BE-FORE -- AVANT

 

 Responding to Brian Purcell's "in a time of lockdown"

 

Before                                                              by Béatrice Machet

 when it doesn’t mean in front

when it doesn’t show ahead

when it looks back towards  earlier

these « before » times

were they more happy

 

the before masks

the before

not only perinatal and neonatal asphyxia

but also before

premature

and globalized suffocation

 

before main streets were emptied

before roses and princes lived apart

on faraway locked down planets

because of covid zones

 

before half of the population was turned into beggars…

 

 

Before

belonging to the past

it points out bewilderedness caused by constant belligerencies

beyong believability

 

before loneliness is the norm

these « before » times

were they more free

 

Not being owlish but nevertheless aware enough

                                                                                              I assume

before  human kind becomes wise

simultaneous bewitchments and benevolences will constitute

the « between » times

before an harmonious now begins

so we can simply be

 

 

Avant

quand cela ne signifie pas devant

quand cela ne montre pas l’en-avant

quand il regarde en arrière vers plus tôt

ces temps « d’avant »

étaient-ils plus heureux

 

l’avant les masques

l’avant

pas seulement de l’asphyxie péri ou néonatale

mais aussi avant

une suffocation prématurée

et mondialisée

 

avant que les rues aient été vidées

avant que roses et princes  soient séparés

sur des planètes lointaines confinées

à cause des zones covid

 

avant que la moitié de la population ne devienne mendiante …

 

Avant

appartenant au passé

il souligne la stupéfaction due aux  constantes belligérances

au-delà du crédible

 

avant que la solitude devienne la norme  

ces temps « d’avant »

étaient-ils plus libres

 

N’étant pas devin mais cependant consciente assez

                                                                                              je présume

qu’avant que le genre humain ne devienne sage

les sorcelleries et les bienveillances constitueront

les temps « de l’entre »

avant qu’un maintenant harmonieux ne commence

pour enfin seulement être

Failure to Launch

 

Will they fail without Miss Jane to hold their hands?

Find out at upcoming shows at Newcastle Fringe and Wollombi in March.

https://www.clarkgormley.com/clarks-gigs

destination Belanglo

 

destination Belanglo

 

responding to Tug’s

 

the Belanglo joke: coming through the forest at dusk, the hitchhiker says to Ivan, ‘it’s getting dark and scary in here’. Ivan replies, ’You’re scared? I’m the one who has to walk back on my own’

 

it’s always coincidence brings us

atoms to the cell

moments pile

 

the girl in the boot on the highway    

the narrow escape of her friends

 

have to imagine thrust and parry

the bundling in

 

and that these people were, not of their nature, newsworthy

 

some will say good as she got

 

warrant outstanding in a twist (interstate)

was this an over-zealous citizen’s arrest?

a knife for compliance from the dream kitchen

 

so many known unknowns here

and so on, vice versa

 

narrow, lucky

dizzy in the dark, forced

minus meds in there

 

though bloody and still bleeding

could poke out a tail light

wave a truck down

 

would no news have been good for them?

had she gone quiet?

was it all screaming?

 

so many questions the courts are for

and can have no doubt this was justice

lurid albeit

 

once were like sisters

and some sisters are

merely acquainted

but you cross a line

 

motives still under investigation

 

we do know

it was her own car

 

 

Suitcase Found

 

Little box of bones

raped and smothered

(if that was the order)

packed in a suitcase

like a ventriloquist doll

left by a desert highway

a thousand miles from home

a little mummy ripened

in sweltered undiscovery

years longer

than your life had been.

No one missed you.

Raised and used like veal.

Your mother no help.

She dead already in a forest

by the same lover

who stuffed your mouth

with a tea towel

like a washed-up glass.

‘He sat emotionless in the dock …’

Sorry little box

we’re not all like that.

You just have to catch us

on a good day.

For Khandalyce and Karlie Pearce-Stevenson.

 

Brian Purcell

in a time of lockdown

 

I walk out in clear air

that moments ago was filled with rain

 

catch a face at a window

filled with terror

 

streets that were jammed with cars

now empty

 

neon lights of a café closed for weeks

beat ‘open now’

 

a shape moves between pillars

of the locked-down care facility

 

distant skidding of a solitary car

I cannot turn around

 

to watch it pass

light and darkness    beats

 

words fill pages then empty

now that rain no longer falls

 

reasonable ideas

dissolve in mist

 

the woman returns to the window

her face calm, the horror departed

 

she searches the streets

she looks right through me

 

my steps land on tar

the brittle surface no longer holding

 

I think of your lips, so far from me

the calming words that are now meaningless

 

and possibly always were

but there are colours and shapes

 

and memories that cannot be removed

by solemn gentlemen in long dark vans

 

whose faces always

tilt to the earth

Responding to Beatrice Machet’s ‘written on two collages’

 

clad in a vanishing

 

one room of the sea

where the singing drowned

wake knowing a beach washed there

 

each chamber set to its different time

and catch along the corridor

like fate

age each

 

clouds all too telling

are they more smoke than bone?

 

in a garden where time went

and here comes the day

 

see how up down steps

a dance

 

fallow feeling

where summer struck

 

you can smell each separate century

 

and song where I was

in the circle before

 

come through the book

made nonsense of

 

these are the clothes under the skin

cannot be washed

 

could curl up in a question – ask

 

who is the arrow?

and how have we flown?

 

going to sleep in another language

waking up where we are

 

day is waiting far down in the dream

 

we go with the words to be

go to the edge of the known

 

 

 

 

vestita per malaperado

unu ĉambro de la maro
kie dronis la kantado
vekiĝu sciante, ke strando tie lavis sin

ĉiu kamero ekiris al sia                               malsama tempo
kaj kaptu laŭ la koridoro
kiel la sorto
aĝo ĉiu

nuboj tro rakontantaj
ĉu ili estas pli fumo ol osto?

en ĝardeno, kie pasis la tempo
kaj jen venas la tago

vidu kiel supren laŭ ŝtupoj
danco

neklaraj sentoj
kie frapis somero

vi flaras ĉiun apartan jarcenton

kaj kanto kie mi estis
en la rondo antaŭe

trairu la libron
faris sensencaĵon de

jen la vestaĵoj sub la haŭto
ne povas esti lavita

povus kurbiĝi en demando - demandi

kiu estas la sago?
kaj kiel ni flugis?

dormi en alia lingvo
vekiĝante kie ni estas

tago atendas malproksime en la sonĝo

ni iras kun la vortoj esti
iru al la rando de la konata

vêtu d'une disparition

une chambre de la mer
où le chant s'est noyé
se réveiller en sachant qu'une plage y est lavée

chaque chambre réglée à son heure différente
et attraper le long du couloir
comme le destin
âge chacun

nuages ​​trop révélateurs
sont-ils plus de la fumée que des os?

dans un jardin où le temps passait
et voici le jour

voir comment monter les étapes
une dance

sensation de jachère
où l'été a frappé

tu peux sentir chaque siècle

et la chanson où j'étais
dans le cercle avant

viens à travers le livre
fait un non-sens de

ce sont les vêtements sous la peau
ne peut pas être lavé

pourrait se recroqueviller dans une question - demander

qui est la flèche?
et comment avons-nous volé?

dormir dans une autre langue
se réveiller où nous sommes

le jour attend loin dans le rêve

nous allons avec les mots pour être
aller au bord du connu

Beatrice Machet -- Short poems written on two collages

Short poems written on two collages

une usure fertile

la profusion crépusculaire

dans les vastes étendues s’affaire

jusqu’à polir des joyaux

bijoux du temps

déposés sur la friche

a fertile wearing off

the twilight profusion

busies itself in vast spaces

till it polishes gems

time jewels

laid down on fallow field

 

fenêtre sur un lac intérieur

plongée verticale sur un champ de vue

lumière profondément

intensément étale

Narcisse dans un coin de mémoire

soi au milieu du miroir

a window on an inner lake

vertical swoop on a field of vision

the light profoundly

intensely still

Narcissus in a corner of memory

the self in the middle of the mirror

et si           au-devant des yeux

se tenait la matière du regard

on n’y voit plus d’horizon

l’intemporel y flotte

aussi limpide qu’une eau

inondée de lumière

what about       having ahead of eyes

the gaze-matter

one doesn’t see the horizon anymore

timelessness is floating there

as crystal-clear as water

flooded with light

au creux des nuages

que l’éclaircie déchire

bien au-dessus de soi

où l’on place le rêve

au-delà de ses paysages

les métamorphoses

in a hollow of clouds

shredded by a sunny spell

far higher than yourself

where dream is placed

beyond its landscapes

metamorphosis