le temps passe
Aujourd’hui un dimanche de la fin du mois
Mars 1942 à Paris les chants des oiseaux domestiques
sont comme de petites flammes bien visibles brûlant calmement
dans le silence. Je suis désespérée
Mais il ne s’agit pas de moi.
—Dora Maar - Les Grandes Constructions
Lost the ability to make a definitive statement.
I think you should check the pressure of your tires.
They seem low.
They are always low,
grinding against the pavement.
But then again, so am I.
Again, again, again,
we are unable to make a statement.
To say once and for all
or again, again, again
how your tires are so low.
But it is not about me.
It is about your tires
and my inability to say yes
and how I always assume the outcome.
I can see a decommissioned chimney
from my window,
and hear the crows.
I complain about the birds
and the chimneys.
I weigh everything.
From arguments
to words
to shadows.
I am a hurricane
and you are the sea.
Hurricanes change the colors
of the sea,
but do not stay.
Hurricanes perish
because their entire being
consists in a violent,
colorful storm.
It is not about me.
We were a storm,
or an explosion;
violent and colorful.
We were a poem
grinding against the pavement.
But it is not about me.
We were the depth
and the shallow;
the elite
and the scum.
Were.
I can see two girls playing in their yard
from my window.
I can taste the noise
of early crows.
There is a police woman
that smiles at me when I cross her street.
Some days she is the only person I talk to.
She tells me to have a good night.
I wish she does as well.
I discovered an abandoned dock
by the lake.
I would take you there
and get on one knee.
But it is filled with shit
from all the seagulls.
It has been defiled.
We are defiled;
were: there is no
'us' anymore.
An old lady came
and talked to me
about her poetry.
She told me to write again,
because my gaze told her
that I felt miserable.
She was wrong.
I struggle,
because everything is tainted by absence.
I was not feeling very well
when I wrote you something
which I did not send.
I wrote some words
where I felt miserable
and my heart was beating slow
and I was dying.
I am dying.
But you will not know;
I deleted the words
and sentences.
It's great,
isn't it?
You can see the lake
and the city from up here.
This is a great city
where people are nice to me
and smile
and are interested
in the things I say.
There are days where
I do not speak.
And days where I do.
I got drunk at the park
with some people.
We looked at the lake
and drank from a flask.
And I felt alone.
A girl called Yinying
talked to me for hours.
Her name means shadow.
But that is not what it means.
Her name comes from two cities,
like her.
Would you read what I wrote?
I used to be a decent writer.
I wrote things for you,
but did not send them.
I wrote a poem about you
and me.
As if you were to read it
and know I am fine
and still alive.
But it is not about me.
It was always about you.
