Étiquette : blog

Don’t get over

Don’t get over
Keep wounded
With just enough blood and heart
To function
To feel like you’re grounded

It’s better than healing
Cause you never heal anyway

Don’t get over
Stay within the field of fire
And if it burns you out
You’ve come too close
If it steels your heart
Your blend’s too cold

Keep wounded
We all live wounded
For most of our lives

It’s the care that matters
Not the cure
It’s the making you feel better
Not secured

Don’t get over
If your soul resists
If your mind persists

You’re not compelled to heal
As long as you don’t stain the whole river
Or make a flooding wave of your tears

So keep wounded
Feel alive,
Unrested

Follow the hand that brings direction, protection
Not the one that lends medication, salvation

Don’t get over
Keep wounded
With well enough blood and heart
To function,
To be founded.

(A tribute to) the remaining condition of life.

 

Don’t ask for life not to change
For the city not to reform
Or the people around not to evolve.

Don’t ask for your favorite places,
Bars, venues, streets,
Not to be altered, reshaped, or redesigned.

You may not like the new front, the new background
You may properly hate the kind of music they’re now playing
Or not be so keen on the new bartender, compared to the previous one.

It’s agreed,
We all knew better days, better nights, better playlists
We all knew truer smiles, deeper converse at least
And the lights were dimmer, or if harsh, felt sincere
We all knew better versions of the same bars, the same freaks
We all knew better stages of this town, of them streets.

And so you’re left with only two options :
One is to run away as far as you can
From this feeling of alteration
By breaking your habits and routine,
Or simply move to another city, to a different country.
There’s no going back to what you loved so much,
But if you can’t revive the past, at least you get a future.

Or a second way of dealing with transition,
Is to pay tribute somehow to everything or everyone you liked better
By celebrating their persistence.
What or whom was not replaced, has only changed,
Not disappeared, only reborn.
And if you continue to discern the blue print of things and people,
Of objects and places,
Then you know that the reason you’re coming back
Even ten, twenty years or more after,
Is not justified by memorial despair,
Mostly you’ve come to honour
The remaining condition of life.

And you’re so grateful to this bar to still exist,
Although you don’t expect much anymore from having there a drink
It’s not going out, it’s no party time,
It’s paying tribute.

That’s when nostalgia weighs too heavy on your consideration
Of something or someone, and you no longer bear this burden,
That’s the moment to leave or die.
But over the changing of times, one should never cry.

– I believe in pushing that rock –


I believe in that rock
I believe in the pushing
And I believe it never stops

It’s not about feeling happy
While pushing that rock,
Like some form of accepted slavery

I’m not a slave,
And never wish to become one
I believe in pushing that rock
Because it defines me
Because I believe in this motion
Not because it keeps me from thinking outside of this condition
Not because the road somehow is straighter and clearer
As long as I’m willing to produce the effort.

I believe in that rock
Because I guess I know what it is
That’s not like being a courier
Never knowing the nature of the message carried

I guess I know what that rock is about
And it’s about faith, love, pursuance,
Fluency, transmission, humanity

Well I guess in the end, it’s about eternity.

When it comes to the subject of aging…

That’s the main wondering when it comes to the subject of aging :
What am I gonna lose,
What first ?
I don’t wanna lose this,
Whether it’s hair, vision, hearing, all sort of natural abilities,
Whether it’s beauty, grace, silhouette, muscles, good shape.
And in the meantime, while you’re so busy measuring your physical loss,
What you’re losing is soul, spirit, basic human qualities,
Your morals and values, your critical mind,
Your wits and humour, your gifts and guidance…

That is the most common trap in our focus on aging,
Hence how the process runs actually :
When you’re all about the flesh, all about the senses,
There is so much more missing that you don’t even realize is gone.
Then you lose your self and personality,
As the body fades inescapably.

Un Doisneau

La couleur est trop vive, le jaune un peu criard.
Je la repeins dans mon esprit, en argentique ou noir et blanc :
Photo que je ne saurais prendre, instantané d’intemporel ;
À temps voulu qui se révèle.

Un cran plus bas, je vois s’égayer la terrasse,
Animée du beau temps, de sa jeunesse active ;
Un cran plus haut j’avise une femme à son balcon,
Âgée, le regard triste, et qui perçoit le nouveau monde.

Oh, je dois le saisir, autant que j’en suis pétrifié,
En portrait suranné qui se réclame à son Doisneau,
Se cherche un cueilleur en images
Et non l’appui des mots.

La prise de vue est impossible,
Ou de l’immeuble en face, du toit peut-être.
J’ai cet élan irrépressible, en dévorant le cru spectacle
D’une vieille au bord des larmes, un peu trop penchée sur son vide.
Encore à demeure assez proche pour être en son époque exclue,
Mais déjà bien trop loin pour éluder, beaux souvenirs, années perdues.

Il suffirait qu’un Depardon plus intrépide,
Ou juste un rien moins scrupuleux,
Capte sa beauté pathétique,
Sa dignité, voile à tous bleus.

Mais de la savoir invisible au fond rend cette apparition,
D’ici d’autant plus magnétique, on croirait mystification.
Il ne tient qu’au deuxième étage d’un bar assez tranquille,
Où je deviens ce regardeur à sa fenêtre ;
Il ne tient qu’au détachement social,
Celui qu’on peut encore choisir sans disparaître ;
Il ne tient qu’à son visage éploré de surplomb,
Mais ne s’attèle au hasard à contrario,
Quand, si frappante, éclot l’allégorie.
De celles actant le résumé d’une vie :

Entre courée à ciel ouvert
Et mirador en servitude,
Ici je prends intermédiaire,
Assois mon règne en solitude.

Et pour autant mes yeux s’élèvent et fuient l’abîme :
Je veux encore, à mi-chemin, tendre au sublime.

Let the world know, let the heart show.

It blows against my principles
I’m used to act impassible
It would upset my own nature
Of never wanting exposure.

Yet I must find a decent way
To share the woes I can’t display
Yet I must clear another path,
On which I keep from grudge and wrath.

It might just seem hysterical
When I’m much rather cynical
It wouldn’t fit their impression
Of someone short on confession.

Yet I must pave a noble way
To shine a light on my dismay
Yet I must tread a different path
For a less daunting aftermath.

So let the world know
Let the heart show
And for once in a desperate time,
Wailing, wouldn’t be a crime.

Le tour de cette ville.

« J’ai fait le tour de cette ville« , de ces gens, de tous mes nerfs,
Et pourtant reste quelque fil obstinément qui m’y réfère.
On ne s’étonne à ma figure, en d’autres temps parue si vierge.
Il n’est plus fissure en l’armure, où l’insouciance émerge.

Aussitôt la sentence ébruite un écho familier :
Quand périt l’accointance, à l’endroit qui nous tient relié.
Cent fois, n’ai-je entendu, cet air aux quatre vents,
« Jamais plus, jurais-tu, déjà le coup d’avant ».

Combien j’ai pris de cet hiver en trop, donné fatal ?
On s’en fraye de moins pires, ainsi prévaut l’élan vital.
Un nouveau cycle advient _ d’emploi, d’appartement,
Se raffermit le lien, s’ensuit l’attardement.

L’un se voyait partir, « exit » avant la fin d’année.
L’autre avoue s’en sortir, et n’en vit pas moins condamné.
Brève est souvent l’idylle ; au fond l’accoutumance urbaine
Où que l’on prenne exil, y tient à dépendance humaine.

« J’ai fait le tour de cette ville« , ainsi j’entends sonner de pair
Un autre discours intranquille, et ne veux tendre à m’y complaire.
À cet égal en dissidence, un doux rappel est bénéfique ;
En ses mots frappe une évidence : il réitère à l’identique.

Et me voilà saisi d’un vœu soudain contraire,
Intuition m’est qu’ici demeure encore à faire.
En moi n’ai-je eu pourtant, cent fois, comme un serment,
Le présage éclatant qu’arrivait l’achèvement ?

« J’ai fait le tour de cette ville« , de mes chances, on tire au clair ;
Et je m’accroche indéfectible, en due conscience, au dernier verre.
Il n’est de piège ou bon augure à suivre où son esprit converge.
On est sortant que d’être sûr enfin qu’ailleurs émerge.

Do it right the first time.

Let us do it right the first time,
And less room for redemption, amendments,
For « I’ll make it better tomorrow ».
Less chance for revival, resilience,
For « let’s have another go ».
It makes you wonder sometimes if our wrongs and failings
Are not just drawn by a natural impulse
To clean forget the previous night,
Or what we did last week,
Or what happened last year…

You can screw it up all the more
When you know it never matters for long,
Not in this urban community
Where you make ten new friends a night,
Keep in touch by attending the same bars,
And where whom you offended weeks ago
Rarely seems to hold any grudge,
As they probably acted worse, said worse, behind your back.
Or whom you rely on their discretion
Already spread the news and betrayed your secret.
But they’ll make it up to you, so you don’t need to get upset.
There’s so much heart to be received
From someone who did it all wrong
In the tacit expectation of having still another shot.
What if there was no second shot ?
At least in an adult world
Where you’re supposed to bear the consequences
Of your deeds and opinions.

Let us do it right the first time.
And less room in heaven
For the one sinner who repents,
Than for the ninety-nine righteous.
How seriously flawed can it be
That you should give more credit and consideration
To a single hell-raiser in penitence,
Than to hundreds of decent people
Just doing their best every day
Without any special want for publicity… ?

If you think life deserves a more novelistic approach,
As a good story-telling prefers harm to justice,
Failure to achievement ;
There are so many further chapters left to be written
On the basis of human duality,
For an epic that started too well,
For true romance and cloudless skies.
You don’t need to blow your first shot,
You don’t need to take a piss in the fountain of youth,
You don’t need to spoil beauty,
You don’t need to fuck it up just to make it more real.

Let’s do it right.
Let us take the first shot.
Let us go clear at first sight.
And only then, if you should claim for one more chance,
Would it be fair, as it felt right in the first place.

To love yourself (is such a painful job).


To love yourself is such a painful job
How would anyone sane apply for this duty ?
When it takes little effort to self-loathe, self-destroy,
To ruin every best piece of your personality.

In a more realistic common sense,
It is a hard enough task to give yourself respect.
And I mean, it’s a full-time job as well,
Just to keep your dignity, your balance and values,
A true sense of who you are, and who you’re not.
But you don’t have to love yourself at least…
What a high commitment to impress on your daily behaviour,
On your conscious and unconscious way of living.

To love yourself, it’s someone else’s job.
And who’s that brave for such intense giving ?
Except your parents really, who would this burden self-impose ?
You might be lovable, sure, yet even so,
You’re only one in the many.

There’s a less hypothetical chance
That you’d be taken care by someone else
And this could mean a lifetime job as well.
So if you’re blest enough to find protection and concern,
Avoid resentment against whom that keeps you from self-pity,
From all your « nobody cares for me ».
Surely someone does, whoever they might be.
Then it’s your painful job not to resist, not to break free.