Greg

The tumour was the size of a Florida orange;

had made him
and island in the stream
of consciousness.

The wake of the past;

erased.

the ripples that race towards the future -

now : a still lake
now : a daisy-chain without the chain.


Life;
now : a thousand

single

daisies.

A single moment;
now : the sum of everywhen

They said
he was dead

to the world.


He had forgotten

everything

except how to sing.

I Have Been Trying to Tell You

When Summer comes, it brings
the summer sun and, for a moment, you.
Summer comes and, if it's not too busy with the flowers,
it brings you to me, naked as the rain.

Spring brings rain, they say, and the earth is -
and I am - grateful. She fills the air with perfume
and sings to me a love song,
a promise.

I have set Winter aside to consider Love.
There is still the sun, though the light falls
lonley through the clouds
and I have learned nothing.

Nothing, save to wait for Spring,
be grateful for the rain,
pay attention to the Cherry trees which,
in their finest moment are saying something

I have been trying to tell you.

One More

- Boris Vian (translated by Colin Mahar)

One more.
One for no reason.
But then, there are the others,
asking questions of the others,
and they answer with the words of others.
What does the other do ?
What, but to write like the others ?
and to hesitate ?
and repeat ?
and to seek
but not to find?
To drive themselves crazy
and to say to themselves "this is pointless"
I would do better to earn a living,
but my life is mine, my life.
I don't need to earn money.
It's really not a problem.
It's the only thing that isn't one.
It's everything else, the problem.
But the questions have all been asked.
They've all been interogated;
all the smallest subjects.
So what does that leave me ?
They've taken all the useful words,
the beautiful words, to make verbs -
the frothy, the heavy, the hot
the skies, the stars, the lights,
the raw shapes of the waves
raging against the red rocks
full of blood and sex,
full of suckers and cash-on-the-barrelhead.
So what does that leave for me ?
Must I ask without a sound ?
Without writing ? Without sleeping ?
Must I seek myself, without a word ?
Not even to the concierge ?
Or the dwarf that races beneath my floorboards ?
Or the gremlin in my pocket ?
Or the priest I keep in a drawer ?
Must I - must I probe myself
alone, with nothing but an old nun at the gate
who's offended by my cock ?
Who watches me like a cop
with a vaseline nightstick ?
Must I give myself a punch in the nose
just to add some colour to my language ?
They've all been interogated
I no longer have the right to speak.
They've taken all the beautiful words.
They've hung them up there :
there, in the place of poets.
With their foot-petalled lyres,
and their steam-driven lyres,
and their 8-cylinder lyres,
and the winged-horses of the atom.
I have not even the smallest subject.
I have only the flattest of words,
the soft-boilled words.
I have nothing but me and the the's
I have nothing but who, why and what
which, he, she, them, you, we, none.
How do you expect me to write
a poem with words like that ?
Well screw it. I won't do it.

Here is the Scene :

The fire is cheery, but not roaring,

let's say purring,

which brings us to the cat who,

after testing my solar plexus

has opted to curl herself

between the pillow and my thigh

and who, after a negociation

which consisted of sly cat-eye glances,

warnings that I'd better be comfortable,

and a few scratches behind the ears to seal the deal,

goes to sleep.



The dog and my friend both sleep

and gently snore by the fireside.

The dog's sleep puncuatuated by growls

as she pursues perhaps dreamrabbits

through dreamfields of dreamgreen

and my friend tosses in his sleep upon the couch.

Moving his feet to a dreammusic,

as he perhaps dreamdances

on some dreamdancefloor

with some dreamgirl.

There is Sunlight In the Street

There is sunlight in the street
I like the sunlight but not the street
and so I stay at home
waiting for the world to come to me
with its golden towers
and it's white cascades
with its voice of tears
and the songs of happy people
or of the people who are paid to sing.
And in the evening a moment will come
where the street will become something else
and disappear beneath the plumage
of a night full of perhaps
and of the dreams of those who are dead
So I go down to the street
she waits below, just until dawn
a chimney smokes so close
and I walk amidst the water
water born of the cool night
and soon the sun will return.

- Boris Vian
Transl by me
Oct 1st, 2009
Montréal

A Naked Man Was Walking

A naked man was walking
his garment in his hand
his garment in his hand
Perhaps it wasn't clever
but it made me laugh
his garment in his hand
his garment in his hand
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
A completely naked man
Walking down the street
His costume in his hand

- Boris Vian
transl by me
Oct 2nd, 2009
Montréal

When I have the Wind In My Skull

When I have the wind in my skull
When I have the wind on my bones
Perhaps then, I'll believe in the dull
Editions of my future tomes.
How I will miss it
My elemental plastic
Plastic tic tic
and my face devoured by rats
this pair of lips
eyebrows, eyelids
my thighs and the ass
upon which I sit.
My hair, my fists,
my pretty blue eyes
my hooded eyes.
So I bequeath to you
my roman nose
my heart, my liver, my spleen
all my admirable nothings
for which I was so admired
by Dukes and Duchesses
By Popes and Popesses
Abbotts and Abbesses
and tradespeople.
And more, I'll no longer be
this moist, radiant
brain which served me
which imagines me dead ;
the green bones, the windswept skull,
Ah, how I hate to grow old.

- Boris Vian
transl by me,
Sept. 30, 2009
Ottawa

There Was a Brass Lantern

There was a brass lantern
which burned for many years.
There was a magic mirror
and in it was seen the face
the face which would one day be
upon the golden bed of Death.
There was a book of blue leather
where slept the earth and sky
Water and Fire and the Thirteen Mysteries
An hourglass marked the time
upon its sliver of dust.
There was a heavy lock
which held its hard way shut
a heavy door of oak
closed the tower for all time.
In the round room, the table
the hearth, the window
of glass, gilded and stained.
Rats ran in the gutters
around the tower of stone.
Where the sun no longer shone.

It was really terribly romantic.

- Boris Vian
transl by me
Sept. 30, 2009
Ottawa

Life Is Like a Tooth

Life, is like a tooth
at first, you don't even think of it
you are contnet just to chew
and then, it is suddenly rotten
It's yours - it hurts you
You baby it and you suck on it
but to be really cured
you have to rip it out, Life.

- Boris Vian
transl by me
Sept. 28, 2009
Ottawa

I No Longer Want

I no longer really want
to write poetry.
If things were as they were before
I would do it more often,
but I feel very old
I feel very serious
I feel conscientious
I feel lazy.

- Boris Vian
transl by me
Sept. 28, 2009,
Ottawa

I Would Love
I would love
I would love
To become a great poet
and for people
to place
many laurels on my head
But, there it is.
I don't have enough
taste for books
and I enjoy life too much
and I think too much of people
to ever be content
with having written nothing but wind.

- Boris Vian
transl - by me
Sept 28, 2009,
Ottawa

Why Should I Live ?

Why should I live ?
Why should I live
for the golden leg
of the blonde woman
leaning against the wall
in the full sunlight
For the billowing jib
of a sailing ship
for the shadows on the shore
The iced coffee
we drink through straws
To touch the sand
see the backdrop of water
which has become so blue
which sinks to such depths
with the fish
the silent fish
they swim through the depths
flying below
the seaweed horses
like slow birds
like blue birds
Why should I live ?
Because it is beautiful.

- Boris Vian

They Break the World

They break the world
into little peices
they break the world
with hammerblows
but it's all the same to me
it's all just the same to me.
There's enough left for me,
enough.
It's enough that I love
a blue feather
a road of sand
a skittish bird
It's enough that I love
the strands of fresh-cut grass
a drop of ruby wine
a splinter of wood.
They can break the world
into tiny peices.
There's enough left for me,
enough for me.
I will always have a little air
a litle slice of life
a little light - twinkling in my eye
a little wind in my veins.
And still, still
even if they put me in prison,
there will be enough for me.
It is enough that I love
this crumbling stone
these rivets of iron
stained with a little blood
I love it, I love it.
The warped boards beneath my bed
the thin mattress, the frame
the dust of the sun.
I love the Judas who opens himself
the men who have entered this place
who go forward, who take me along with them
to rediscover the life of this world
and to rediscover its colours
I love these two slow sums
this triangular knife
these men dressed in black.
This is my party and I am proud
I love it, I love it.
This basket full of sound
where I will rest my head,
oh, I love it for good.
It is enough that I love
a little strand of bluegrass
a drop of ruby wine
a love of a skittish bird.
They break the world
with rude hammers
but there's enough left for me
there's enough left for me, my love.
- Boris Vian (translation by me)

a Letter

So often this summer
I have found myself
sitting in the early light
of a rising sun.

Though now it is August,
the season of my birth,
and there is a chill in the air
and the cushions of the chair
cool on my bare back.

You can still count on
the birds to sing
whether I am in Paris or Ottawa -
though they are not
the same birds,
the sky is the same,
just a different part of it.
The sun is the same
though it shines through a different time.

A pair of ducks are flying
so low to the water
their reflections are racing
below them.
They laugh as they fly
or so it seems to me.
If I could fly low over a river
racing my reflection
I would certainly laugh as I did it.

This canadian morning's clouds
are whispy and whimsical
more like ghosts than clouds
or perhaps the ghosts of clouds -
not like the heavy, silver-tinged clouds of Paris.

The pink and white flowers
in my mother's flowerboxes
look a little better than mine,
but that seems an inevitable truth.

The wind is making that
sssssssssssssssssssssssss sound
in the trees on the banks of the river.
The leaves are all trembling in the light,
shimmering as if their branches were covered
with tiny green and yellow butterflies.

Now six ducks fly low
over the mirror of the river
their formation, lop-sided
lacking two birds for its symmetry
the ones who raced ahead earlier,
laughing.

The chives and rosemary and mint
have seen better days.
At home, in Paris, my herbs are thriving
(better than my mother's)
and soon erica will be getting out of my bed,
and probably singing to herself
as she gives them water
and love.

It occurs to me that I am writing a letter
more than I am composing a poem -
an aubade or a meditation
on my approaching birthday.
Though I do not know who
I am writing this letter to -
this letter with broken lines.

Perhaps I'll just send it
to everyone I know.
Except my mother
and erica,
who now appear
as characters in my letter
and might feel spied upon or
like I was talking about them
behind their backs.

Take care everybody,
you too, mom.
you too, erica.
Wish you all were here.

love,

Colin

Ownership

Our mistakes are what we make
and back we cannot take
we own up to them - they are our own.

They are so like our bones -
once we have them grown
they are ours and ours alone.

(ours in our hours alone)

We do not own our bones
to our selves they are only on loan

and though we can break them
we cannot forsake them
for then we would all fall apart.

(which reminds me of our hearts.)