All texts and images by Gaelle Konak (unless stated)




Thursday 23 May 2013

Gravity

I might look back too much but strangely I've found the view becomes clearer with distance. All these hours spent staring at my insides trying to make sense of them... I wish I could stretch out a hand to that faceless disembodied creature, caught in an insane contemplation, tell her it is ok not to understand and to be different, and that relief will come with age and much stumbling in the dark. There is no cure, only resilience. 
 

Thursday 9 May 2013

Epiphanie

Au loin la forme molle d'un arc-en-ciel s'étire
Au dessus d'un immense champ de colza
Qui pique les yeux comme du jus de citron
Le soleil déjà haut perché baisse des yeux
Toujours indifférents au meilleur comme au pire
Sur mon épaule nue et me répète encore
Le bonheur n'est pas loin, il était juste là.  



Monday 22 April 2013

The Meaning of my Life


As I have grown older and wiser and tamer, my cynicism and objectivity seem to have kept the monster quiet. Maybe it is dead, starved from the various raw emotional and intellectual vomit I used to feed it every day. Have I grown numb? I now struggle to remember how I used to feel and think. Has it really happened to me (too)? All this time the old used to say, "when you're older, you'll see"... And I do. I do see things and they make more sense or the nonsense that they are simply rings true and final. No pondering. God doesn't exist and is an aberration in our evolutionary trajectory. We are not special, just animals with a more developed brain which gives us no advantage when the end comes. We will die like the ant, the whale or the robin. There is no meaning to our trajectory, and so the quest for meaning is vain and doomed. Accepting this makes for a more peaceful life, freed from the agonies of uncertainty and the heart-wrenching need to "do something about it". I am not special in the scale of the universe or even human history. I can only be special to a handful of mortals I'm sharing this curious state of existence with. And this should be my only comfort, my only desire, my only goal. Is this happiness? Renouncing. Accepting. Laying down the arms and rolling over submissively and contented.
How far I have come since the days where I couldn't live hard enough, bursting at the seams with the need to mean something, to transcend our condition, to understand it all. I felt alive in a passionately but highly destructive way. And now it feels like I've wasted precious years forever, lost in the refusal to surrender. A betrayal to what we could be, what I could feel I could be... But no one's done it. Many have skinned their knees and bled their heart and wasted their mind away. They still just died as the ant, the whale or the robin. They may have said beautiful things, but they hurt like the promise of some great meaning for our lives, which is never held. It was my religion. And growing older has made me kill that God too.

So now it's just little me, some others and the whole universe.




Thursday 18 April 2013

I Don't Forget


The past is not a weight to haul and struggle under
But a tidal wave lifting and pushing you on
Towards the light and warmth of the shores of the living
And a welcoming embrace when the time comes
To crawl back into the sea of the original sleep.


Sunday 7 April 2013

Remember Your Place

No time to stop and stare.
Life must carry on without worrying about the dead
For it is too transient and brief a state
After and before the infinity
Of non-existence.

We will join them soon
All the ones who are spent.

Death is not the aberration to ponder
But instead the inexplicable spark
Which occasionally runs through it
So brief so wild

There is no plot, no great design
No time to stop and despair

Just enough to be bright.

Feathers

A shiver
Of feathers
In the hollow of your hand

The remainder
Reminder
Of that small beautiful nonsense

A whisper
And flutter
Our so temporary existence.

Wednesday 6 February 2013

Rien à faire

Il n'y a rien de beau
A trouver chez l'Hiver
Les tallus dépeuplés
La nature aplatie
De couleurs mélangées
Comme dans le goblet
D'un artiste douteux
Où tout est brun et gris
Et khaki et boueux

Je n'ai pas vu mon ombre
Depuis trop longtemps
Je n'ai pas vu de mouches
Même elles me manquent
J'oublie l'odeur du monde
Et la voix du soleil
Il n'y a rien de beau
Il n'y a rien à faire

Je ne peux rien trouver
A aimer chez l'Hiver.



Monday 14 January 2013

Letter to Sophie

Oh I will be back but you will not know me
For I will have traveled in space and in time
Over boundaries so distant to our naive eyes
Who thought our place was defined forever
As the lucky ones who can waste and linger
I have moved over to the next generation
Now I can look back and truly remember
And looking ahead seems to rush fast towards me
No longer a vague and faraway dream
Oh I will be back and you will not know me
And so will I look back and not know you
For against our feelings we were not immune
For against our belief we now are old too.


Wednesday 9 January 2013

Wintry Night


The night brushed my face with its cold humid wing
Heavy and slow, dragging itself over the world
Leaving there a tear the size of this year,
This age to live through till it turns into a wren
Again and floats away light and bright like a smile
Like the laughter of children running as fast as they can
Dropping colours and flowers from their wide open arms.


Tuesday 1 January 2013

Moonlight Interlude

I went to talk to the moon
And the sun doesn't know
Because I needed to warm my wounds
And he'd left me so long ago

She never said a word to me
But her glow was like a fire
The grey loneliness of the days
The cold emptiness of the skies
Forgotten but for an hour

I went to sit down by the moon
And the sun doesn't know
But I needed a silent friend
To see my blood through my eyelids
To feel some light upon my face
To dream of an impending bloom
Remember you'll be back again

Just like the sun to warm my heart.