The Poetry of Others
Personally, I don't write poems. I compose songs. But others have this talent. I decided to create a page to put their compositions on. ---
Man Is Very Foolish
Man is very foolish
When he is in love.
He thinks he is a poet
He gets caught up in the game
Of chance.
He walks blindly,
And bumps into furniture,
He gets bruises
And illusions.
He smiles at passersby,
He overflows,
He spreads out.Sometimes he is annoying,
He gets tiresome,
He must be forgiven
Because there is no malice in him.
His soul is touched,
Touched, melted?
No, not that game,
He will bounce back because,
Is there a bad thing
That does as much good?
— Claire Bougain, April 24, 2012 ---
The Sky!
The sky!
Listen to the people down here.
They scream or don't dare.
In silence, from despair
They move in all directions
They move forward
To where?To express their love or their pain,
People have
The words.
Too often they hold them back
For what reason, I don't know.
Then they all jostle
At the edge of their lips,
They swell, suffocate, hold their breath,
And explode,
Pouring into the bodies of these men
Sick of silence,
Dying,
Their deadly poison.Life flows
Days pass
Pink sand, white, black
Chameleon sand
You slip, unnoticed,
Soft and round,
Between my fingers.
— Claire Bougain ---
He Dies Slowly
He dies slowly
The one who does not travel,
The one who does not read,
The one who does not listen to music,
The one who cannot find
Grace through his eyes.He dies slowly
The one who becomes a slave to habit,
Repeating the same paths every day,
The one who never changes his landmark,
Never dares to change the color
Of his clothes
Or who never speaks to a stranger.He dies slowly
The one who avoids passion
And its whirlwind of emotions
That give light to the eyes
And heal wounded hearts.He dies slowly
The one who does not change course
When he is unhappy
At work or in love
The one who does not take risks
To realize his dreams,
The one who, not once in his life,
Has run away from sensible advice.Live now
Risk today
Act immediately
Do not let yourself die slowly
Do not deprive yourself of happiness.
— Pablo Neruda ---
Fire
Suppose that fire tells you stories
Such as it told me. Here they are:Stories of death, images printed on my retina,
of a violence difficult to describe.Image of a little girl running toward us,
arms outstretched, naked,
after a napalm bombing.Image of a monk burning himself in front of the world
to protest against the Bad War.Image of an immense cross being set on fire
by hooded madmen.Barbaric image of so-called witches on a pyre.
Image of a very small Bambi,
lost in a forest on fire.Image of ritual cremations in Bali,
of death camps.What is said about fire?
That it smolders, bursts, destroys,
ravages, devastates, devours.But also that it warms, purifies, fertilizes,
allows a rebirth.Ambivalence.
Fires of love, forbidden fires,
fires of joy and straw fires.Hearts set on fire and blood,
upside down.Dreams of fusion, volcanic eruption,
the furnace of the metal factory.Red fire.
Perhaps the story ends here.
— Claire Bougain ---