a flippant ciao
twenty-six poems
in response to lines from
Paul Eluard's Capital of Pain (1926)
by John Mingay
contents
taboo
without age
bathing in currency
climax
this late light
mimosa
halo of time
bare and bright
speak
lost
oranges
a heart so pale
chronic
geology
in on ourselves
we perpetuate ourselves
see through
broken things
footprints
growing pale
stars of straw
one within the other
no small stones
blindman
pulling the wool
as only she can see
taboo
Taboo
Et, les rideaux baissés, parlons.
let’s not talk
of the things
we never look
like mentioning
anyway
those secret things
that can only ever
be spoken of
behind curtains
drawn
closed against the night
as if every word
that would come
to mind
to be said
will have been borne
through the air
upon languid streams
we can barely imagine
in the shadows
there where we hear
of words we’re told
neither of us
can afford to forget
each of them
undeniable
inviolable
a part
of some sacred sentence
strung together in hushed voices
no
let’s not talk
not when it’s all
over nothing more
than shifting whim
let’s not play
the game as required
to rules
that are set
beyond our grasp
without our knowing
to have us drag
convention along
like shackles of time
around our ankles
bleeding
raw
to have
us keep
to the path
undeviating
never to stray
into the unmentionable
the taboo
those things
that can only ever
be spoken of
behind curtains
drawn
closed against the night
those things
we never look
like mentioning
anyway
as though
no longer germane
as though
no longer night but day
without age
Nous en avions assez
D’habiter dans les ruines du sommeil.
tired of living a life
seen through eyes
crusted with sleep
narrowed by dreams
never quite fully
realized
ruined
right up
to this point
here
of having had
enough
but still going at it
still keeping on
though more
out of spinelessness
than wild abandon
or pluck
alive only as a name of man
and nothing much more
besides
what does
any of it matter
any more
than any one speck of dust
does
but tired
all the same
of living in the ruins of sleep
of having had enough
bathing in currency
Nous admirons l’ordre des choses,
l’ordre des pierres, l’ordre des clartés,
l’ordre des heures.
stones
brightness
hours
things
at least
some of
the things
you could sleep with
if the waves would speak less
if at all
if not to allow the chaos
of darkness woken
to snub method
for madness
if not to ignore order
as though no longer of use
out of fashion
left to sink
to fathoms far below
down where pebbles
perpetually pass the hours
dreaming
imagining
the brightness
above
their murk below
but a boneyard
for the cadavers of creeds
lost to what passes
for all the rage
if only the waves
would choose to speak less
climax
Et l’asile de ses yeux
a des portes sans nuages.
well hidden from our seeing
there behind
blue sky doors
a curious whatness
a quiddity
only to be guessed at
simply to be supposed
and us
holding our breaths
as if hungry
to even hear it happen to be
that essence
that whatever it is
we draw our hope from
without knowing
what it is we hope for
as if we were free
our simple flesh
colliding
fusing
coming together
in a crimson spume
the unseen lost to this lust
this late light
Dans un nuit profonde
et large de mon age
now
as this late light
begins to wither
it becomes
an ashen echo
of everything once possible
all without favour or fear
free
but then
unannounced
with deep wide night nearing
it will steal
the edges of dreams
and mark
the boundaries of years
numbering them
until when
again without warning
but with the wilting
and withering done
it will turn
the day to longest night
before
finally
itself
being spent
dulled and drained of life
mimosa
Les hommes qui se coucheront
ne seront plus désormais
que les pères de l’oubli.
in our final silent resting
there is such sorrowfully
scant misted remembering
as though
in this shadowing light
so little can remain
to be recalled
of what we have done
what we have
been seen said and thought
nor of where we have gone
who we have loved
and how we have left marks
to attest to us ever having been
even if only briefly so
instead
we leave
our veiled youth behind
sneering at our failure
to bring to mind
even a fraction of the bric-a-brac
the years have hoarded
in our hurting heads
like so many mementos left
in the dankest attic’s murk
in its own shadowing light
as if twinned with ours
yet still not enough for us
to avoid the unavoidable onrush
of our blindness to every relic there
as an anopsia in the brume of time
halo of time
je ne sais plus tout ce que j’ai vécu
what you have lived
is so nearly over and done
though not a hint of it
can be easily summoned up
you no longer know nor care
how the scraps join to be one
how each piece of having lived
plays the part of being ignored
as I was habitually by you
your eyes dulled by greed
deadened beyond the point
of seeing anything of solution
hopelessly drawn to your own
layers of fictions and fabrications
piled and heaped and stacked
into a complication of untruths
though really
what of it if this is how it is
what of it if
by evoking nothing time can live on
with you shielded from censure
in a merciful haze of forgetting
guiltless in those same dulled eyes
that are simply waiting now to close
bare and bright
Au soir de la folie, nu et clair,
L’espace entre les choses
a la forme de mes paroles
in an honest madness
so naked
so pure
words
so easily
lose their sense
to the silences between
slowly clouding over
being secretly wrought
into just a passing whim
just a thought
then gone
nothing of them left
to even echo in the quietness
as it swells
still
as it pervades those places
where we gave each other
our words made of love
so naked
so pure
in an honest madness
once
speak
Les muets sont des menteurs…
no comments
no reactions
no emotions
unable
or is it unwilling
to even like what you see
you remain silent
deep in the shadows
imitating some
meddlesome mole
scavenging ideas
for a dreamt of dream life
that will never quite be yours
stealing opinions
for the most peculiar jigsaw
of mismatched pieces
each forced to fit
though without a sound made
that might senselessly
give the game away
blow your cover
make of you
a mole no more
but
for now
you persist
determined to be without being
as if invisible
no words
no gestures
no passions
just dead in your haunting deceit
lost
Ce n’est pas la nuit qui te manque,
mais sa puissance.
whatever it was of the night
you now miss as if a kiss
so soft from a dead lover’s lips
there was more
barely concealed
beneath the tenebrous surface
as something vaguely of strength
a mystery of might
but maybe not on any horizon
dizzily seen from here
drowned in your dreamlike lust
maybe not made manifest
appearing only
in an unheard sigh of despair
fit to rattle windows in their frames
no matter how vague the strength
yet you I know would settle
for the night as if that kiss
from so soft a dead lover’s lips
despite all the more there was
you would follow
rather than take to the front
or have even the faintest thought
for you I know to be lost in love
oranges
Ma mémoire
Est encore obscurcie
de t’avoir vu venir
Et partir.
of what
I can remember
of what was
there are only
shades of shadow
movements
in the darkness
dimly perceived
as an endless
coming and going
locked
in perpetual motion
in that heavy silence
of the emptiness
you made for yourself
but of what
I can remember
of what was
there are still words
shaded in the shadows
scrawled
on the walls
in a multitude
of forgotten tongues
long disfigured by time
wisdoms
that only ever
remain as simple truths
forever unquestionable
as if always having been
a heart so pale
Comment prendre plaisir à tout?
Plutôt tout effacer.
to define it
to list its symptoms
nothing equals the numbness
of being powerless to feel pleasure
every satisfaction
neither recognised nor known
and yet this but one
of the many
missing links
in a lifelong
literacy in shards
broken chains of words
resembling assembly instructions
to a flat pack life
badly translated
but reassuringly compliant
so yes
better that than
to sweep it all away
in a facile gesture
of violent desertion
rather to walk
with a heart so pale
than to lie where the lilies grow
where you sleep the longest sleep
the hidden night wiped away
without even a whimper of doubt
so yes
better to remain
rather a lack than none at all
chronic
…je vous apercevrai toujours, folie.
always seemingly there
to be seen
as tricks of the mind
your madness without end
its delusions illusions allusions
forever dissolving
to be one and the same
a muddled cobbling
a tottering tattered reality
trying to be heard
above the calls to comply
every eccentricity scorned
every inch of your being
rubbed in the dirt
as if a snout into its own turd
but a reality nonetheless
your madness your reality
seen in certainties
the way you came to see them
the way they really are
as exhausted memories
of when the blood of stars
filled your veins to bursting
of when you yourself were lost
geology
La clarté existe sans moi.
reflecting little
of the sunshine
that for so long was so plentiful
if only for covering the cracks
this lustrous rock
has become leaden sand
ponderously blown
by an asthmatic wind
slowly scattered
transformed
into only a shadow of before
its once upon a time
yet still
strangely
even without it
there remains luminance
elsewhere
in rocks
younger than this
rocks still able to do
what it is rocks as rocks do
to do what sand no longer can
is no longer able to do
unable no matter
how willing the mind
may even so
so blindedly be
but both understanding
this progression of generation
to be all that keeps
the sun in the sky
in on ourselves
J'ai refermé les yeux sur moi...
and seen nothing
not even a trace
of where we last touched
of where our skins
and spirits had met
just nothing
nothing seen
as if to avoid it
having to be described
dodging with intent
we might have called it
once
but not now
not alone
looking in
on my smiling darkness
benign in its being
through and through
as though to offset
the letdown of seeing nothing
to counter that discontent
that hunger to be able
to put it all into haloed words
imperfect in having no nub
no gist
no meaning beyond
what we know of being apart
we perpetuate ourselves
Notre ombre n'éteint pas le feu
Nous nous perpétuons
by feeding the fire
to stubbornly stave off
the arrival of certain night
as though on borrowed time
in a
laugh
a minute
masquerade
marked
making sure
what lies beneath
is rarely bared
seldom exposed
by this we have come to know
what it is to be invisible
even in our very own shadows
we have come to know
why we are and so
also who we have become
and we have come to know
perhaps only too well
why the fire must survive
must be perpetual
why its flames
must continue licking
sensuously at the darkening sky
repelling the night
denying any deception
simply surviving time
see through
L'enfant sait que le monde
commence à peine:
Tout est transparent...
to young eyes
everything is there to be seen
nothing is hidden
all is as evident as day itself
to be effortlessly taken in
without need of questions
trusted
convincing in its clarity
a world those eyes know
to have really only just begun
as yet untainted
as yet the purest of vision
those eyes
once our eyes
though so it goes
from one to the next
to the next
always watching
everything there is to be seen
broken things
Elle rit pour cacher
sa terreur d'elle-même.
in denial
is where you are
hiding behind a smile
refusing to believe
to even think of these
our desperate times
for fear of seeing yourself
you
staring out from an insanity
in which no prisoners are taken
from where no one gets out alive
staring back from the mirror
as a reflection of time's refugee
escaping it all to seek peace
blindly
in denial
footprints
Et tout ce que tu dis
bouge derrière toi.
as with everything else
your every word fades
forever lost in the past
a mere record of having been
like so many snaps
of standing grimacing
before the attractions of once
upon a time
of having been
of having become scared
of leaving nothing behind
of being unremarkable
that is
of course
except to me
able to read the sands of time
their drifts
and currents
their direct paths
and meanderings
and me
able to read you
wordless page
after wordless page
formless image
after formless image
every remarkable memory
of the who what why where when
you had been
seen in your ambitions
your dreams
who you were
in wanting only
what youth has ever wanted
to be given hope
and in knowing
there was nothing new in that
in any of it
formless image
after formless image
wordless page
after wordless page
though ever the more readable
as ever the more
there is remarkable
to be read of you
in time
in that
who what why where when
you now live in
beyond the pale
as free as to allow you to soar
growing pale
Toute brillante d'amour,
tu fascinais l'univers ignorant.
beguiling
all there was
in shining
in showing
what love can be
you forgot
you were throwing
pearls before swine
ignorance swilling
as blood in their veins
you forgot that
of what you gave
nothing would be of wonder
nothing would last
of what you had shown
of what love can be
and you forgot
the meaning of nothing
is always undeniably nothing
there is never wasted time
stars of straw
Comme le jour
depend de l'innocence
Le monde entier
depend de tes yeux purs.
in just a look
your cloudless eyes
make the blood of each day
seethe within its veins
helplessly so
dependently so
every minute
passing and shattering
to make room for the next
in a ceaseless parade
of what you have made
perfectly pure
so pure
so impressive a procession
of possibilities
of what our days can hold
together
in our world within the world
a world
where you see
more than most
a world throbbing in your hand
another
day's blood
invigorated and coursing
round and round
and round
one within the other
Je t'aime pour ta sagesse
qui n'est pas le mienne...
Pour ce coeur immortel
qui je ne détiens pas.
from being on the brink
twice for good measure
there's no immortality here
only the bluntest of reminders
of the subtractions from a stretch
already barely worth inhabiting
its pulse hunger zeal
all unmistakably growing faint
weak
to be gone too soon
too green
to be so full of that stolen wisdom
you were once tirelessly loved for
by the many more than me
taken from you
as though
there would be answers
to quell the rasping whys
and what fors
and all the time knowing
where you are heading
the same as ever for everyone
an inescapable path
that slows
to become impassable
sooner or later
always claiming the last laugh
no small stones
Sur la plage
la mer a laissé ses oreilles...
with sand between our toes
we have simply surrendered
what was ever to be heard
thrown it away
without thinking it through
no wisdoms nor follies
surviving the thunder of the tide
leaving neither of us knowing
sightless in a world of horizons
uncertain as to which direction
to take to turn the sun back on
o what fools we can be
what clowns
we have become through all this
the joking
the laughter
the japes for unseeing eyes
in the silence spiraling around us
sand between our toes
blindman
Il fait un triste temps,
il fait une nuit noire
A ne pas mettre un aveugle dehors.
a gauze drops
over half my half world
unannounced
so night becomes darker still
but mercifully
you only want to put me
half way out
into that ever saddening weather
if out at all
as if pausing to question
your moral sensibilities
is somehow now needed most
as though watching me moulder
could never be just quite enough
for you
while for me
there is less to be seen
as anything more
than how I remember it when
then
when nothing hid in a half haze
nothing coughed and spluttered
and died on the job
then
when it was you
who was needed most
sensibilities thrown to the winds
your eyes
only for me
eyes that today
are loath to watch a blindman
out in that disconsolate downpour
half my half world hazy
veiled
uncertain without clarity
and clearly uncertain of the night
being always darker still
but still carrying
the sounds of smiles and sighs
from the mouths of many mutes
each knitted into the darkness
darker still
as if even to withdraw
to the point of not being here
of being invisible
of having slung my hook
despite having never asked
for anything
and yet having felt
everything there is to be felt
as though even to withdraw
to where
there is comfort in the air
to where
in closing my eyes
the gauze momentarily lifts
and the clouds are left to pass
to be replaced
gulls flying sky dances above
pulling the wool
L'ennui, sur son épaule,
s'est endormi.
even the tedium
overwhelms itself
in waiting for an outcome
it dozes
and nothing changes
what is stable is static
just as what is severe is strong
but only delusively so
demandingly simplistic
in the minds of motley fools
dressed as self styled divinities
because nothing changes
that outcome never comes
no matter how long the wait
no matter
how consuming
you find the ennui
napping on your shoulder to be
laughing madly in its sleep
as though knowing you know
it can only be itself with you
as though to trap
then lay the rap
squarely solidly on my stoop
motley fools allergic to blame
shying from guilt for their game
that preserves it all unchanged
neutered
stable and strong and wrong
as only she can see
Autour de la bouche
Son rire est toujours différent...
she laughs otherwise
from those suddenly unsure
more like someone certain
I am only as far
as wandering the hills alone
someone sure
nothing is ever forever
sensing it safe
to pretend I am here
in my absence of breath
silent
my shadow
still marked out
on the dusty ground
arranged as if for her
to laugh over with conviction
differently from those
suddenly bound up
in their grasping insecurities
their laughter disarmed
by its even being heard
© John Mingay 2017
a facqueuesol paperless book