Étiquette : poem

The sound of a little hope (It’s Ok, you’re just dying #3)

I’ve heard the sound of a little hope in your tone
Over the telephone
The first random words after picking up,
They’re like an uncertain shade of dawn
And today’s not so cloudy, as it seems,
Even a bit lighter really

You rave about your new female doctor,
As if you had a date and not a biopsy
No matter how terrible the sickness,
A little crush is always sign of vitality

The way you’re explained a fatal truth
As naked and painful as it is
Makes the prospect very different
You may not be so dead yet
It will demand further exams to see it clearly
And they have this new treatment process
With only pills, to face the end more peacefully

I’ve heard the sound of a little hope
And it sets me in a great mood actually
I know you don’t expect to be finally saved
But if you get nine months,
When you were told nine weeks,
That makes a spring and summer
Enough to put a smile on your cheeks

This time you didn’t pick up <> (It’s Ok, you’re just dying #2)

This time you didn’t pick up
I left my deep baritone on your voice mail
And decided to move anyway
It was just like me after all
To prefer a chilly walk at dusk
When a rare blue sky in January
Had just happened

I was not in a particular worry,
Only a step further in my concern
I mean,
You’re just dying
It’s a day-to-day process for anyone
Only goes faster in your case

I walked along the East cemetery,
Knowing it would perhaps be your next location
But it didn’t feel such a gloomy thought
Plus, it is very peaceful in here
Unlike an hour ago
In that crowdy shopping center

This time you did not open
I saw you were home, curtains shut,
But a little lamp of your matchless design was turned on
From you desk probably

Your hands moved,
And I felt somehow reassured
Then went back to the station district
Where the multitudes of the living
Have to deserve their final rest,
And whose effort is so painfully noisy,
So constantly aimless,
That it makes perfect sense
How religions dangle the promise of eternal bliss
I don’t think you’re a believer actually,
But you have to find your peace at the moment,
Which makes a busy man out of a dying body

I knew I’d see you hopefully sooner than death.
And as I’m writing these lines,
Searching for a little human presence
On a heavy cold night,
I witness the same kind of little lamp near by the window
A message for the outside world :
I’m alive, just don’t bother me.

Oh, the bar’s already packed
With too many frenzied folks
Who have no attitude, only grimaces,
Who have no style, not anything close to yours
But these two sitting a table ahead of mine
Look so engaged in taking care of each other ;
And how they hug at the face of another long winter,
Feels right enough for me.

It’s OK,
You’re just dying.
And finishing the poem,
I realize the place is totally empty by now

It’s peaceful and lonely
A little like your cemetery.

New Year’s call <> (It’s OK, you’re just dying #1)

It was new year’s day
And my first resolution would be to call you

They’d told me about your cancer
And the very short remaining time the doctors gave you

I felt concerned, and regretful as well
That our friendship waited so long for a chance to happen

Too late was coming soon
And I just had to shake my confusion

It took half an hour to clear the smoke
Then I knew I’d heard a man yet so charmingly alive
That I wanted to visit him the next day.

Every inch of your appartment was so full of you
A baroque space of bric-a-brac,
Cheap collages made of souvenirs and diverted pictures
Set of boxes and little lamps, gracefully arranged

You made the coffee on your old gaz cooker
And we talked for a while
Mostly not about death
And very little about your cancer

I could be wrong,
But it felt like seing a longtime friend
Though we only got to know each other.

I knew I was gonna stick by your side,
Whether you’d ask me or not
And this meant until the end.

Oh, and I was strangely overwhelmed with joy.
A guilty joy.

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.

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.

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.