"...MORT SANS PLEURS..."
(Death without Tears)



"Life is the farce which everyone has to perform."
            Arthur Rimbaud - Bad Blood



Once again she
sensing her time

had come
she prepared

her last words
rehearsed her last breath

disappointed to see
a new day dawn

and Death had
stood her up.

"She has been dying now these
last 20 years!"

her long suffering husband
moans.

A fatal dose of
hypochondria.

She lives to fight yet
another.

Her mind rambling through
half remembered Rimbaud.

"Assez vu. . .
Assez eu. . .
Assez connu. . ."

(Enough seen. . .
Enough had. . .
Enough known. . .).

she intones as if she
were her own priest.

La music savante manque pas à notre désir
( Great music falls short of our desire. )

she chants as if she
were her own sacred ceremony.

Always the same snatches
from ILLUMINATIONS.

"I never read him myself
but know him off by heart

from hearing them from herself!"
sighs her little husband .

Years later she
gets it right at last.

"Il y a une horloge qui ne sonne pas!"
(There is a clock that never strikes!)

She gasps.

"Que les oiseaux et les sources sont ****!"
(How far away the birds and Spring are).