Étiquette : citaddict

Rainiest year of my life

In the rainiest year of my life
It’s hard to believe I did not shed a tear…

Enough flood I should say
This sky needs no weepers
It mourns every day

Not one single drop
Have I cried on my own
The rain wouldn’t stop

Enough soak for this year
What is the point
Of adding tears ?

We’ve had a moist winter
Then a wet spring
And a humid summer
To match the autumn stream…

In the rainiest year of my time
It must be hard to believe
I could not shed a tear

Not even a sob
Have I spent over you
Or my departed friend
Or the world in flames
Over this age insane

When it feels too obvious
As you look by the window
Is there even room for sorrow ?

In the rainiest year of my life
According to my senses
And the weather statistics
We must be plenty
For whom the same sky
Yet speaks so directly
And should incline to cry

But I’m saving my tears
For the sunniest years
When I’ll see bright and clear.

(Painting by Edvard Munch)

Matcher démasqué.


Peu importe,
Il faudra toujours vendre quelque chose que je n’ai pas :
Une situation, une pleine assurance
De la tchatche, du positivisme
Ou juste cette impression d’une vie adulte encore en fraîcheur
Avoir un air de pas trop vécu en somme
Une coquille séduisante
Mais surtout pas trop pleine,
Ou bien lestée du même nombre d’enfants
Et de vies recomposées,
Quitte à chercher la symétrie.

Peu importe,
Il faudra toujours montrer un angle plus lumineux
Comme si elle, ou il, n’allait soupçonner une part d’ombre
Et si on y venait directement au contraire ?
Si on arrêtait de se vendre comme des bons profils à matcher…

Et si tu me payais un verre plutôt, pour commencer ?

(Tableau : Francis Bacon)

When we show idiots too much respect…


When a society shows idiots too much respect,
It’s the warning sign it begins to accept
An increase in their type we can’t seem to neglect,
It’s a rising of fools over straight intellect.

And the more we concede our renewed interest,
Only broader it seals their right to profess
Any stupid idea, repainted as quest,
Any false claim or deed always stirring a mess.

How do we shut down a jerk in a free society,
When it makes a despot of who’ll bear the duty ?
It seems better we first check our own opinions
And beware if they turn in the wrong direction.

Otherwise, it’s a question of civil balance ;
All these grounds we give up on knowledge and science,
Only gaining the slightest of all conciliations :
We are losing on truth, for the sake of the nation.

When a citizen shows for ignorance respect,
It must be an alarm that we’ve come to accept
Our decay in culture ; and for lack of prospects,
How we made a failure of that « global access ».

It’s the freedom of fools in the shade of progress,
A minority’s rule forced on everyone else.
It’s the making it cool of that buffoon’s pretense.
And it’s taking the room of our most common sense,
When we show idiots way too much of respect…

When we show idiots way too much of respect.

(Painting : « The laughing jester » – anonymous -)

Reach for beauty


Reach for beauty
For the beauty itself
Not for the memory of beauty
Nor its fantasy

If you can stop your mind
From jumping to the next thought
Usually filled with longing or nostalgia
Then you can keep your feeling of beauty
From heading you straight to misery

Reach for beauty
And for the beauty only
So your remembrance of the sublime
Is never tainted with grief
Or insufferable missing
So your dreams and visions
Instead of turning to denial
Only stand for the desire
And impatience for grace

Let them be self-prophetic and fruitful
No more blame your unconscious so hurtful.
Let your mind’s eye precede the next perception of beauty.
It’s an appeal to your senses
As the light comes through your fences
If you reach out for the beauty
And for the beauty only
Then overall it might just be.

(Painting by Edward Hopper)

Reconnaître la joie.

Sachons reconnaître la joie,
Sachons la distinguer
Comme elle surgit parfois
Sans paraître aux aguets.

Allons ne pas confondre
Élan d’ébriété
Avec une joie profonde
Âprement suscitée.

Il faut pouvoir dépareiller
Ce court instant de vie radieuse
Où l’on s’éprend d’être égayé.e,
D’un saut de dépression nerveuse.

La joie n’est pas une décompensation,
Elle sait combler, sans faire occultation
Rien qu’au sourire, éclot la distinction
Entre démence et pure exaltation.

Vois comme on rit autour en ces jours-ci,
Pour tromper l’anxiété d’un trait grossi ;
On pisse un territoire à grands coups d’hystérie,
Et ceux qui prennent écart en sont de fait aigris.

Sachons la reconnaître à soi,
Qui nous est propre, cette joie.
Foyer d’un plus grand nombre, elle ancre à soumission
Ferveur, aux idées sombres : agrée ma dissension.

Alors sachons flatter la joie
De son impermanence aiguë
Combien si rare elle est parfois,
Prend son relief en nos vécus.

(Tableau : Pierre Soulages)

Every second lives on.


Every second lives.
Every second lives on.
Even when you think,
When you feel it’s gone
Every slice of time,
Out there is alive.

What if we considered the passing of our present
As a non-evolving process in fact…
While we are supposed to revive the moment
Purely by recollection, through memories.
But what if the human conscience
Was simply unable to treat more
Than a small portion of chronology,
And we had mentally adapted our limitation
By counting seconds, minutes, hours, days,
As a « lost forever » mechanism… ?
When in truth,
At least theorical,
Time is a whole.
And every year, decade, or century,
Happens simultaneously.

As if by self-preservation,
We had invented this past and future
To keep our minds from exploding
In a saturation of data,
And it’s a common ancestral denying
We share for the sake of the greatest illusion ever seen :

Humankind…
Life and death
Before and after
Memories and prospects
Coming from, moving to…

But every second lives on.
Whenever you mourn a dear and hurtful memory,
And you can feel it almost back in your present,
It’s just that it never died actually.

And the best or worst moments of your life,
Instead of filling a rather closed file
Upon the shelves of your brains,
Remain as a full and constant reality.

Without this so-called perception of time,
We’d go crazy.
Still, what if you’d rather go mad,
And let yourself be flooded entirely
With all you ever lived and will live ;
Wouldn’t it seem quite a better fate,
Than forever mourning the few seconds you regret ?

(Painting by Edvard Munch)

What do I get up for ?


The same question flies on every waking up :
What do I get up for ?
If it’s not any employer, any proper job
If it’s not a child, nor a family
If it’s no lover, no soul mate
Whom or what do I get up for ?

If it ain’t for a nation,
For a civilization
Not for my people
Not for war
Not for peace
What do I get up for ?

Every waking up is a nihilism.
It’s only when the day is done
That I can feel whom or what
I’ve been up for, living or aching for

Every waking up is a nihilism
It takes the whole day to believe in something
It takes a whole life _ if you’re lucky
To believe in someone.

(Painting by Edward Hopper)

For the sake of being, breathing, and feeling.


I want to enjoy
Enjoy singing, performing
Enjoy the search for a missing line
Enjoy your company
Enjoy that coffee
Any time
Enjoy the meal I’ve been waiting for
I want to enjoy
Every inch of sunlight
Every shade of dark and bright
I want to enjoy
Every natural thing
Like breathing
Or resting

And if it seems too much to ask for
Let me rephrase it :
I’m not talking of enjoying life
Or the human condition
In all its tragedy
To enjoy one’s meal
Is not an acceptance of life as it is
To enjoy a long breath
Is not a winning over death

I rage for what I’ve just lost,
Like sunset, good mood,
Perfect timing, appetite,
Mojo, social opportunities…
I rage about the stuff I can do something for
On a very daily basis
What is supposed to be simpler and easier
Unlike moving mountains
And God knows I enjoy moving mountains
In my humble scale
But I want to enjoy the power of standing at ease
Without any special purpose
Any urge to appease
Just for the sake of being, breathing, and feeling.

(Painting : Egon Schiele)

Espace préservé.

Étage bloqué
Espace privé
Abri civilisationnel
Entrave exceptionnelle
Un euro quatre-vingt…
La paix je l’entretiens
Du fond de ma monnaie
Pour un peu, c’est donné.

Espèce à protéger
Un rien privilégiée
Menace en extinction
Promesse à dérision
Égard à l’individuel :
En trêve à tout duel

État des cieux
Regard anxieux
L’abri ne m’est que temporel
Encore un cycle
À viser mieux,
Prétendre à s’en réchapper belle

Étage à soi
Béni d’un toit
Repli confidentiel…

Un autre écart en vain
Je saisis néanmoins,
Sinon quelques années,
Deux heures abandonnées

Échelon bloqué,
Vision figée :
Comme un répit si tôt nous freine…

Entrechoqué
D’un pas léger…
Le coup suivant nous lit sans peine

Un euro quatre-vingt…
Septembre y contrevient :
Deux, tout rond, désormais.
L’illusion m’endormait
Que la paix fût donnée…

Signes des temps, vous l’étayez,
N’accusons plus d’être étonné :
Notre quiétude est monnayée.

(Tableau : Edward Hopper)