fortes bras qui me tenaient quand
j'étais trop brisée pour me soutenir
tu me berçais dans la nuit
quand mes larmes coulaient d'acide
jusqu'à ce qu'elles se gêlent enfin
et que je m'arrête de pleurer
sauf qu'un autre pleure
tu m'as appris à écouter, et tes léçons
ont fait de moi ce que je n'avais jamais espéré
je pouvait croire dans la constance des étoiles
je dirais plus tard à quelqu'un, "tu peux savoir
que demain est un autre jour, et que chaque pas
que tu fait pour comprendre le soi
te fait grandir plus que tu le saches
et l'amour va venir juste pour toi, c'est sûr
après que vous serez parti,
je ne verrai qu'une montagne de ton oeuvre
au sommet de laquelle je me serais assise
et je crois que je ne bougerai plus
car bouger s'annonce quelque chose de vivant
et après que vous serez parti, il n'y aura plus de ça
il n'y aura qu'un énorme bouché funéraire
et moi à l'intérieur: mais non
il n'y aura pas de feu non plus
car il me faudra vous livrer au monde
qui en aura, comme moi auparavant, tant de besoin
et vos boites pleines de jolies choses
trop à énumerer, pour comprendre
quelque chose qui ne mourira pas
my man, i hate it when we talk about death i don't want to go there to think about our leaving because my life would be worth nothing without yours comprised of so many beautiful things too many to enumerate, without speaking of the face i loved so much and your boxes full to overflowing with all your creations that speak to me:
the articles you cut out everyday from the newspaper about transportation and bridges ports and the Astoria that you adored with its fishing boats rolling on the great river Columbia, and then calm without any movement, the seagulls crying circling the cloudy sky of deep gray-black but you were never sad when it rained even in Paris when we traveled in the bad season
your hard drives full of toys to buy you were always an enthousiast for childhood your wooden planes you passed along to our grandson but you had to keep all the trains and their rails for the little village that you only dreamed of building and the classic cars, old American Dames or the Citroën 2cv that you loved from your time in Paris with Marla your first love back in the 70s and in Barcelona you fell in love with Europe but you lost your youth in the face of the traitor of your heart when you chose another woman then regretted your choice but too late, old man you learned a lot of things during that adventure and with me you were able to find your youth again and the trains that went away and the trains that come back
so many memory cards full of music which i have no idea how to play or on which machine of your techno genius because you followed each innovation as if it were the first time on your first instrument but i would be able to hear all your songs if i were to close my eyes in silence the silence that you always sought in in nature on the banks of the river but that escaped you later due to tinnitus how you suffered from that, in seeing your pretty sounds become prickly things! but you never stopped composing and perhaps it was that which saved you in the end
i played your music one day in the corridors of congress in the capital many people approached me, asking "what is that beautiful music?" and i spoke of you and your talent for hours and there was a joy in that building decorated with gold without anyone understanding what it denoted: it was you, i asked myself why you had never become famous and then, that there was i time when you were but that you avoided it now because you didn't like ego and jazz like that
and then your photos taken in all the seasons, you had ecstasies and wounds that that life gave you as you tried to understand each facet, each gesture and your videos and 16mm film cans slides, box on box of all the young years and all your petite women and you so beautiful and thin like you were that beautiful day of summer when when i made your acquaintance almost boy, with your fat mustache that you cut because it pinched my lips
you were always kind and gentle with me the rock star who could never stop talking or crying about my bad luck and you said, "but yes, it was true" and lead me toward healing, you and your strong arms that held me when i was too broken to support myself you rocked me in the night when my tears flowed acid until at last they froze and i stopped crying except someone else cry
you taught me to listen and your lessons made of me what i could never hope i could believe in the constancy of the stars i would say later to someone, "you can believe that tomorrow is another day and each step you take to instruct yourself makes you grow more than you know and love is going to come just for you, for sure"
after you will be gone i will see only a mountain of your work at the summit of which i will be sitting, and i believe i will not move anymore because to move denotes something living and after you will be gone, there will be no more of that there will be only an enormous funeral pyre and me at the interior: but no there will be no fire either because i will have to deliver you to the world that will, like me before, have need of you and your teeming boxes of pretty things too many to enumerate
I was very pleased to be one of the poets featured in an article about poetry opportunities on Oregon's north coast (including SW Washington) in this week's "Coast Weekend", a weekly insert of the Daily Astorian newspaper, written by Kathy Hightower of the Manzanita Writers series. She included one of my older poems in French, "Prière", with translation and my blog address, amazing! Congratulations also to Laura Ann Brooks, a new member of the pre-Simulationism website, who was also featured with a great poem and who facilitates our Wednesday poetry workshops in Astoria.
the moon is cut in half in
that fat blue-gray of sky before
all the light goes out of it
that line in-between dusk and
darkness: the sky does not open
up at all like they promised
no rent in heaven but the sound
of a torrent on tin that fills me
with deepening sadness
and your music in my head doesn't
help me anymore, belovèd one,
now that you are gone, now that i
feel your absence everywhere i go
that you won't be opening le cirque royale
tonight or l'olympia tomorrow, not
moving from hospital gown to leather
outfit to close out the night with "malaxe, malaxe, le coeur de l'automat...
malaxe, le thorax", flashing your
modest smile, trenchcoat at your side
i don't know what to do with it
not sure what it means at all now
that you're gone and i'm alone, stuck
on this planet with my fucking pain
and no one to share it with, not like
i shared it with you, my brother, when
curled in my bed, i shed those grosses
larmes to your chansons and sullied
my sheets with the strange desire for
even more of them, never enough
to get at the rot of this existence
who will i share it with, who will
understand, and who will care
now that you are buried in le père with your amis and your admirateurs and your voix profonde
and if i try to be strong, will you
be there in my rêverie, will you
grasp at the words that flow from
my mouth when it is moi, le poète?
will you make them sing, will
i channel you at last maintenant
que tu sois cendres?
i can't stand the sound of this
rain on my roof, i detest the
noise from the tv set and
all the crap that falls down
around me when i am stretched
between light and darkness
and i ask, how could you have
left when i'm still this messed-up femme with half a heart and a
pain condition that never stops?
tu me manques entre lumière
et les ténèbres de mon lit, entre
les chansons qui ne s'arretent pas
même sans toi, même sans toi
Glossary of French terms tu me manques entre - i miss you between le cirque royale - concert hall in Brussels, Belgium where Alain Bashung opened his concert tours l'olympia - very famous concert hall in Paris where Bashung closed his concert tours "malaxe, malaxe, le coeur de l'automat.../ malaxe, le thorax" - from the song "Malaxe" by Bashung: "knead, knead, the heart of the automatic, knead, the thorax" grosses larmes - fat tears chansons - songs le père - -Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris where Bashung is laid to rest among other celebrated artists and is especially near the graves to Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison amis - friends admirateurs - admirers ta voix profonde - your deep voice moi, le poète - I, the poet maintenant/ que tu sois cendres - now that you are ashes femme - woman
tu me manques entre lumière/ et les ténèbres de mon lit, entre/ les chansons qui ne s'arretent pas/ même sans toi, même sans toi - i am missing you between light/ and the darkness of my bed/ the songs that don't stop/ even without you, even without you
