There stood a boy with a broken crown in his hands, not knowing that from these shards would one day come the gift of imagination. Later, much later, inside of a body having outgrown the sweet smelling palm trees of his childhood, the eyes of the same boy would light up, looking up and finding, in the red and grey of the afternoon sky, the one who wore it.
The smell of the midday rain still clung to nostrils, much like its defeated foe, dust would, on a dry sunny day. I do not recall, or rather, cannot wrap my mind around the reasons which pulled me out of the shop to look at the sky at that moment, from that angle, with my eyes tearing up ever so slightly. There he was, and the grey and red of the sky were his tears and blood. He had fallen, a giant king magnificent and ridiculous at the same time, like fallen statues or noseless sphinxes, and the clouds carried his life away.Slowly, inexorably, a pilgrimage towards the east, as if returning the rays to the birthplace of the sun. They disguised themselves into grotesque shapes, imitations of clouds, in the pink velvet of exposed organs or smiling skeletons of red. The sun shone through his wounds. He looked down and knew I saw him. In this moment, in the moment our eyes crossed, I knew he saw me, I knew he recognised me, that boy with a broken crown in hand. That day I was the one bleeding, but those were only the blades of sugar canes against my skin, but today, I looked at him, expiring his last with my throat burning with a thousand questions but my lips dry as the summer dust. Who was he? What was his name? Why did he did? Was it worth it? One question my mind did not dare to ask though, was the name of his killer, for the deeper recesses of my souls knew the answer to this question and my heart engaged into that little dance which makes the ribcage suddenly feel like a cramped place.
As I walked back into the shop, a tear fled from the confines of my ducts and died on the floor, most probably trampled by couple of minutes later by an unknowing customer, not able to see me scrape off the blood from under my fingernails with the shards of a broken crown.

Oh, what resplendent havoc can you wreak
Thrashing savagely against my rib cage,
Asking questions to which my brain can't speak
In any other tongue but that of rage.
Oh what poisonous covetings do you sow
That must taint the grains of affection
And plant the misery that forces me to know
That this love will be my own affliction.
Oh, what derelict promises of joy
Do you make to my frail and naive mind
For it is to you but a broken toy.
Rebellious heart why are you so hard to find?

Nous etions, en cet instant, prisonniers du bonheur.
Heritiers de cette douce mais, o combien lourde, ferveur
Brulant sous cette peau vernie de sueur, de sable et de sel,
Portes, en princes sous les ficelles des tisseuses de ciel.
Nous regardions le gris a nous ecorcher les yeux,
Aimant de la passion infidele du zenith bleu
Le vide encombrant de nos plus incroyables espoirs
Et le remou sans debut ni fin de nouvelles memoires.
Nous les connaissions, ces esprits, vagabonds des mers
Chassant, au milieu des vagues ces humeurs incidencieres,
Celles la meme qui jadis se prenommaient “reves d’enfance”
Et qui depuis de sont transformes en dependence.
Nous les connaissions, et meme si la nature de ce lien
M’est masque par un sacerdoce qui ne sera jamais mien,
Elle me dicte toujours chaque contour de leur lames grises
Qui de cet air sec et fier sont tragiquement eprises
Nous etions, en cet instant prisonniers de beaute,
Celle la meme qui voit nos poumons dechiquetes
A vouloir engouffrer ce monde entier sous nos pores
Que demain a travers ces lettres je puisse a nouveau le voir.

If there are words to be heard in this thumping
As the black turns to grey through the lighting,
If dew is drowned and white walls are tainted
As the oldest colours have all faded,
If the morning songs of the birds
Are only in our hearts to be heard,
Then teach, me morning the peace you bring!
If the beady eyed flow stream of pilgrims
If the slippers splinter and splash the water film
And brazen lights splatter the black recipient
With a hissing, oh so inconvenient,
If the keeper’s morning cigarette
And the perfume of the fresh baguette
Enlace as lovers within my nose.
If the bananas seem strangely lit,
Under the glow of white tungsten hilt
And the craving of a lazy sleep
Has laid the newspapers in such a heep.
And if radios blare the sad morning news
I do not look for the blessings of a muse,
I have found in my morning bread run.

As the night lays awake inside of me
You murmur a love song to the sleepless.
As the cold presses on my naked skin,
You kiss my cheeks with a sweet temperance
And lead me to your glorious haven.
Under the shelter of these giant leaves,
Are our eyes but those of two sparrows,
Who watch the world from hole in the sky
Into which birds disappear at nightfall.
The pearls of rains run along the blades,
Racing each other to their beds of grass,
As naïve as in the winds of childhood love.
They wear the blue of the midnight streetlights
With the frivolous ease of princesses
Unburdened by the rule of gales
Or the heavy grey garments of daylight.
They dance and play under the watchful eye
Of the mother of all things of the night.
The moon sits alone in her splendor,
For her sky is not freckled with stars
But her earth is decorated  with tears.
She looks for no company tonight
But that of her lover children.
She smiles upon us, as she always does,
As the black of your hair enlaces
My chest and echoes my heartbeat
With the gentle thumping of the rains.

Dans les rues de Port-Louis, il fait bon dix-huit heures.
Ou chercher, dans cette ville bercée de sueur
Le fantôme de cet acharnement de vie
Qui noie les sens de lumière, de chaleur et d’envie?
Dans les aboiements rauques de ces cabots rois du soir?
Dans le son des volets qu’on baisse de façon vénielle?
Dans les pas qui s’éclaboussent sur le trottoir
Les maux de cette étrange promesse d’étincelle ?
Dans les rues de Port-Louis, il fait bon nuit d’hiver
Grise comme lasse de ces nuées de couleurs incendiaires
Elle s’éteint le temps d’allumer les étoiles,
Peintres bien plus dures que leur jumelles estivales.
L’écru de leur toile est teinte de la froideur du blanc.
Quels soupirs s’emmêlent aux clous qui habitent ses vents?
Quel chant quand la pluie crucifie ainsi nos flancs?
Est-ce celle de cette ville bohème, de beauté fille de sang?