for Elke de Rijcke
in the memory of Franck Venaille
muck instep in the clay banks
the community of stuck
bleating behind it—the grass embankment
of Emmadorp staunching the first fear—
beneath the lines cutting through the distant fog
toward the center of platens
among the shifting sands where everything’s
in between and everything delves into the muddy
betweenness as much water as sugared
echo of the grassy odor
fearing coming onto stage
floral rusts of the gales of the galerne
sea onions bulb sucked by
wild geese without counting the
grassy leaves of lamb’s ears
taking over in the struggle
between strata of clay and grassy growth
the fight of the sweet frothrubs against
the odious brine in the disgust of muds
what dies out dies down reassures
among the perfidious stirrings
up to the melodious clay-chirpings
these word bubbles in fetid schist
footfall on the skin of a somnolent
stomach the tremulous film of browns
rising from the clay grays
where the insouciant shadow of tires
oscillates down the road toward the dune
engraved with crow’s feet
the immovable bay of the movable space
closes upon itself it insinuates extravagance
in a choreography of canals
but then opens onto the sky
when the festive skein of geese laboring
through a slow adagio rustles by
like wings of the convoy’s end
pressed down by the howl of
the wind into silence
only thoughts of the loss of landmarks
tramping through dense drowned wool
of the mute wave
each step sucks up from the streambeds
on the path wetting the grassy isle—if the
water flows up it’s being pushed up—
patchy milky bacterial mud
puddling on heaven background
the salty coating is thrown off
spasmatic space will shout out
the sea ejaculates
in the arms in the vase
the galloping respiratory allure reversing
in a pansensual final acme
recovers its name in oceanic verse
rising to prose in solemn cadence
in this shard weaving together tiny rambling islets
that would be darkened underneath sod rolls
it’s time to turn toward the tree
the lone mast in the flattened wave
the area constructed from a wild stomach
full of a monster to be born
the mound of the crumbling cabin
surrounded by streams and nettles
where from the horizon are seen
what are ostensibly the melancholy of tramps and
the adorable steam of the nuclear power station
the wind soliloquizes over this stretch of stable earth
isolating
this irritating body so out of place
that powdery clay-blanched hands
want to fell it
the cafe corrupts as much as the old random willow
so hospitable offering a nest
to the baby crows that will never pass by
Translated from the French by Matt Reeck
"The poet is of no party." BaudelaireOur manifesto is an act of substantiation.
We reject all forms of futilitarianism, in whatever disguise.
We believe that comedy is the song of the village and tragedy the song of the goat.
We believe what is written in the books, but now we want to see for ourselves.
The single idea, beating on the same doors in vain.
The analogue and the invention.
The death cell.
The first permission.
Though we watch the stage for things to happen, though our minds wander.
By ourselves in the green field, playing our diversion.
Though the story begins with the loss of a home.
Out of the machine, we shift restlessly in our seats.