poem

found poem – Paris, spring 2013

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Mais il portait sur toute chose le regard
d’un artiste supérieur, sensible à la secrète
poésie du réel et sachant
l’exprimer dans un langage inédit.

In life we do things, some we wish we had never done
certaines choses peuvent se dire
some we wish we could replay a million times in our heads
bien sûr, avec des mots
but they all make us who we are
d’autres avec des gestes
and in the end they shape every detail about us.

mais il y a aussi des moments où l’on reste sans voix
if we were to reverse any of them, we wouldn’t be
the person we are.  So just live, make mistakes
complètement perdu est désorienté
have wonderful memories
on ne sais plus que faire
but never ever second guess who you are
where you have been,
and most importantly
where it is you’re going.
à ce moment commence la danse.

La poésie est un sport extrême

Notes on locations:  Musée de L’Orangerie, street, Merci store (quotation from Pina Bausch), toilet door (really).

found poem – Stockholm, spring 2013

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In February the living stood still.

“I will so enjoy living in my cabin that I will probably end up dying here”
As though he had been able to predict the future,
he died on the beach below the cabin.

Rejoice

The birds flew unwillingly and the soul chafed against the landscape as a boat chafes against the pier it lies moored to.

Born originals, how comes it to pass, that we die copies?
Happiness hates the timid.

The trees stood with their backs turned towards me.
The deep snow was measured with dead straws.

Il faut travailler.

The footprints few old out on the crusts
Under a tarpaulin language pined

These shoes belonged to Selma Lagerlöf
who gained inspiration for her first book,
The Saga of Gösta Berling,
while taking a walk during her time at teachers college.

One day something came up to the window.
Work dropped, I looked up.

“How pitiful to strive to be someone or something in the motley crowd
of 1.4 billion two-legged tailless apes,
running around on our revolving earth projectile”.

You will often find the poet sitting at the piano.

Early in life, he had learnt to live in a state of constant preparedness to move.

The colours flared.  Everything turned round
The earth and I sprang towards each other.

What did you learn for the future?

Notes on locations:  Tomas Tranströmer exhibition at the Nobel Museum including his poem ‘Face to Face’, Le Corbusier exhibition at Moderna Museet, Poster.  Other lines are taken from other sources in the Nobel Museum including quotations from Albert Einstein, Louis Pasteur, Edward Young, Eugene O’Neill and Alfred Nobel.  

found poems

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Today while walking, I realised I had the components of what I will be calling a ‘found poem’. Found poetry is often compiled from a single prose text, but rearranged into verses and stanzas, but my found poems (hopefully there will be more than one) will consist of elements discovered during a day or few days in a foreign city (or home, come to think of it).

I have very much enjoyed making my first found poem.  The ‘true’ version of the poem is in English and French, but I will also translate it.

Oh, such a happy day!

out the back

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I have made it
out the back
drenched, half seeing
inert from sustained effort –
wave crash wave crash
crash again.

Salt water in my
ears eyes hair nose mouth.
I am meant to be
here to catch
my wave.
I can’t face it now.

The paddle out has
terrified and
exhausted me.
I beg the sun to shed
a ray on my
frozen hands.
It doesn’t.

I keep one eye
warily
on the horizon
lest an errant pilgrim
should catch me out.
I would be done for.

Breathing and
lying flat, a hidden
alchemy restores my
senses, turns despair
to quivering hope.
A wave! Perhaps I
could consider it after all?

I lurk, trying to look
interested, but
in fact avoiding any
drift to the take-off zone, wish I
looked braver, but
don’t.

I wish I had a
fruit pastille.

For the first time
I am aware of
other surfers
like me, probably,
looking braver than
they feel.

But all of us are
out here, waiting.
I sit up, salute,
and turn to make a
full assessment:
sun, sea, wind
position, rhythm,
sets, self.

I inch forward,
put myself at risk
of drowning,
paddle gently,
invite adventure
with a tentative
inner nod.

The wave heaves me
back and then
thrusts me forward.
In a moment I will
tip
out of control again,
at the mercy of
instinct and
every hour of practice.

Sensation of falling…
Will I make it or wipe out?
…

[untitled poem]

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My heart beats

question marks.

Though settled

inside, I still find uncertainty

echoing

loudly

through me and

throughout time

and into space.

Everything that’s

unresolved

drums out its

mysterious

rhythms.

My arms and legs

and mind

go about their

business accompanied

by infinitely

open futures.

And mine

unknown,

unknown,

unknown.