Forget Me Not

I have been sleeping here

Under the birches that lined the way

To nowhere in particular

I lie in the embrace

Of brambles and weeds

Where sunlight

Is never quite invited

But where small miracles can take place.

Because I left
A long time ago.

Gone are the days
When the wind carried my voice

A breath across your brow

The sound just like forget-me-nots

Sighing in the oddly still air

Of another sundown.

Because I went
A long time ago.

I'm barely a part of this world

Ground to the thinnest state of existence

Not even white bones in a box

Under a faded stone

Not even a face nor a scent

In any mind alive.

Because I was
A long time ago.

Ashes in a dust cloud

As someone walks over my grave

I rise again for a short while

Please try to remember my name

As you tread softly on my bed

In that place where birches line the way

To nowhere at all.

Because I died
A long time ago.

Walk in the Woods

The sound of my feet on the ground

A faint whisper, the breath of the dying

The time and the impact

Of my stay here

Barely heard

Barely seen

And gone already

The lines around my eyes

And the weight of my skin, my bones

The slow pull of the ground

Of the things beneath, the call

Hungry for me

To turn me into soil

The shiver every night

One day closer

I get no consolation

From stardust and celestial tales

Nor wind nor rain nor stone

The terror of the flesh

The horror of the mind

And no God to embrace and tell me sweet sweet lies

From Eternity, no comforting smile

A cold walk in the woods

Naked and half mad

No path through the brambles

And no escape from the wolf.

Marching on

The air has a smell again
A flat world swelling with relief
Waking shivers but a big smile in the middle of the sky
for Nature hates being idle too long
And is rubbing Her hands
Like an artist in front of a blank canvas

Late afternoon.

The taste of sweat on your lips.

The smell of the sun on your skin.

But the roughness of your hand on my heart.

My martyr's temptation.

I can't move.

I can't fight.

Buds

On the still blind face of the world today

The scents were back

Filling the emptiness of everything around

With the vague recollections

Of earth and sun and leaf

Of lark and toad and bee

Moss and heather

The reason why I'm here

Suddenly remembered

The point of it all

To feel this

Again.

Poem

The pale light of Winter

Falls across my face

Cold embers of my youth

Like snow crumbling 

But it's colder underskin

It's thin and shivering

A baby bird lying

Amongst the bracken

Of your distant heart

But I will never say these words. 

Because I know
They don't work for you. 

And I know you don't read those words. 

Poetry never made any sense to you. 

But I am really a poem, 

And though no one might ever understand it, 

I'm hoping you'll like the music, 

The flavour I leave on your tongue 

And the tingle I leave in your heart.

Because I am a poem.

Obscure,

Pointless,

But a bonus to life.

Bracken

Show me an easier way
Through the bracken
Back to colour and light
And warmer nights
Back to a time when
I was enough
You were enough
And there were no tears

Behind our smiles.

 

 

January Monochrome

The sky will understand

My desertion

As only you can bring any colour
To this desolation

A world about to drop me like rain

Over the fields of grey

About to blow me like wind

Through the bareness of the trees

I will seek you like sunshine

Through the clouds of January

And hold you like a promise

Of green and leaf and light

In a shivering corner

Of my hibernating heart.

Walk to edge of the water
And look for a clue
We are not what we seem
So temporary
Unexpected
The most precious jewels
All that is worth
Seeing and feeling at all.

Cerfs-Volants

Vivre et être humain. Telle est la tâche qui nous est donnée. Ordonnée. Mais comment? Comment sortir de l’osmose et accepter d’être seul? Comment faire semblant qu’on durera toujours et prendre part à la partie qui est jouée d’avance? Comment sourire et se lever et rester debout et résister, résister à l’appel de la terre, rester chaud et mouvant et vivant?

Leur vie ne tient qu’à un fil. Leurs os et leur peau : des brindilles et du papier. Le souffle de vie est imprévisible, subi. Leur existence : que du vent. Ils volent follement, sans contrôle, sans aller nulle part. Ils flottent et tournent quelques instants puis tombent et se brisent. Les

Il n’y a pas de liberté -quelqu’un me retient, me rappelle à la terre.

Il n’y a pas de sécurité -je ne suis qu’un fétu de papier au bout d’un fil qui peut se casser, retenu par un autre qui peut me lâcher.

Les yeux des cerfs-volants ne regardent pas. Les sourires des cerfs-volants ne sourient pas. Ils dérivent.

Ils me parlent de l’effroi de devenir humain. Réaliser qu’on n’a vraiment sa place ni en haut ni en bas, qu’on est fragile et sans contrôle, qu’à tout moment on peut tomber et qu’un jour on tombera. Alors on se colle un sourire de papier mâché et on se barbouille les yeux pour maquiller les larmes et la peur et la lassitude qui nous prennent alors, on étend les bras comme un condamné et on laisse la brise -ou la tempête- nous emmener en voyage. Pour oublier. Oublier ce que c’est que d’être humain. (‘Ne me lache-pas!’)

Ces cerfs-volants ont également le “vrai” goût de l’enfance qui est tout sauf l’innocente croisière que l’on se plait à croire. Ils mélangent sans tabou le rêve et le cauchemar, le jeu et l’angoisse, de toutes ces turbulences auxquelles on doit faire face avant même de savoir mettre des mots dessus (‘je suis là!’). Ils sont lancés comme des appels à l’humour et au jeu pour résister à la terreur et au désespoir. Fragiles mais colorés, chargés mais légers, les cerfs-volants ironisent. Ils ne sont pas ce qu’ils ont l’air d’être.

(Introduction written for artist Alain Ponçon on his work "Cerfs-Volants". Pictured "Fantômes" copyright Alain Ponçon)