We had a prophet in our trailer court
His sign said “the Amazing, Seer, Mort”
He told fortunes all day long
Some predictions were decidedly strong
A few naysayers tried to chase him away
But the rest of us mobbed up and insisted he stay
I will be a queen in my next reincarnated life
The woebegone neighbor will soon be rid of her strife
The block’s meandering husband will soon come back
Mort the magician’s predictions have nothing to lack
We are all uplifted, when he reads our palm and face.
His prophecies are marvelous, full of lightness and grace.
March hare rides a bike to twinkle town court
The rest of the bunnies are a bit jealous of Mort.
He thinks he’s all that, and I guess maybe he is.
Said a caramel-eating rabbit named Oldie McGizz.
Mort hears the chatter, and smiles deep and wide.
He has self-confidence, which means he likes himself inside.
He keeps pedaling, all the way to twinkle town court.
Thinking to himself, I am the most amazing Mort.
We both got drunk,
in briefness of
wine of pleasure...
We die for an instant
in the succinct eternity
of Petite Mort.... !
reality
in space
representations
of perspectives
perceived
exposures
of idiosyncratic
questions
without answers
intent to disturb
or calm
the art of making
not judging
fragments flattened
in two dimensions
it is what it is
..just ways & means
depictions
sans
explanations
Straight to the cares of sweetest pleasure,
souls flying from hence to dopamine treasure.
Honey fragrance silver sensation well,
weaken consciousness loss of mind to tell.
Post inferior nervous spasm fainting episode,
the cultural link between coitus and death.
Anger management at the intimate edge,
Champagne sipping la petite mort alleged.
Glorious salvation by Shakespeare intentions,
the laughing crowd entertained by symbolic intervention.
“For she plunges a phallic object into her sheath’’,
divine spending in euphoric wishing death.
The force like flow in quick gentle mercy know
all in love pleasing wilt ravish in great joy.
Involutionary tension to reactive kundalini,
chakras natural image correspondence Genie.
I love your naked body
A canvas for my claws
In the midst of pain and pleasure
Your bound to do it all
From the ripping of the flesh, La petite mort
You feel the little death
Only one rose knows your name
But the thorns are why you came.
Una or Death, Life: 43, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel's Una ou la mort, la vie: 43 by T. Wignesan
As they used to say and keep saying still
Nobody ever takes poetry seriously
They would like to say that after a long life
You have provided us always with verse so pretty
Others laugh in the deep of their caverns
While he’s outside knowing well that in broad daylight
The most beautiful songs are of no importance
Simple and massive like an air-vent on the horizon
Blue over blue (not to see this colour play of the blind)
He cultivates his solitude in the midst
Of that crowd and of which he’s a part detaching himself
Like a mountain through which the surrounding lowlands
breathe.
* According to Anne-Sophie Constant, Una ou la mort, la vie (first book in Livre de l’homme et de la femme, just as the other two books in the trilogy : Duel and L’Autre, all in twelve lines), the poems are untitled, but numbered.
(Una ou la mort, la vie, O. C. t. II, p. 754)
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Una or Death, Life : 42, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Una ou la mort, la vie : 42 by T. Wignesan
To love words is to love life itself
As early as when he could speak, he understood this
Each vowel took on the form of a fruit
And he a little peasant from his days at school
What he learned was how to savour their meanings
He recalls the taste of grey figs
Milk curds smelling sweet, the whirl
Of Latin words enveloped by pebbly voices
Poetry (as they used to say) that he recited
At the age of seven with catechistic fervour
His heart swollen with love ever since he started breathing
The rhythm of men even higher than the mountains.
* According to Anne-Sophie Constant, Una ou la mort, la vie (first book in Livre de l’homme et de la femme, just as the other two books in the trilogy : Duel and L’Autre, all in twelve lines), the poems are untitled, but numbered.
(Una ou la mort, la vie, O. C. t. II, p. 753)
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Una or Death, Life : 1, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Una ou la mort, la vie by T. Wignesan
Sometimes he wonders what good a poem can be
Of course in his case doubting is blasphemy
An absurd benumbing of life
In truth, what good can a poem serve
Where all the overpopulated deaf people despite noises
Make believe that they listen in to him
The only thing which matters is the heart beating against
The ear-drums and becomes the organ of hearing
The heart which spreads in a stellar network
The beat maintained in the finest capillaries
Infinitely infinitesimally
The ubiquitous unit of life : Poetry.
* According to Anne-Sophie Constant, Una ou la mort, la vie (first book in Livre de l’homme et de la femme, just as the other two books in the trilogy : Duel and L’Autre, all in twelve lines), the poems are untitled, but numbered.
(Una ou la mort, la vie, O. C. t. II, p. 733)
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
A number of centuries ago
In 1692, in a place called Glencoe
Where a massacre took place
And the Clan Campbell lost face
When neighbours were sometimes your foe
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/scotland-4.php
Death has a blood-laced eye,
Bleary from watching the world.
By Christ he is blinded from brightness on high:
Lasers of light at Death’s eyes have been hurled.