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Mateuš Conrad Apr 2016
Isabella from Grenoble (fan of studio Ghibli)
i write for an injection of a venom, for a sense of disorientation, poetry shouldn't be about the skill of narration, a clear Renaissance painting of some school, it should invoke a ******* random macabre, a sense of disorientation, there's no real technique to practice with poetry invoking a tarantula's venomous bite... poetry the art of disorientation and a fulfilling disillusionment, nothing else, nothing more... to prescribe disorientation... upon charging into a blank page... the brute of squalor and slashing of grime, marbles and marrow!*

as quoted by Bonaparte (oddly enough
a psychology student and former
girlfriend of mine who i lost my virginity
to, while she got drunk and slid into my
bed at a party, and asked dreamily for condoms
scolding me about the three pictures adorning
my student room: marquis de sade, Bonaparte
and Plato) - quicker the goat in the frying
pan than on the steep cliff face - mooch kiss
you Isabella i would a second time,
you remind me of Annie from Masterchef -
the way the stiff upper-lip is missing: signature of
french girls, the curling and cuddles -
ooh mooch chuckles and mushy peas -
p p p - belinda carlisle melted cheese goo in my heart;
stony ******* i ain't, but my drinking habits
are not boyfriend material, sorry... try next door:
se vie se la - the french know their eccentricities,
and therefore exploit them in the grey -
the english stiffen up and exploit the same
but to a too obvious exploit: bowler hats and umbrellas,
nothing will make this London gloom repent
even if you're donning St. Petersburg's architectural
multi-colour... did i mention Bonaparte the patron
saint of the Duchy of Warsaw?
over here there's Adolf with a heretics hat
never bothering to read history twice,
history you read in a blurry haze of being drunk:
reminiscence is hardly nostalgia, but sure as ****
history save Moscow from the French and the Germans
but not the Poles and Mongolians...
the Russians know this and hush thing over,
sweeping stories under the carpets using
a babushka as an excuse for the prime propaganda
technique - go on babushka ride the Ferrari
on the stairway! canapé mit crayon caviar?
yes, Isabella, if i weren't a ****** i'd move to
Grenoble - sheriff's honour.
                                                  you weren't
the first, you weren't the last,
i need bragging rights - and a hot colt to shoot with...
then the lacrosse initiation ceremony -
Lycra tights, drank a whole bottle of whiskey
of Glaswegian whiskey, stumbled into
Isabella to my shame parade of whatever that was
lad banter etc etc. - pleaded on my knees, my knees...
apologies for the inexperience,
she was seriously into Japanese cartoons,
studio Ghibli;
                          so she scolded me over Bonaparte,
and i said: it's not exactly Piłsudski - in my town of
birth they praised him, raised statues,
later with communism desecrated them, then later
raised new statues - but what's bothersome is that
she didn't mind the Marquis... a psychology student
after all... she wanted native speakers for a little
psychology experiment, that got me,
learning from scratch aged 8,
pitch-perfect elocution and she didn't bother to use me
in the experiment... that ****** with me...
hey! i'm hardly a cockney! coached croquet pears
ready for a beating... what's the rhyme, ah yes:
apples and pears = stairs... seriously, musically
cheese sometimes works, they had a Monday cheese
night at the union - all the usual buggery of
a mid-life crisis...
yeps, that Annie from the current Master Chef reminds me
of Isabella - dracul - RA!
a bit of high culture (Ezra's cantos) and a bit of low
culture (marco bailey's Enter the Dragon)...
while sitting on the throne of thrones (a toilet)...
it's like my dream... although better... Ibiza two-point-oh.
Continue reading...
Alexander K Opicho Jan 2014
POETIC DYSTOPIA
by
Alexander K Opicho

(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)

When I grow up I will seek permission
From my parents, my mother before my father
To travel to Russia the European land of dystopia
that has never known democracy in any tincture
I will beckon the tsar of Russia to open for me
Their classical cipher that Bogy visoky tsa dalyko
I will ask the daughters of Russia to oblivionize my dark skin
***** skin and make love to me the real pre-democratic love
Love that calls for ambers that will claw the fire of revolution,
I will ask my love from the land of Siberia to show me cradle of Rand
The European manger on which Ayn Rand was born during the Leninist census
I will exhume her umbilical cord plus the placenta to link me up
To her dystopian mind that germinated the vice
For shrugging the atlas for we the living ones,
In a full dint of my ***** libido I will ask her
With my African temerarious manner I will bother her
To show me the bronze statues of Alexander Pushkin
I hear it is at ******* of the city of Moscow; Petersburg
I will talk to my brother Pushkin, my fellow African born in Ethiopia
In the family of Godunov only taken to Europe in a slave raid
Ask the Frenchman Henri Troyat who stood with his ***** erected
As he watched an Ethiopian father fertilizing an Ethiopian mother
And child who was born was Dystopian Alexander Pushkin,
I will carry his remains; the bones, the skull and the skeleton in oily
Sisal threads made bag on my broad African shoulders back to Africa
I will re-bury him in the city of Omurate in southern Ethiopia at the buttocks
Of the fish venting beautiful summer waters of Lake Turkana,
I will ask Alexander Pushkin when in a sag on my back to sing for me
His famous poems in praise of thighs of women;

(I loved you: and, it may be, from my soul
The former love has never gone away,
But let it not recall to you my dole;
I wish not sadden you in any way.

I loved you silently, without hope, fully,
In diffidence, in jealousy, in pain;
I loved you so tenderly and truly,
As let you else be loved by any man.
I loved you because of your smooth thighs
They put my heart on fire like amber in gasoline)

I will leave the bronze statue of Alexander Pushkin in Moscow
For Lenin to look at, he will assign Mayakovski to guard it
Day and night as he sings for it the cacotopian
Poems of a slap in the face of public taste;

(I know the power of words, I know words' tocsin.
They're not the kind applauded by the boxes.
From words like these coffins burst from the earth
and on their own four oaken legs stride forth.
It happens they reject you, unpublished, unprinted.
But saddle-girths tightening words gallop ahead.
See how the centuries ring and trains crawl
to lick poetry's calloused hands.
I know the power of words. Seeming trifles that fall
like petals beneath the heel-taps of dance.
But man with his soul, his lips, his bones.)

I will come along to African city of Omurate
With the pedagogue of the thespic poet
The teacher of the poets, the teacher who taught
Alexander Sergeyvich Pushkin; I know his name
The name is Nikolai Vasileyvitch Gogol
I will caution him to carry only two books
From which he will teach the re-Africanized Pushkin
The first book is the Cloak and second book will be
The voluminous dead souls that have two sharp children of Russian dystopia;
The cactopia of Nosdrezv in his sadistic cult of betrayal
And utopia of Chichikov in his paranoid ownership of dead souls
Of the Russian peasants, muzhiks and serfs,
I will caution him not to carry the government inspector incognito
We don’t want the inspector general in the African city of Omurate
He will leave it behind for Lenin to read because he needs to know
What is to be done.
I don’t like the extreme badness of owning the dead souls
Let me run away to the city of Paris, where romance and poetry
Are utopian commanders of the dystopian orchestra
In which Victor Marie Hugo is haunted by
The ghost of Jean Val Jean; Le Miserable,
I will implore Hugo to take me to the Corsican Island
And chant for me one **** song of the French revolution;


       (  take heed of this small child of earth;
He is great; he hath in him God most high.
Children before their fleshly birth
Are lights alive in the blue sky.
  
In our light bitter world of wrong
They come; God gives us them awhile.
His speech is in their stammering tongue,
And his forgiveness in their smile.
  
Their sweet light rests upon our eyes.
Alas! their right to joy is plain.
If they are hungry Paradise
Weeps, and, if cold, Heaven thrills with pain.
  
The want that saps their sinless flower
Speaks judgment on sin's ministers.
Man holds an angel in his power.
Ah! deep in Heaven what thunder stirs,
  
When God seeks out these tender things
Whom in the shadow where we sleep
He sends us clothed about with wings,
And finds them ragged babes that we)

 From the Corsican I won’t go back to Paris
Because Napoleon Bonaparte and the proletariat
Has already taken over the municipal of Paris
I will dodge this city and maneuver my ways
Through Alsace and Lorraine
The Miginko islands of Europe
And cross the boundaries in to bundeslander
Into Germany, I will go to Berlin and beg the Gestapo
The State police not to shoot me as I climb the Berlin wall
I will balance dramatically on the top of Berlin wall
Like Eshu the Nigerian god of fate
With East Germany on my right; Die ossie
And West Germany on my left; Die wessie
Then like Jesus balancing and walking
On the waters of Lake Galilee
I will balance on Berlin wall
And call one of my faithful followers from Germany
The strong hearted Friedrich von Schiller
To climb the Berlin wall with me
So that we can sing his dystopic Cassandra as a duet
We shall sing and balance on the wall of Berlin
Schiller’s beauteous song of Cassandra;

(Mirth the halls of Troy was filling,
Ere its lofty ramparts fell;
From the golden lute so thrilling
Hymns of joy were heard to swell.
From the sad and tearful slaughter
All had laid their arms aside,
For Pelides Priam's daughter
Claimed then as his own fair bride.

Laurel branches with them bearing,
Troop on troop in bright array
To the temples were repairing,
Owning Thymbrius' sovereign sway.
Through the streets, with frantic measure,
Danced the bacchanal mad round,
And, amid the radiant pleasure,
Only one sad breast was found.

Joyless in the midst of gladness,
None to heed her, none to love,
Roamed Cassandra, plunged in sadness,
To Apollo's laurel grove.
To its dark and deep recesses
Swift the sorrowing priestess hied,
And from off her flowing tresses
Tore the sacred band, and cried:

"All around with joy is beaming,
Ev'ry heart is happy now,
And my sire is fondly dreaming,
Wreathed with flowers my sister's brow
I alone am doomed to wailing,
That sweet vision flies from me;
In my mind, these walls assailing,
Fierce destruction I can see."

"Though a torch I see all-glowing,
Yet 'tis not in *****'s hand;
Smoke across the skies is blowing,
Yet 'tis from no votive brand.
Yonder see I feasts entrancing,
But in my prophetic soul,
Hear I now the God advancing,
Who will steep in tears the bowl!"

"And they blame my lamentation,
And they laugh my grief to scorn;
To the haunts of desolation
I must bear my woes forlorn.
All who happy are, now shun me,
And my tears with laughter see;
Heavy lies thy hand upon me,
Cruel Pythian deity!"

"Thy divine decrees foretelling,
Wherefore hast thou thrown me here,
Where the ever-blind are dwelling,
With a mind, alas, too clear?
Wherefore hast thou power thus given,
What must needs occur to know?
Wrought must be the will of Heaven--
Onward come the hour of woe!"

"When impending fate strikes terror,
Why remove the covering?
Life we have alone in error,
Knowledge with it death must bring.
Take away this prescience tearful,
Take this sight of woe from me;
Of thy truths, alas! how fearful
'Tis the mouthpiece frail to be!"

"Veil my mind once more in slumbers
Let me heedlessly rejoice;
Never have I sung glad numbers
Since I've been thy chosen voice.
Knowledge of the future giving,
Thou hast stolen the present day,
Stolen the moment's joyous living,--
Take thy false gift, then, away!"

"Ne'er with bridal train around me,
Have I wreathed my radiant brow,
Since to serve thy fane I bound me--
Bound me with a solemn vow.
Evermore in grief I languish--
All my youth in tears was spent;
And with thoughts of bitter anguish
My too-feeling heart is rent."

"Joyously my friends are playing,
All around are blest and glad,
In the paths of pleasure straying,--
My poor heart alone is sad.
Spring in vain unfolds each treasure,
Filling all the earth with bliss;
Who in life can e'er take pleasure,
When is seen its dark abyss?"

"With her heart in vision burning,
Truly blest is Polyxene,
As a bride to clasp him yearning.
Him, the noblest, best Hellene!
And her breast with rapture swelling,
All its bliss can scarcely know;
E'en the Gods in heavenly dwelling
Envying not, when dreaming so."

"He to whom my heart is plighted
Stood before my ravished eye,
And his look, by passion lighted,
Toward me turned imploringly.
With the loved one, oh, how gladly
Homeward would I take my flight
But a Stygian shadow sadly
Steps between us every night."

"Cruel Proserpine is sending
All her spectres pale to me;
Ever on my steps attending
Those dread shadowy forms I see.
Though I seek, in mirth and laughter
Refuge from that ghastly train,
Still I see them hastening after,--
Ne'er shall I know joy again."

"And I see the death-steel glancing,
And the eye of ****** glare;
On, with hasty strides advancing,
Terror haunts me everywhere.
Vain I seek alleviation;--
Knowing, seeing, suffering all,
I must wait the consummation,
In a foreign land must fall."

While her solemn words are ringing,
Hark! a dull and wailing tone
From the temple's gate upspringing,--
Dead lies Thetis' mighty son!
Eris shakes her snake-locks hated,
Swiftly flies each deity,
And o'er Ilion's walls ill-fated
Thunder-clouds loom heavily!)

When the Gestapoes get impatient
We shall not climb down to walk on earth
Because by this time  of utopia
Thespis and Muse the gods of poetry
Would have given us the wings to fly
To fly high over England, I and schiller
We shall not land any where in London
Nor perch to any of the English tree
Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Thales
We shall not land there in these lands
The waters of river Thames we shall not drink
We shall fly higher over England
The queen of England we shall not commune
For she is my lender; has lend me the language
English language in which I am chanting
My dystopic songs, poor me! What a cacotopia!
If she takes her language away from
I will remain poetically dead
In the Universe of art and culture
I will form a huge palimpsest of African poetry
Friedrich son of schiller please understand me
Let us not land in England lest I loose
My borrowed tools of worker back to the owner,
But instead let us fly higher in to the azure
The zenith of the sky where the eagles never dare
And call the English bard
through  our high shrilled eagle’s contralto
William Shakespeare to come up
In the English sky; to our treat of poetic blitzkrieg
Please dear schiller we shall tell the bard of London
To come up with his three Luftwaffe
These will be; the deer he stole from the rich farmer
Once when he was a lad in the rural house of john the father,
Second in order is the Hamlet the price of Denmark
Thirdly is  his beautiful song of the **** of lucrece,
We shall ask the bard to return back the deer to the owner
Three of ourselves shall enjoy together dystopia in Hamlet
And ask Shakespeare to sing for us his song
In which he saw a man **** Lucrece; the **** of Lucrece;

( From the besieged Ardea all in post,
Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,
Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host,
And to Collatium bears the lightless fire
Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire
  And girdle with embracing flames the waist
  Of Collatine's fair love, Lucrece the chaste.

Haply that name of chaste unhapp'ly set
This bateless edge on his keen appetite;
When Collatine unwisely did not let
To praise the clear unmatched red and white
Which triumph'd in that sky of his delight,
  Where mortal stars, as bright as heaven's beauties,
  With pure aspects did him peculiar duties.

For he the night before, in Tarquin's tent,
Unlock'd the treasure of his happy state;
What priceless wealth the heavens had him lent
In the possession of his beauteous mate;
Reckoning his fortune at such high-proud rate,
  That kings might be espoused to more fame,
  But king nor peer to such a peerless dame.

O happiness enjoy'd but of a few!
And, if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done
As is the morning's silver-melting dew
Against the golden splendour of the sun!
An expir'd date, cancell'd ere well begun:
  Honour and beauty, in the owner's arms,
  Are weakly fortress'd from a world of harms.

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator;
What needeth then apologies be made,
To set forth that which is so singular?
Or why is Collatine the publisher
  Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown
  From thievish ears, because it is his own?

Perchance his boast of Lucrece' sovereignty
Suggested this proud issue of a king;
For by our ears our hearts oft tainted be:
Perchance that envy of so rich a thing,
Braving compare, disdainfully did sting
  His high-pitch'd thoughts, that meaner men should vaunt
  That golden hap which their superiors want)

  
I and Schiller we shall be the audience
When Shakespeare will echo
The enemies of beauty as
It is weakly protected in the arms of Othello.

I and Schiller we don’t know places in Greece
But Shakespeare’s mother comes from Greece
And Shakespeare’s wife comes from Athens
Shakespeare thus knows Greece like Pericles,
We shall not land anywhere on the way
But straight we shall be let
By Shakespeare to Greece
Into the inner chamber of calypso
Lest the Cyclopes eat us whole meal
We want to redeem Homer from the
Love detention camp of calypso
Where he has dallied nine years in the wilderness
Wilderness of love without reaching home
I will ask Homer to introduce me
To Muse, Clio and Thespis
The three spiritualities of poetry
That gave Homer powers to graft the epics
Of Iliad and Odyssey centerpieces of Greece dystopia
I will ask Homer to chant and sing for us the epical
Songs of love, Grecian cradle of utopia
Where Cyclopes thrive on heavyweight cacotopia
Please dear Homer kindly sing for us;
(Thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun we
feasted our fill on meat and drink, but when the sun went down and
it came on dark, we camped upon the beach. When the child of
morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, I bade my men on board and
loose the hawsers. Then they took their places and smote the grey
sea with their oars; so we sailed on with sorrow in our hearts, but
glad to have escaped death though we had lost our comrades)
                                  
From Greece to Africa the short route  is via India
The sub continent of India where humanity
Flocks like the oceans of women and men
The land in which Romesh Tulsi
Grafted Ramayana and Mahabharata
The handbook of slavery and caste prejudice
The land in which Gujarat Indian tongue
In the cheeks of Rabidranathe Tagore
Was awarded a Poetical honour
By Alfred Nobel minus any Nemesis
From the land of Scandinavia,
I will implore Tagore to sing for me
The poem which made Nobel to give him a prize
I will ask Tagore to sing in English
The cacotopia and utopia that made India
An oversized dystopia that man has ever seen,
Tagore sing please Tagore sing for me your beggarly heat;

(When the heart is hard and parched up,
come upon me with a shower of mercy.

When grace is lost from life,
come with a burst of song.

When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from
beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.

When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner,
break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.

When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one,
thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder)



The heart of beggar must be
A hard heart for it to glorify in the art of begging,

I don’t like begging
This is knot my heart suffered
From my childhood experience
I saw my mother
Continue reading...
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Feelings Of A Republican On The Fall Of Bonaparte
I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan
To think that a most unambitious slave,
Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave
Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne
Where it had stood even now: thou didst prefer
A frail and ****** pomp which Time has swept
In fragments towards Oblivion. Massacre,
For this I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept,
Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust,
And stifled thee, their minister. I know
Too late, since thou and France are in the dust,
That Virtue owns a more eternal foe
Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime,
And ****** Faith the foulest birth of Time.
Continue reading...
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2020
bonaparte cue in a queue: bellamy!
belgravia on itv... and the world is filled with...
odes to charlemagne -
or rather: the emperor has risen...
in the form of a bonaparte...

       i lost my virginity to a french girl
from Grenoble - a one ms. psychologist
Isa-bel-l'ah...

              and i had three pictures hanging
in my student accomodation overlooking
the salisbury crags...
           one i put my amp on the windowsill
and did a rendition of...
                            something from the movie
crow / last days...

there was plato... there was the marquis de sade...
and then there was napoleon...

i was immediately reminded...
but napoleon did x y and z...
       i could swear the zeitgeist for us begins
with the end of the 2nd world war?
well: i lost my virginity... didn't i?
          
             and come to think of...
there is the trafalgar sq. in London...
      and there's the monument when it came
to Austerlitz victory...

           napoleon and that old bias...
for all those that encompassed in the duchy of warsaw...
or from under the partition
shared between the prussian the russian
and the austro-hungarian empire...

a short-lived affair... but...
        she minded napoleon but not marquis de sade...
come forward 200 years...
what are the monuments of the 2nd world war?
what are the... ******* monuments of the 1st world
war?
the cemeteries at Ypres for western europe...
the death camp memorials
   and the little ghetto lockets of memory and:
gypsy good fortune in the east?

a picture of the mushroom eating
and clinging onto the flesh of men and animals
in a symbiosis and mind-control dynamics
of the fungus keeping the host alive...
unlike a virus?

   where are the monuments for all that was
achieved in the two wars?
where's the trafalgar sq. where's the arc de triomphe?
between 1803–1815
   or between 1939–1945... well...
              12 years is not 6...
                  i guess you can't achieve much of any
sort of "meaningful" war if...
there's not a decade included in the mix...

oh i'm sure it's going to be hard to imagine
the führer as the kaiser...
     because: dressed in khaki like a whittle
hanzel schoolboy when all the big boys
started to wear schwarzgekleidet of zee SS...

from a perspective of history...
                             i am unsure as to why...
this ms. psychology major would grieve
the affairs of napoleon...
                             perhaps if he was a bit taller...
she might have a fancy for him...
then again... as kaiser... as emperor...
come to think of it...
the notation: Frank would included
the swiss... the belgians the dutch...
luxembourg...
       but not those rascals...
in the rhineland-palatinate...
            or north-rhine-westphalia...

schubert symphony no. 4 in c-minor, D. 417...
i always thought that schubert...
was the pianist competing with violins
to tackle shumann... never mind...

     then again: illuminating life of those
that still have a toe in the remaining posit
of life... yet 3/4 of what life is willing to offer
has both feet in the coffin and a last nail
to beg for the closure and funeral procession
of that chapter of human details
to be: ascribed to the realms of solely learning...
about it... there's no great-grandma with
her wheelbarrow of memories to grant
you "perspectives"...

he was a führer... but not the kaiser...
come to think of it...
the rise and fall... from the confines of being
rejected from an art-college...

today one of my cats (i only have two)
accidently burned the hairs of her tail
when she signatured it (the tail) across
a burning candle... and... you wouldn't believe it...
the smell of burnt cat furr...
i can imagine escaping my episodes of
solipsism when venturing into sniffing
someone else's farts to be more appealing...
than the smell of... the burning of cat furr...

i did remark... i don't think it was all that
pleasant working as butchers in those concentration
camps... if the burning of cat furr smells so bad...
if the burning of skin, nails...
bones... i'm starting to think it was a hell-hole
for both the camp "workers" and....
those about to be forced on the altar
of the belly of Moloch...

                          and when the hebrew god
conquered the gods of the philistines
and the caanites...
      did he "fall asleep"...
    thinking they wouldn't somehow use
people that wouldn't otherwise pay direct
homage to them... for their devilish enterprises?

where are the monumets from world
war I or world II that aren't cemeteries
or memorials or the death camps themselves?
there's not point merely seeing...
imagine going to Handel's messiah
at the royal albert hall...
           and only seeing an orchestra play...
most associated with seeing are:
the quality of either inanimate objects
or moving objects...
but there isn't a mention of the sounds locked
in brimfuls in these things...
but most importantly... i can't smell that
death circus...
well... no matter... i don't need to visit those
death camps and pay some spezial ode to
memory: it will just take a cat accidently burn
its tail furr brushing it over a candle...
that's enough... thank you...

           i don't need to see those camps...
not out of denial outright...
but... without the scent of burning hair
and flesh... the infamous cracow's winter
snow of cremations...

but the smell is missing...
i don't need to visit these places
for a picture of unused hammers and nails...
in their pristine gothica of still slippery when
kept in a mummified state of being
oiled for use... i don't like to rumminate in
echoes of: what this oven was used for...
the scent has subsided like a tide
and all that's exposed is never the living
proof... i have archeological proof...
that it is so sudden... doesn't matter...
i don't have the "perfume" to riddle me
with an immediacy of a recoil!
for that? i just need a cat to accidently burn
a few hairs of its tail over a candle...

it's one of those needle injections straight
into the nostrils...
seeing the oven will do very little to give
an expanse of my: sisyphean weight to tow
along...

faster than the speed of light:
or the digestion imprint of a photograph...
faster than the speed of sound...

    ssssssssssssssssssssscent...
          i don't need to see what other people decided
to want and see...
the burning of flesh and most notably unwashed
hair and furr...
       that's plenty...
i don't want to discourage myself from
cooking anything else in the future...

sometimes my room becomes a hotel for
either moths or flies...
i currently have an early waker...
she must be nearing being a year old...
you can tell... her flight is more methodological...
it isn't that usual flurry and all
that excited presence of itself: unique
in a bounty of life...
i will not bother this fly...
        if she was a mosquito... perhaps i would...

i am longing to see the spawn "maggots"
of moths eat and curl up in cotton...

where are the monuments to call it:
the end of world war I and world war II...
it's as if... it has to be shamed...
this whole genesis story from half-way
between the past century...
and into this... swamp-en-masse...

          last time i checked... that "something"
between the serbians and the croats
and the muslims of yugoslavia...
                    the 13th waffen mountain division...
or head east... the ukranian infamous
insurgent army...
        only recently i heard some major
****-wits decided to drill holes into the tires
of ambulances... near bristol...

as a perfectly just cold blooded heart...
is the crucifixion the epitome of a demigod's death?
what about... being spiked?
being forced onto a pike via
the architecture of where the intestines
meet the coccyx... the *******...
the ****... and the pelvis?
with hands tied?
what about hanging off a meat-hook...
with the meat-hook making the incission under the jaw?
hands and legs tied?

the crucifixion is just an out-dated symbol
of sacrifice... no wonder all that came after
had to become so... more... adventurous...
wouldn't we be foolish when it came to slacking
on the chapter of torture?

but at least one aspect of life can be still felt
to be pure, "aryan"... un-disturbed...
pain... is so un-interrupted by competing
subjectivities... that... well...
it's almost akin to cross paths with god...
pain is pure in that it is true...
forever: there's that other great democratic force
at work than mere death...
by the time we're through death is but
a bureucratic notation of a statistic:
a near miss of anonymity...

                there's that great leveller of pain...
from a simple toothache...
it's as if an ****** that comes on the wings of
being... a sedative of consciousness...
pain as that...
   pain is an inoculate agent against reality...
against consciousness...
all for that ****** of dreams...
lucky for me... i don't dream so well...
i forrest gump the whole affair...

some would think pain as a defining moment
an event horizon for their numb-skulled
crossword puzzle zeniths of "life"...
     i see pain more in favour of...
      i want to be cured from having to curate
so many mediocrities of this life:
as served and as service for others...
so dilligent at being busy-bodies in the shelter
of hierarchies and the shadows of:
the impossible perfection of mountain
replicas of Giza...

pain is illumination...
    beginning with a toothache...
once this temp. filling is ready to be scrubbed out...
and a root canal is to be fitted...
i think i'll begin with an oyster-esque "typo"
readying myself for an ******
when asked 'would you like an anaesthetic'
and the reply will be... 'no'...
                 clearly i don't have as many
avenues as are readily available
when it comes to a holy trinity of mouth,
******... *******...

      self-serving pleasures of the extensions
of pinching... by either crap pincers
or the cold of virus simulation of crowns
when having an ice-cube placed into my palm...

in that i am wholly sympathetic to pain...
well... what good did reading walter benjamin's
illumination(s) essay do to me...
beside what i already know about...
the difference between collecting books...
and collecting books and reading them...

              my personal library would shrink somewhat...
given that i own pretty much an assortment
of what has already been read:
i'm not my grandmother:
unlike watching a film... i can't re-read a book...
give me 2 years reading one...
but i will not re-read it!

this extension of a mollusk's zenith via
a ******... of all that's the sensation that rhymes
heart with brain...

         tow the bones...
       tow the bones...
                   come to the horizon where
the soft tissue blitzkriegs past the bone to the marrow...

arable lure of the prosthetic ghost, limb...
and limp...
       soft zenith pleasure...
while at the same time...
entertaining "things" that only secular
sensibility measures can instill...
do not cross paths with mythology:
goodness! you might forget being
snarky and insensible come tomorrow's year
monday when journalism catches
up from... "somehow" being detached
from her de facto and carpe diem
mantras of modus operandi!

i might call it: the moth's seal of the lips...
enough to lick a postage stamp...
hardly enough to actually kiss...

sold: christianity: metaphorical cannibalism...
i would rather taste the real thing...
if ever such an opportunity should
give sway...

       a führer is not a kaiser... back in the day...
there was respect in post-napoleonic war London...
in belgravia...
how did the h'american white house originate...
the Belveder of Warsaw...
vermin, peoples of the world: nibble...

                   i'm here to claim my future:
my anonymity... i'm here to scatter with the dues
of the frail... waiting for no clarity of
locked: stature worded in baron...
no stature worded in kaiser... führer...
      i am on the sole minding of... the gnostics...
the heretics...

i want to burn blue when all other dogmatic
breaths burn yellow...
           that i drink is of no solace...
bribe the reader! inner vacuum otherwise
a handshake with my shadow... by candlelight...
which is a bribe for an audience of death:
that personification on a theme of romance...
thanatos... chilling the spine...
and the serpentine...

                    i want to see the gallows...
and allure of seeing ***** and rot come oozing
from their baptised fleshy bits...
i want to be curator of the last abolished screech
of existence... i wand to hush them...
by sharpening a knife...
i want to find the idle fork...
i want to find the crown of ferns...
and kick and stab... the house of already dead
roman emperors... sitting... nay...
loitering... the anger of pride on their
laurels...

             napoleon... even with a name like that...
you can stomach the usual: steak becoming
a lump of minced beef...
but when it's ****** or stalin...
czopek or elert...
                    you'd wish for a horsehoof
to be dubbed: smith...
                     -smithy...
or some other... lucky you: frauman...
                      fregel...            made it up as
we went along...

yep... yep... i get it... drinks a whiskey...
****** out a lemonade...
and for whatever "genius": genius...
that third tier of being... not spawned by the gods...
but by man... in between angels and demons...
the geniuses...
that autistic master-class of...
****'s itching kinda eerie!

   i'm drunk: most of the people are sober...
i'm not going to have to
give an apologetics lecture on the sober
sods... am i?
romance period... a bit like being
a modern brit and all that wham!
sputnik dazzle of the: grit brighton!

jokes aside... the winged hussar...
                   also mongol...
******* that clad themselves in dog ****
to imitate... what would later become...
the 365 harem of an alexander...
          
   would it be any good reading
the greeks?
     can you really want to "catch-up" on so
much... when in fact you should be
reading the people who have re(a)d...
the ancient greeks?

here's me taking heidegger's advice...
spend 12 years reading aristotle...
          martin... oi oi... that leaves
me doing more work than the already
work required in pretending to be catholic...
and doing a spin-off sunday...
how about me just reads up on yous...
how's that?
2 years worth of you... is about...
       whatever it took you to "master"
aristoteles: ah-chew: chow-mein sucker...

     life is or at least has become or will
become... too impertinent...
  then again... lassitudes of being kept
in the confines of one's own allowances...
i can't expect... in the same way...
i can't become expectent...
it's a two-way-swoe-order in the guise
of a phoenix... (missing phenotypes)...

             the best held advent of:
if you weren't a part of pappa's genocide of
a clarifying sputnik's *****-out
into frog's dream-alike all mammalian
when you're already on your way out
with the moloch altar sacrifice of
no foetus would be born...

call it a... champagne bottle uncorking
ritual when it comes to...
and all that other drifting ritual
of "entropy" whenever a sobering / ***
note would awake a hannibal lecturer
for and what more...
that was necessary...

           stipends of: gotcha...
eagles - witchy woman...
ol' cliff does a little number:
like no intro for a jazz megahit
quintet when the bass comes along...
devil woman...
or the totally camp...
  dale winton...
because turning totally gay only
arrived in full bloom and daffodils
in the trenches...
when true gay arrived...
well... any other hole to fill...

              this hole's better than
any ****** eye's...
who's that backdoor man of
assorted gifts, to begin with?

          rhyme rhymes rhyme rhymes...
easily to make a happy than no
alcoholic into a: no thank you...
  
                                   discretely...
suburban... those desperado... casa-esposa...
the pride of the son: a mother...
that's usually enforced...

las orgullo de hijo: una madre...
           bad spanish... bad german...
mongrel of the either and some anglican
and some ****** catholic...

                                        if there was still something
of a worthwhile partition of time...
****** was never going to become
the next napoleon...
even though... invading russia was
a plagiarism... and the retrdo-event of all
that waste of time... 200 years
and the waste of time with the air onslought
for the battle of britain...
the u-boats...

     no mention of waiting a while...
     in that "what if" universe of revising...
one two three four... with:
einz zwei drei vier...

or... the eager panzermensch...
and that tunnel under the sea...
         it can be noted that a 100 year war
did exist... between the english and the french...

if the napoleonic wars have the monuments...
for what sort of reasons were
the 20th century "ende von alles kriege ende"...
******* proxies of the yugoslav conflict...
vietnam...
        
the monuments of the greatest wars of man...
monumets? cemeteries... or the death camps...
was this the turning point where...
death by war was to be... lessened by
omittance: "keep calm and carry on" *******?
the celebrated en masse of one single
male *******?

how isn't citing german...
an exfoliation from speaking mere peasant
english?
der zunge ist berufung die gegenwart:
ein vater: ein vaterzunge!

scheisse und höllegrube mit es!
                der "vaterland": fathers of daughters
of would be mothers... mothers of sons
of would be fathers... motherland... fatherland...
mothertongue... a ******* great big itch
of grammatical concerns! blah!

where are these monuments akin to trafalgar sq.?!
what's to be so... gloated... about defeating the nazis?
where is the gloat in mere words...
but sorely missed when it comes to sacrificing
bone and marrow and muscle
to focus on making escapades of marble?!
where... are... these... monuments?!

      my own shadow overshadows the testimonies
of... two... very... minor... wars...
perhaps world war I had covered one or two
hurt prides... hurt egos...
but... after all... a khaki attired boyscout...
when all the bad boys
were later... morphed by hugo boss
into schwarzgekleidet steinherzimmobilien...

ein führer ist nein (ein) kaiser...
not like the title napoleon acquired...
napoleon was cited as: emperor...
        a reicarnation of charlemagne...
   too bad for whoever barbarossa was...
  rutger hauer?! yes... but rutger was, dutch...
for ****'s sake!

napoleon was crowned emperor
in a church...
****** walked into an opera house...
heard some wagner...
some wagner not in that anemic proposal
of the walhall from das rheingold
via michele campanella...

              all that becomes the litany...
prior to the peeling to the basic grammar...
and then an attack on pronouns...
as if all languages had...
gender-neutral nouns of the anglican-sphere
of "talk"...

strip me down the the Diogenes' basics of
sodden cloth and dogs' **** to attire...
perhaps i'll show you Cleopatra smile...
or Mona Lisa frown...
             whatever might be the eventuality...
this is not it; nor could it ever be... "it";
the "it" of what you seek.
Continue reading...
Taylor Smith Jan 2014
Ode to Misogyny
Misogyny,
The hatered, objectification, and sexualization of women

His hands were too big for my eight year old body
My stomach turned in ways I could only describe as "icky"
I screamed until I could no longer feel any breath left in my lungs
"Stop it! Please! I don't like this game. Daddy stop!"
Time slows
Seeming like an eternity
Every touch was like a sparkler
Burning while tracing the path his fingers left on my body
When he was finally done
I gathered my thoughts and prayed to God to save me
When I went to the bathroom to clean up
I saw his handwriting on the mirror
Scrawled across it was a verse saying Hell was my only destiny
My body is not a bag of bones for you to play with and the burry
Poisonous words foam from your mouth like rabid dogs You pick pieces of my pride from your teeth
You think it’s okay to mess with women
To make them feel vulnerable
Just because you have a Napoleon Bonaparte complex That does not give you the right to steal our self-esteem To make up for the lack of your own
You say “Well maybe YOU shouldn’t have worn those slutty heals,
Or that dress,
Or your hair that way.”
You say “Maybe YOU should have done something
to avoid being a target.”
You say “Stop being so disrespectful.
I just wanted to see your ****.”
You have a real flair for excuses
So excuse me when I tell you
You will regret messing with a woman like me
You see, I keep my heart strapped to my steel-toed combat boots
And an army of mistreated women of speed-dial
We will hold you captive and make our war paint from your blood
As ransom notes fall from your mouth
With the words “I’m sorry” scrawled across them I hate to break it to you
But those words won’t sew up the open wounds you left us with
When you came in to *** in and steal our innocence
The thing you don’t seem to realize is
You might have taken our innocence
But that’s not what we are made of
We consume strength for breakfast,
Courage for lunch,
Wisdom for dinner,
And guys like you for a midnight snack.
We’re not just warriors
Were survivors
What you do to us doesn't define us
Were not broken
Were beautiful
And the more I think about it
You’re just dogs chained to a tree
While I’m the person
Who’s going to put your treachery to sleep.
Continue reading...
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2018
David
.oh yeah... chris isaak's: wiucked game - plenty of "facts" went into taping as many covers as the song spontaneously made replica... so many objective "facts"... too many to count... when will certain subjective taboos be recognized and other, objective "truths" be denied?! how long must humanity be obliged to secure the argument by "confusion" be deemed liberation as necessarily-arguing the case of confiscatory material? what?! my grammar is bad? if my grammar is so ******* bad... ask someone from Rotherham!

.i tend to forget that people have this, collective amnesia regarding subjectivity, somehow they only associate it with news spew... they vaguely recognize an old widow walking from a surgery to a bust stop, stopping my a lavender bush, to pick a few flowers off of it... like some quasi Notre Dame hunchback... joyous that she bypassed all the ghost souls on the "waiting list" of an English doctor, joyous... clearly innocent... there can never be a place in this world for objective truths... objectivity is limited in the realm of aesthetics... whereby objectivity is a truth: whereby two uncorrelated people say the same thing... but  when it comes to a taste in music? what is objectivity that focuses on the differentiated between the sound of Wagner with / without an orchestra... and a traffic jam? objectively? both are sounds... extreme comparisons... but you can't call one black and the other #A, can you? subjectivity is not a 1-dimensional propaganda machine, it is also a truth... and when it comes to aesthetics... within the confines of personal taste(s)... i can say Wagner works better without an orchestra than with one... but... you can't tell the two apart... subjectivity is not a bias... it is a profound truth... in comparison objectivity's claim for truth is a tirade, compensated by the mere excavation deposit of journalism, which is becoming ever more fractured in compensation; it was always the case that life, expired prior to the, death... but now? it appears? death expires prior to a, life. Wagner isn't anemic without the orchestra... Wagner merely hijacks an orchestra to overdo the purpose of the piano... to enrapture a concert hall; nothing more, and i wouldn't expect nothing less.

i'm drunk...

  you're sober...

good luck
reconciling either,

even if either:

invokes:

         none....

   who gave the reigns
to the internet,
under a sober guise?

****! quick!
catch me a moth in a lampshade
and send me off to
a CIA acid camp!

IVANA BELIEVE!
and congregate
like a ******* beehive!

or a termite mount...
whichever...
            what?
i'm drunk... you're sober...
    
unless you have some
fetish for Swedish pop music
akin to Roxette...
  we, have, seriously,
nothing, to, talk, about...

  savvy? is that privy enough
for you?

tell me the difference between:
i have no rank, no lābrador
to mind suite for an orchestra
worth a Wagner...

**** it... i just watched
Apocalypse Now...
   3 and a half hours of what i could
make of the heart of darkness...
prior to the ride of the valkyries...

but to be honest...
i'm with david...
             take of pure piano...
of Wagner's
     the entry of the gods into Valhalla...
sole, piano... it's not anemic...
it's justified interpretation,
it''s... the justified counter
to Chopin...
  a refined honesty...
                 i never liked
Chopin...
   unlike most Polacks...
i never like Jean-Paul II either...
like most Polacks...

i'd envision a Jean-Paul II emeritus...
like all old Polacks lay claim:
it you have been nice to see
an otherwise different,
process of dethroning...

no... the orchestra undermines
Wagner... the piano will do,
for now, for as long as it takes...
the piece doesn't require orchestration...
if the mere piano makes the pieces
anemic...
then the orchestra makes is
gluttonous...
  
people shouldn't expect their children
to be intelligent by merely
listening to classical music...
what they should expect...
is listening to classical music...
elaborating into jazz...
and then coming back into classical music...

why do i hear such horrors...
that the only classical music made pop...
is classical music underscoring
moving image...
why is the only classical music
"worth" listening to...
the music composed for movies,
or at least, incorporated
into them?

            no... Wagner is not anemic
on the sole basis of piano...
     das rheingold: is not anemic...
Chopin might be...
with his intricacies...
a bountiful butterfly in the age
of Bonaparte...
              
               but? listening to the piano?
of Wagner's exclusion of
orchestra?

   Handel is the new Bach...
and Wagner is the new Chopin...

you don't make toddlers listen to classical music
because they might be better
at arithmetic like some prized
monkey who later struggles
with economic biases -
or tax returns...

                     you need a classical
music appreciation,
to hit against jazz...
and if it doesn't return to classical
music?
then the original investment was
worth... zilch!

       orchestra ruins what perfects,
or rather allows Wagner
to stand-out from a Baroque tradition
of Germanic exfoliation...
   and hurts, hurts...
hurts the gentile spirit of a Schubert
or a Schumann...
      
the just Libra interlude hanging
within a composition,
the dangling in the air...
or a dire, interlude, a dire... note...

                   Wagner minus
orchestra...
                      what a fine affair to...
anticipate:

                                              ­    en oeuvre.
Continue reading...
Victor Hugo
Le parti du crime
« Amis et frères ! en présence de ce gouvernement infâme, négation de toute morale, obstacle à tout progrès social, en présence de ce gouvernement meurtrier du peuple, assassin de la République et violateur des lois, de ce gouvernement né de la force et qui doit périr par la force, de ce gouvernement élevé par le crime et qui doit être terrassé par le droit, le français digne du nom de citoyen ne sait pas, ne veut pas savoir s'il y a quelque part des semblants de scrutin, des comédies de suffrage universel et des parodies d'appel à la nation ; il ne s'informe pas s'il y a des hommes qui votent et des hommes qui font voter, s'il y a un troupeau qu'on appelle le sénat et qui délibère et un autre troupeau qu'on appelle le peuple et qui obéit ; il ne s'informe pas si le pape va sacrer au maître-autel de Notre-Dame l'homme qui - n'en doutez pas, ceci est l'avenir inévitable - sera ferré au poteau par le bourreau ; - en présence de M. Bonaparte et de son gouvernement, le citoyen digne de ce nom ne fait qu'une chose et n'a qu'une chose à faire : charger son fusil, et attendre l'heure.

Jersey, le 31 octobre 1852.


Déclaration des proscrits républicains de Jersey, à propos de l'empire, publiée par le Moniteur, signée pour copie conforme :

VICTOR HUGO, FAURE, FOMBERTAUX.


« Nous flétrissons de l'énergie la plus vigoureuse de notre âme les ignobles et coupables manifestes du Parti du Crime. »

(RIANCEY, JOURNAL L'UNION, 22 NOVEMBRE.)

« Le Parti du Crime relève la tête. »

(TOUS LES JOURNAUX ÉLYSÉENS EN CHOEUR.)



Ainsi ce gouvernant dont l'ongle est une griffe,
Ce masque impérial, Bonaparte apocryphe,
À coup sûr Beauharnais, peut-être Verhueil,
Qui, pour la mettre en croix, livra, sbire cruel,
Rome républicaine à Rome catholique,
Cet homme, l'assassin de la chose publique,
Ce parvenu, choisi par le destin sans yeux,
Ainsi, lui, ce glouton singeant l'ambitieux,
Cette altesse quelconque habile aux catastrophes,
Ce loup sur qui je lâche une meute de strophes,
Ainsi ce boucanier, ainsi ce chourineur
À fait d'un jour d'orgueil un jour de déshonneur,
Mis sur la gloire un crime et souillé la victoire
Il a volé, l'infâme, Austerlitz à l'histoire ;
Brigand, dans ce trophée il a pris un poignard ;
Il a broyé bourgeois, ouvrier, campagnard ;
Il a fait de corps morts une horrible étagère
Derrière les barreaux de la cité Bergère ;
Il s'est, le sabre en main, rué sur son serment ;
Il a tué les lois et le gouvernement,
La justice, l'honneur, tout, jusqu'à l'espérance
Il a rougi de sang, de ton sang pur, ô France,
Tous nos fleuves, depuis la Seine jusqu'au Var ;
Il a conquis le Louvre en méritant Clamar ;
Et maintenant il règne, appuyant, ô patrie,
Son vil talon fangeux sur ta bouche meurtrie
Voilà ce qu'il a fait ; je n'exagère rien ;
Et quand, nous indignant de ce galérien,
Et de tous les escrocs de cette dictature,
Croyant rêver devant cette affreuse aventure,
Nous disons, de dégoût et d'horreur soulevés :
- Citoyens, marchons ! Peuple, aux armes, aux pavés !
À bas ce sabre abject qui n'est pas même un glaive !
Que le jour reparaisse et que le droit se lève ! -
C'est nous, proscrits frappés par ces coquins hardis,
Nous, les assassinés, qui sommes les bandits !
Nous qui voulons le meurtre et les guerres civiles !
Nous qui mettons la torche aux quatre coins des villes !

Donc, trôner par la mort, fouler aux pieds le droit
Etre fourbe, impudent, cynique, atroce, adroit ;
Dire : je suis César, et n'être qu'un maroufle
Etouffer la pensée et la vie et le souffle ;
Forcer quatre-vingt-neuf qui marche à reculer ;
Supprimer lois, tribune et presse ; museler
La grande nation comme une bête fauve ;
Régner par la caserne et du fond d'une alcôve ;
Restaurer les abus au profit des félons
Livrer ce pauvre peuple aux voraces Troplongs,
Sous prétexte qu'il fut, **** des temps où nous sommes,
Dévoré par les rois et par les gentilshommes
Faire manger aux chiens ce reste des lions ;
Prendre gaîment pour soi palais et millions ;
S'afficher tout crûment satrape, et, sans sourdines,
Mener joyeuse vie avec des gourgandines
Torturer des héros dans le bagne exécré ;
Bannir quiconque est ferme et fier ; vivre entouré
De grecs, comme à Byzance autrefois le despote
Etre le bras qui tue et la main qui tripote
Ceci, c'est la justice, ô peuple, et la vertu !
Et confesser le droit par le meurtre abattu
Dans l'exil, à travers l'encens et les fumées,
Dire en face aux tyrans, dire en face aux armées
- Violence, injustice et force sont vos noms
Vous êtes les soldats, vous êtes les canons ;
La terre est sous vos pieds comme votre royaume
Vous êtes le colosse et nous sommes l'atome ;
Eh bien ! guerre ! et luttons, c'est notre volonté,
Vous, pour l'oppression, nous, pour la liberté ! -
Montrer les noirs pontons, montrer les catacombes,
Et s'écrier, debout sur la pierre des tombes.
- Français ! craignez d'avoir un jour pour repentirs
Les pleurs des innocents et les os des martyrs !
Brise l'homme sépulcre, ô France ! ressuscite !
Arrache de ton flanc ce Néron parasite !
Sors de terre sanglante et belle, et dresse-toi,
Dans une main le glaive et dans l'autre la loi ! -
Jeter ce cri du fond de son âme proscrite,
Attaquer le forban, démasquer l'hypocrite
Parce que l'honneur parle et parce qu'il le faut,
C'est le crime, cela ! - Tu l'entends, toi, là-haut !
Oui, voilà ce qu'on dit, mon Dieu, devant ta face !
Témoin toujours présent qu'aucune ombre n'efface,
Voilà ce qu'on étale à tes yeux éternels !

Quoi ! le sang fume aux mains de tous ces criminels !
Quoi ! les morts, vierge, enfant, vieillards et femmes grosses
Ont à peine eu le temps de pourrir dans leurs fosses !
Quoi ! Paris saigne encor ! quoi ! devant tous les yeux,
Son faux serment est là qui plane dans les cieux !
Et voilà comme parle un tas d'êtres immondes
Ô noir bouillonnement des colères profondes !

Et maint vivant, gavé, triomphant et vermeil,
Reprend : « Ce bruit qu'on fait dérange mon sommeil.
Tout va bien. Les marchands triplent leurs clientèles,
Et nos femmes ne sont que fleurs et que dentelles !
- De quoi donc se plaint-on ? crie un autre quidam ;
En flânant sur l'asphalte et sur le macadam,
Je gagne tous les jours trois cents francs à la Bourse.
L'argent coule aujourd'hui comme l'eau d'une source ;
Les ouvriers maçons ont trois livres dix sous,
C'est superbe ; Paris est sens dessus dessous.
Il paraît qu'on a mis dehors les démagogues.
Tant mieux. Moi j'applaudis les bals et les églogues
Du prince qu'autrefois à tort je reniais.
Que m'importe qu'on ait chassé quelques niais ?
Quant aux morts, ils sont morts. Paix à ces imbéciles !
Vivent les gens d'esprit ! vivent ces temps faciles
Où l'on peut à son choix prendre pour nourricier
Le crédit mobilier ou le crédit foncier !
La république rouge aboie en ses cavernes,
C'est affreux ! Liberté, droit, progrès, balivernes
Hier encor j'empochais une prime d'un franc ;
Et moi, je sens fort peu, j'en conviens, je suis franc,
Les déclamations m'étant indifférentes,
La baisse de l'honneur dans la hausse des rentes. »

Ô langage hideux ! on le tient, on l'entend !
Eh bien, sachez-le donc ; repus au cœur content,
Que nous vous le disions bien une fois pour toutes,
Oui, nous, les vagabonds dispersés sur les routes,
Errant sans passe-port, sans nom et sans foyer,
Nous autres, les proscrits qu'on ne fait pas ployer,
Nous qui n'acceptons point qu'un peuple s'abrutisse,
Qui d'ailleurs ne voulons, tout en voulant justice,
D'aucune représaille et d'aucun échafaud,
Nous, dis-je, les vaincus sur qui Mandrin prévaut,
Pour que la liberté revive, et que la honte
Meure, et qu'à tous les fronts l'honneur serein remonte,
Pour affranchir romains, lombards, germains, hongrois,
Pour faire rayonner, soleil de tous les droits,
La république mère au centre de l'Europe,
Pour réconcilier le palais et l'échoppe,
Pour faire refleurir la fleur Fraternité,
Pour fonder du travail le droit incontesté,
Pour tirer les martyrs de ces bagnes infâmes,
Pour rendre aux fils le père et les maris aux femmes,
Pour qu'enfin ce grand siècle et cette nation
Sortent du Bonaparte et de l'abjection,
Pour atteindre à ce but où notre âme s'élance,
Nous nous ceignons les reins dans l'ombre et le silence
Nous nous déclarons prêts, prêts, entendez-vous bien ?
- Le sacrifice est tout, la souffrance n'est rien, -
Prêts, quand Dieu fera signe, à donner notre vie
Car, à voir ce qui vit, la mort nous fait envie,
Car nous sommes tous mal sous ce drôle effronté,
Vivant, nous sans patrie, et vous sans liberté !

Oui, sachez-le, vous tous que l'air libre importune
Et qui dans ce fumier plantez votre fortune,
Nous ne laisserons pas le peuple s'assoupir ;
Oui, nous appellerons, jusqu'au dernier soupir,
Au secours de la France aux fers et presque éteinte,
Comme nos grands -aïeux, l'insurrection sainte
Nous convierons Dieu même à foudroyer ceci
Et c'est notre pensée et nous sommes ainsi,
Aimant mieux, dût le sort nous broyer sous sa roue,
Voir couler notre sang que croupir votre boue.

Jersey, le 28 janvier 1853.
Continue reading...
Edward Alan Mar 2014
l'Oiseau Jaune
Canto I: Exposition

A dampened quill and wrist unstill
Dare gallop ‘cross the page
Scribbled lines in black do shine
With much and fervent rage

And without fail, they tell their tale:
A passage tried and true
Lasting years, through hopes and fears
On page of yellow hue

Epic tales and loss at sea
Are listed in its text
The hand that writ this hallowed script
Can be no less than hexed

It begged, it sailed, it led a crowd,
It took a lady’s life
It stole, it smote, and always wrote
In volumes more than rife

He took this hand to unknown land
To carve a profound path
He set the sail for times to come
Yet tore himself in half

He lay awake in warm Toulon
In misty-morning May
The yellow birds in shrillest words
Alert him to the day

For too long days and longer nights
He’s waited for the word
The morrow here will mark the first
Of correspondence heard

Bonaparte has rallied here
To Toulon’s bustling bay
Three-fourths a score of battleships
To Egypt make their way

Before the high and mighty men
Joined with the water’s ebb
A note was slipped beneath the door
Assigned to M. Lefèbvre

Finally, a true decree
Has blest his merry course
Soon, eagerly, he’ll set to sea
Lost time his one remorse


Canto II: Aleron

Out to sea are thirty-three
That with me sail the tides
With these men, I trust my life
They follow where I guide

And so we’re gone from warm Toulon
Just days from the decree
Noble men off far ahead
And me with bourgeoisie

Bonaparte has aimed his fleet
To Egypt’s sandy shores
Through pirate gangs and ill intent
His roaring cannons tore

We follow in this taintless route
As far as we can trail
But soon we’ll turn half-way to stern;
To Gibraltar we shall sail

Days upon the Aleron
Are short but riveting
My men maintain their cheery air
And working still, they sing

No more of cloudy restlessness
No more of shady days
The blazing sun and windy waves
Have chased off my malaise

We pull our sheets and head from east
To curve around southwest
Past Ibiza, whose northern shore
Our Aleron caressed

The choppy sea grows thinner
And our nerves become unstill
The pirates of the Barbary Coast
Could leap in for the ****

And now, a sign above the line
Where water meets the sky
A tow’ring plume of certain doom
Is growing ever high

The heavens choke with blackest smoke
As fires burn a boat
The raw, impending fear of Death
Is clawing at my throat


Canto III: Skull and Bones

‘Tis hours later and we’re chased
Beneath the star-dogged moon
We tried to break away to north
But broke away too soon

Unknown, we tailed the pirate ship
Then saw the far black dot
The crow’s nest signaled skull and bones;
We held onto our knot

We much too late had turned around
My Aleron spun slow
Sheets so white in plain of sight
Had sold us to our foe

Our heaviest of itemry
Into the sea we cast
Rusty tools and iron spools:
Submerged, and sinking fast

Yet still we could not make a pace
To lose the rotten crew;
On our backs, they sailed our tracks
And split our wake in two

And so the misty moon is here
And watches like a ghoul
As we divorce our southern course
For Pillars of Hercule

The flick’ring light behind us
Like a glimmer in an eye
Stares and preys upon us
In cover of black dye

It grows and throws upon our ship
A light of fear and blood
It digs into our drowsy eyes
With sharpness of a spud

We hold on to our frantic pace
Till night invites the day
When to our right, in bright sunlight,
An ally heads our way

With Godly sound the cannons pound
The scoundrels far in back
Our brothers there in ship so fair
Repelled the foul attack


Canto IV: Gibraltar

In safer seas, our Aleron
Met with Le Taureau Bleu
We buy and sell and trade our stock
And praise and thank the crew

For safety’s sake, along we take
Two cannons of our own
We’ll stand a better chance against
The skull and crosséd bones

On we sail, on more and more
On through the placid day
No longer faced with poor intent
We make our merry way

Finally, from the vociferous chum
Upon the tall crow’s nest
“Land **! Land **!” Enthused, we know
Gibraltar’s over the crests

I decide to park (good-will flag on ark)
At the British colonial base
With cannons in stow, civilians are we
Attacking is surely bad taste

Just then, as I stood face-front on the deck,
A shrill squawking was cast
To the back I turned, and quickly discerned
A yellow bird up on a mast

How dare it perch there! I’d **** it, I swear
But I’d fire not a gun
Britons who spy me would surely deny me
Fair entrance, if that’s what I’d done

Instead I’ll sit tight; my crew is all right
They don’t mind the bird at all
I’ll listen and bear it, and try to forget
That the bird is the cause of my fall

Closer we draw to Gibraltar’s port
The Britons are within clear view
With a wave of a flag, they accept us in
But my anger cannot be subdued

I ready my gun; to the bird I have spun
And fire my shots to the air
The Britons, upset, rush onboard and get
Me constrained; and ensued despair


Canto V: The Crimson Owl

Silver chains kept me detained
As questioning carried on
Was I a spy for whom I ally?
Or was I simply a con?

I kept face as the questioner paced
And the brute slapped me around
Lastly, I smiled, as after a while
They had no evidence found

With regret, they set me free
Determining I was no harm
But seconds before I went through the door
A fellow rushed in with alarm

Cannons, found inside my ship
As rifles point at me
Again, they had me cuffed and chained
And threatened hostilely

“Smuggling arms to enemy ships”
Was written in their book
Chained and gagged and stowed was I
No better than a crook

Between the pillars I was passed
But not as I had hoped
Both my arm and legs were bound
My fragile neck was choked

In the bowels of The Crimson Owl
I slept in dark distress
No other day, with truth I say,
Had I known such duress

The days had passed and I’d amassed
A hunger, fierce and true
All my thought was set aside
To find something to chew

When suddenly, the shrillest sound
Came flying from afar
A cannon shot had hit its mark
The mainmast it would mar

Sounds of death came all around
And finally toward me
My blind removed, I held in view
The pirates of this sea


Canto VI: Captain Riceau

I stepped aboard by point of sword
And left the burning Owl
“Bienvenue à Le Chat Fou”
Said a fellow through his scowl

But when I talked, they stopped and gawked
Surprised at me they were
A fellow French, I was embraced;
The Crazy Cat could purr

They brought me on, my captors gone,
And took me as their own
And for the time, I went along
And made this Cat my home

I was kept live, and was used for
My knowledge of the sea
For vengeance ‘gainst the Britons
I complied happily

For months - perhaps three seasons passed
I rode upon this ship
Captain Riceau valued me
He named me second skip

For cause unknown, we crossed the sea
Old Captain held his tongue
He would not tell us why we trekked
And chased the setting sun

He brought us ‘round the chilly tip
Of Chile’s southern shore
No reason from his crazy lips
Though long did we implore

Then at last, the day had passed
When Riceau caught a cold
His eyes were red, his limbs were dead
His breathing: hoarse and old

I became the skipper then
And buried him at sea
We cut up north to flee the cold
But at a loss were we

Confused and crazy we’d become
Just like the Cat, rode we
I thought to keep Old Captain’s path
And that meant mutiny


Canto VII: Mutiny

Two days it’d take for them to make
The foul and bitter plan
That I’d be through with Le Chat Fou
And they’d return to Cannes

I lay asleep, in sleep so deep
Dreaming of Calais
The maiden fair with yellow hair
Who one day would betray

In this dream, I heard her scream
And went to touch her cheek
But standing as a statue does
Her gaze was still and bleak

They dragged me back into this world
Then dragged me off the port
My lungs too filled with shockéd air
To object to this tort

They threw my pants and diary,
And sandals, as they laughed
For shoes could serve no purpose
On the ocean’s liquid draft

The flick’ring light before me
Like a glimmer in an eye
Stares but grows more distant
And retreats into black dye

An injury had placed me in
A lesser swimming league
Then again, it’d only serve
To cause me great fatigue

Three days, I had rode the tide
Of the western ocean’s waves
No shark, no squid, no slimy thing
For my flesh did crave

The crests came up like daggers
And fell like hulking trees
I prayed to God almighty
I survive the vicious seas

Finally, I set my stare
Upon the northwest sky
Far away, but clear as day:
An object in my eye


Canto VIII: Abyss

Although I swam me ‘cross the sea
As fast as my arm can
Dry throat and sun win victory
O’er me: a fainted man

Trapped in darkness once again
I spy my fair Calais
Screaming, shrill in bleakness then
With not a word to say

Over me her head hangs low
Her arm is slightly raised
Blood drips off her elbow
Her expression leaves me dazed

She’s gone; the air is hard to breathe
The wind is biting cold
A canopy of restless leaves
Is stirring uncontrolled

Lost inside this world of wood
I struggle to emerge
Feels like years have I withstood
While searching for the verge

No chirpings from my yellow bird
No noises all around
Not a sound is to be heard
But footsteps at the ground

No rodents gnawing at the bark
No insects in the trees
Alone I sleep in brush so dark
With nobody but me

In the drying mud I’m laid
Despondent of my fate
Looking through the verdant shade
The sun does penetrate

Streaming down, the light is rich
Bespeckled on the floor
Dancing ‘round without a hitch
Its presence I implore

I call upon the pouring light
To lift me from this hell
To nullify the chilly blight
Incite the warmth to swell


Canto IX: Land Forgets Itself

The burning light lends me its faith
Yet suddenly absconds
The dulling light projects a wraith:
My soul from the Beyond

The day retreats and turns to night
The moon in place of sun
Mute, and without touch or sight
I desperately run

Fleeing from my fading soul
Myself, I do berate
For no such being should extol
Escaping from my fate

Luscious leaves all turn to brown
They wither and fall fast
Suddenly, upon the ground
A dune of sand’s amassed

Crawling on the desert floor
And shaking from the cold
I hate and bitterly abhor
The night’s begrudging hold

In the distance, at the line
The land forgets itself
The beaming rays of light do shine
And warmth indeed does swell

Basking in the drenching sun
My coldness is expelled
Frigidity that night had won
Has fully been repelled

In the sands, I’ve laid to rest
To steal the heat of day
Yet no sooner had the sun caressed
Than sourly betray

Melted on the scorching sands
My body burned and scarred
I cannot lift my torrid hand
My feet have both been charred

The burning heat has ripped my lust
For life and will to live
My last resolve is brutely ******
Through Death’s unyielding sieve


Canto X: L’Oiseau Jaune

I coughed and spat the water that
I swallowed with my snores
Upon the sand my hand did land;
I’d made my way to shore

The beach was bright with fiery light
My skin was hot and red
I tried to get out of my head
Those visions that I dread

A novelist I once had been
Writing was my joy
With pen in hand, I could withstand
Each plot set to destroy

Yet Calais came and stole my heart
But also my free time
We wed and had a baby boy
Our life was too sublime

I raised my pen to write again
To feed the family right
I spent my days filling the page
And toiled all the night

When finally, she’d lost her mind
She needed to be loved
I tried to calm her shrill attacks
With no help from Above

My raging wife had grabbed a knife
And stabbed my writing hand
Yet somehow I had speared her eye
I couldn’t understand

At the elbow, I was chopped
And no more could I write
The widespread fact I’d killed my mate
Had augmented my plight

I beached onto an island;
This was no Chilean land
I walked around the grainy ground
And found nothing but sand

But soon a rescue ship had come
I was not too long gone
I read the name upon the port;
It was l’Oiseau Jaune
This was my senior thesis in high school, primarily inspired by "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Coleridge.
Continue reading...
James Bradley McCallum Mar 2013
Corpus Chavez
They're
doing it again.

They're gonna stuff
the corpse of
Hugo Chavez and
put it on display
in a glass case.

Why?

They did it to Lenin.

For 80 years he lay
on a bed of flowers
in a glass topped coffin
lazin away the days
in the Kremlin Wall
before they locked
him away behind
closed glasnost doors.

For those eighty years
Lenin's comrades
paraded his
corpse around
like an extended
Weekend at Bernie's;
raising old Ilyich
to mouth every
dictatorial diatribe
uttered by the
deathly stale
bread breath
of Stalin and all
the petty knockoffs
that followed him.

V.I. did a lot of
talking for a
dead man, serving
the dictatorship
of the proletariat
with valor and
distinction.

They did it
to Mao,
reminding all
happy Chinese Proles
that great peoples
revolutions must
dutifully mind
the unerring
instruction of
the secular deity;
resting assured
that progress is an
historical
dialectical
inevitability
proceeding apace
until classlessness
is realized in every
Hunan rice paddy,
Shanghai noodle
factory, Mongol
Steppe Village
and Buddhist
Tibetan Temple
in the glorious
workers paradise.

As of this writing Mao
hasn't been heard from
since the
Gang of Four
walked the last
Capitalist Roader plank.

Lady Mao
indignant to the end,
coolly quipping final zingers
from the Third Edition
of the Little Red Book as
last death sentence breaths
escaped her charcoal stained
great leaping forward
lungs.  
  
As always
Deng Xiaoping
got the final
laugh, counting
heavenly
Renmibis;

his yuan
piling up faster
then the number
of displaced
peasants
clogging the
streets of
The People's
Republic
new and improved
discount cities
beggin for jobs
at a toxic
iPod
factory.

Crafty
Deng  bought
the copy rights to
Mao's Quotations
his profit driven
start-up
fills
fortune cookies
with the
Chairman's
wise maxims
eagerly consumed
by the country's
burgeoning
class of
happy
lunch time
capitalists.

By the
waters of the Nile
they stuffed dead
pharaohs with
with onions,
spices and
frankincense
and buried em
in billion dollar
pyramids.

When a pharaoh  
crossed the River
Styx the expense
was justified
because of his
station in life.

The undertaking
also served as a
shovel ready
infrastructure
improvement
initiative for
idling slaves.

The humongous
public works project
didn't do much
for the economy back then
because the wages of
slaves don't go too far;
but through the
expanse of
expired millennia
the strange fruit of
chattel workers
is a proven boon
for the tourist trade in the
Valley of the Kings.

Its a bit unfortunate
that enterprising
grave robbers daring
the risk of the mummies curse
and imperialist archaeological
pillagers wouldn't let the
league of buried
Pharaoh's -like
young King Tut-
just
RIP.

..and then
there's the case of
Sweet Jesus...

Half of America
believes him to be
Chairman Emeritus
of the GOP,
authoring a gospel
of righteousness
in the party platform,
sprinkling holy water
on the hardest edges of
free market capitalism.

Though
his body was
lifted to heaven
on Ascension Day
Jesus
remains
the main course
at the festive Eucharist
every Sunday morning.  

Pious padres
transubstantiate
sacrosanct wafers
say its the Lords Table
but they act more
like its their own.  

Wrapped
in riddles
within sacred
paradoxes
exclusionary
catholic churches
refuse spiritually
starved pilgrim's
slices of happy meals
if they ain't down
with their
righteous
creed.

I recall
Jesus feeding 5,000
soul staved people with
seven loaves and five fishes
and had enough left overs
to feed every famished
woman and child
in Biafra;

don't remember Jesus
checking membership cards
before filling their bellies
with wholesomeness;

but the
pietistic pastors
parsing out
the holy loaves
remain quick to draw
heinous crucifixes
believing in the
holy justice of  
their crossianity
to ecstatically
bludgeon a
fallen heathen...

some Muslim
fundamentalists
do the same thing

a Hidden Imam
been walking
the earth since
the death of
The Prophet
Muhammad
(PBUH)

the ubiquitous
Mahdi is around
somewhere
and when he shows
his face he'll team
with Isa
enabling the Shia's
to tell the Sunni's
I told you so
and demand
that they
stop
murdering
fellow
Muslims

I just want to
tell my brothers
and sisters in
Venezuela
that they are the body
and soul, the heart, hands
and mind of the nation

the body is theirs
the body can't be
without them.
el corpus es usted

what ever happened
from dust you have come
to dust you shall return?

and now as a
Caracas glazier
cuts a glass box
for Chavez

i say
i think its a bad idea.
it never goes well for the dead ones

and as for the living
when myth becomes history
the potentates of politics
and the priests of power
become ghoulish tyrants
that devour the lives of
the living


ERRATUM
+++

As Marx observed in the  
18th Bremaire of Louis Bonaparte

"The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living...
he goes on to say, "history repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce"...

I hope my Venezuelan brothers and sisters avoid the tragedy and don't fall victim to farce...

Final thoughts from Jesus:

"Wherever there is a carcass,
there the vultures will gather.
Let the dead bury the dead"

Smash the icons!
Hugo deserves his heavenly rest
he wouldn't want it any other way.

Hugo Chavez
(28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013)
Godspeed Beloved


Joan Baez & Mercedes Sosa "Gracias A La Vida"

jbm
Oakland
3/8/13
Continue reading...
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2017
attracting gamers
games played solely without mouse or joystick... X-hands on the keyboard: left right; right left; kita? ponies in the field; ponces in the marketplace.

but if it didn't happen in video games,
and you said the word: girlfriend...
who are you? ****... i'll test you,
i test your genitals to ensure
it belongs in your head for an ego...
you never been?
                hard to think anything of you
other than a child of divorce...
                   because you probably are...
next time you verbal a *****
i'll verbal the status of your mother...
and next time: you'll be in the practice
of boxing while i'll be worrying about
eating too much lactose...
                               ******, wanna fight?
i'll take a few punches... and
then take to you like a butcher...
   darwinism breeds masculine boast games,
get with it!
             you either boast about the fact:
or you shut, the **** up!
                           just give me a kalashnikov
and i'll show you *bonaparte!
            harasho?
  good, we're good, we're compatriots...
             i used to play wholly keyboard games
and i had to sit in the chair, with X on my head...
the mouse was gone...
  so was the ||...                  of hands and what not...
  w
a s d
              moving...
                                 why should i take on
the sins of your father to enjoy a beer with you?
why do you blame me?
      two ***** spoke to you? that's what
i'm guessing is the proper guess... ******* with
your two *****!
                   i'd really be jealous if you kept them,
and inacted a dualgamy...
           what you just described is yesterday...
yesterday... yesterday... like your papa you can't
keep even one for a period of a swan's lifetime
     for 70... years...
                 you parade that **** in east london!
****! me! friendeships from school are
  so parasitic... but at least good for writing...
       come ******! come! i'm part of the death cult!
i'm begging! i'm not begging for pennies
or for pounds thrown into a hat... mr. socialist...
ha ha!
         ha ha!                          ha ha!
            no, really, i'm still waiting!
                                 what are you waiting for?
the next train out of liverpool st. to shenfield?
                     sure... i'll wait with you...
          just about the same time you turn my
knuckles into a cornish pasty to eat...
                                  don't **** with me you aenemic
******... it's called regular physical laws:
              i'm over 100 kilograms... i punch you
in the face it won't be the newtonian paradox
that states: gravity universal, a fat boy falls at the same
time and at the same speed at a thin boy...
  i punch you in the face you'll probably be in the
queue for plastic surgery...
          mein sen? my dream?
                  my male cat ******* into the toilet,
my female cat trying to usurp the power of the bladder
and thus jumping straight on the toilet
                   with the male cat ******* into it...
then me picking up the male cat
    and him ******* about the bathroom
                  without a bladder "censor" to stop him
doing so in the act... mmm... condoms...
                     these days due to prostate cancer
  i had to envision buddha to relax my bladder...
                           oh i'm not playing 'ard...
                                  i'd love to get a smacker
before i managed to use my body mass...
                                that scenario with paul kohler
(silent h)         and those who spoke with
a central european accent...
                                                       ­     i once had
"western" european "friends", just after i thought
they became arrogant ****** that i'd love
     to do skull-to-skull with and wipe their whittle
smiles off their faces: according to their surprise
as to why they bred terrorist at home; which they
did, and forgot to admit as toward the methodology
they gave out and then negated as being
the source of responsibility: i.e. the practice of denial.
by now,
     i have the least concern, and the most
contraceptive additives to care about western european
lives; guess what happened! the irish thought
they could treat the poles like the english treated
them! oi! paddy! my people fought in the battle
for britain in the r.a.f.: you were as neutral as swedes!
paddy! oi!                      oh i'll give you war
you ******* fairy... but you won't take it...
   you'll be all flimsy spaghetti armed in the distance!
maybe i should move to liverpool?
Continue reading...
Catalysten Rounthwaite May 2015
Ekphrastic: Bonaparte Crossing the Alps
These mountains are but a stand of trees
to the man astride that horse;
dark eyes are
massive storm clouds
or shadows cast
by towering presence
hidden in the folds
of an otherwise ordinary
brain. Power? There
is no end to this man's power
except the end
that will always march
shattering sheets of glass ice
with hooves so hard
they weather mountains.

Does he see it? The horse,
whose everyday hooves crack
one film of ice among many,
sees it; has a face
- most expressive beast on earth -
that speaks aloud
against the cold that runs fingernails along
the raw interior of her throat.

Yes, this man, like so many men,
make choices, and choices
have troubling consequences.

There is darkness
in these mountains;
because mountains stand taller
than the common countryside.
Sometimes, their height brings them closer
to the sun. At midnight, their peaks
are more distant than the depths of a gorge.

See the deeply set, tempered soul
ensconced in that man's eyes?

The horse is very,
very tired, and sees more
than mountains, icicles,
wisps of frozen cloud -
she sees beyond these and
beneath these, to a destination
frozen shut in the folds of an
otherwise ordinary brain.
Power? The horse sighs
and drips chilled mucus
on snow. Her humanity
she pours out and only a
frozen peak can see.

*There are humans
making choices
always leading
to the cold.
For the painting, see
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Paul_Delaroche_-_Napoleon_Crossing_the_Alps_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg
#ekphrastic
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Shylah S Jan 2016
L'imagination gouverne le monde ~ Napoléon Bonaparte
a perfect time
to change the world
explore exotic places
do something crazy
surprise people
achieve the things your insanity creates
#imagination
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julie Oct 2018
pardon, my french
once my parents said
that we had to move

away from my home town,
my birth place,
my comfort zone.

I found myself
in Paris then,
hardly not speaking any french,
missing the beaches of Cali
and thinking of better times

Sitting in a little cafe
near Rue Bonaparte
sharing a cigarette
with a gray-haired stranger

philosophizing about life
and feeling the sand of
Santa Monica Beach
on my skin

Suddenly a stranger asked me
something I didn't understand

so I stuttered
menez-moi à la maison,
à l'endroit auquel j'appartiens
last sentence means: "take me home to the place I belong"
#sad #california #beach #paris #moving #french #alone #cigarette
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Joseph C Ogbonna Jan 2018
Napoleon Bonaparte
Corsican born, and an emperor mighty indeed.
Who from obscurity came up to prominence,
who from French shores the attacks of armies repelled,
who had at his disposal, Europe's resources,
who to Saint Helena from French shores was expelled.
Of old Italian nobility he was seed.
Shortish in height, yet towering in ambition.
Military genius of the highest distinction,
whose military strategy is second to none save
Alexander. Whose courage is held in reverence,
whose cradle at infancy was kept in a cave
from strong invading imperialist French forces.
He gave up an empire so vast at Waterloo;
A threat to the memories of his victories past.
Mighty Napoleon, who at Austerlitz excelled.
You did on the beautiful older Josephine cast
your loving eyes, which were hypnotized with passion,
yet focused on so lofty an ambition.
Not even your love for her would rival your love
for world conquest, for which you assiduously strove.
A tribute to Napoleon Bonaparte 1769-1821
#history #tribute
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Paul d'Aubin Mar 2017
« Des Hommes prophétiques en face de leurs époques face à la souffrance causée par les périodes de réaction et de reflux »
« Des Hommes prophétiques en face de leurs époques face à la souffrance causée par les périodes de réaction et de reflux »

(Relation d’une conférence donnée le 13 janvier 1940 à Toulouse par Silvio Trentin sur le principal Poète romantique Italien Giacomo Leopardi)

Prélude à une commémoration

C'est à la bibliothèque interuniversitaire de l’Université de Toulouse-Capitole alors que je me plongeais avec ferveur dans la lecture des ouvrages sur les « fuorusciti » (appellation donnée aux exilés politiques Italiens) que je découvris un opuscule de 118 pages, issue d'une conférence prononcée à Toulouse, le 13 janvier 1940 devant le « Cercle des intellectuels Républicains espagnols » par Silvio Trentin. Cette conférence fut prononcée avec la gorge nouée, devant un public d'intellectuels espagnols et catalans, la plupart exilés depuis 1939, et quelques-uns de leurs amis toulousains non mobilisés.
L'intense gravité du moment ne les empêchait pas de partager une ferveur commune ce haut moment de culture la culture Européenne intitulée par Silvio Trentin : « D’un poète qui nous permettra de retrouver l'Italie Giacomo Leopardi »
L'émotion fut grande pour moi car cet ouvrage me parut comme le frêle esquif rescapé d'un temps de défaites, de souffrances, rendu perceptible par le crépitement des balles de mitrailleuses, des explosions d’obus s'abattant sur des soldats républicains écrasés par la supériorité des armes et condamnés à la défaite par le mol et lâche abandon des diplomaties. Silvio Trentin avait gravé dans sa mémoire des images récentes qui n'avaient rien à envier aux tableaux grimaçants de nouveaux Goya. Il avait tant vu d'images d'avions larguant leurs bombes sur les populations terrifiées et embraser les charniers de Guernica. Il venait de voir passer les longues files de civils, toujours harassés, souvent blessés, emportant leurs rares biens ainsi que les soldats vaincus mais fiers de «la Retirada ». Il venait de visiter ces soldats dont parmi eux bon nombre de ses amis de combat, parqués sommairement dans des camps d'infortune.
Ces Catalans et Espagnols, qui s'étaient battus jusqu'au bout des privations et des souffrances endurées, étaient comme écrasés par le sentiment d'avoir été laissés presque seuls à lutter contre les fascismes, unis et comme pétrifiés par un destin d'injustice et d'amertume.
Mais ces premiers déchainements impunis d'injustices et de violences avaient comme ouverts la porte aux «trois furies» de la mythologie grecque et une semaine exactement après la conclusion du pacte de non-agression germano-soviétique, signé le 23 août 1939, par Molotov et Ribbentrop, les troupes allemandes se jetaient, dès le 1er septembre, sur la Pologne qu'elles écrasaient sous le nombre des stukas et des chars, en raison ce que le Général de Gaulle nomma ultérieurement « une force mécanique supérieure».
Une armée héroïque, mais bien moins puissante, était défaite. Et il ne nous en reste en guise de témoignage dérisoire que les images du cinéaste Andrei Wajda, nous montrant de jeunes cavaliers munis de lances se rendant au combat, à cheval, à la fin de cet été 1939, images d'une fallacieuse et vénéneuse beauté. Staline rendu avide par ce festin de peuples attaqua la Finlande, un mois après, le 30 septembre 1940, après s'être partagé, avec l'Allemagne hitlérienne, une partie de la Pologne. Depuis lors la « drôle de guerre » semblait en suspension, attendant pétrifiée dans rien faire les actes suivants de la tragédie européenne.

- Qu'est ce qui pouvait amener Silvio Trentin en ces jours de tragédie, à sacrifier à l'exercice d'une conférence donnée sur un poète italien né en 1798, plus d'un siècle avant ce nouvel embrasement de l'Europe qui mourut, si jeune, à trente-neuf ans ?
- Comment se fait-il que le juriste antifasciste exilé et le libraire militant devenu toulousain d'adoption, plus habitué à porter son éloquence reconnue dans les meetings organisés à Toulouse en soutien au Front à s'exprimer devant un cercle prestigieux de lettrés, comme pour magnifier la poésie même parmi ses sœurs et frères d'armes et de malheurs partagés ?
I °) L’opposition de tempéraments de Silvio Trentin et Giacomo Leopardi
L'intérêt porté par Silvio Trentin aux textes de Percy Shelley et au geste héroïco-romantique du poète Lauro de Bosis qui dépeignit dans son dernier texte le choix de sa mort héroïque pourrait nous laisser penser que le choix, en 1940, de Giacomo Leopardi comme sujet de médiation, s'inscrivait aussi dans une filiation romantique. Certes il y a bien entre ces deux personnalités si différentes que sont Giacomo Leopardi et Silvio Trentin une même imprégnation romantique. Le critique littéraire hors pair que fut Sainte-Beuve ne s'y est pourtant pas trompé. Dans l'un des premiers portraits faits en France de Leopardi, en 1844, dans la ***** des deux Mondes, Sainte-Beuve considère comme Leopardi comme un « Ancien » : (...) Brutus comme le dernier des anciens, mais c'est bien lui qui l'est. Il est triste comme un Ancien venu trop **** (...) Leopardi était né pour être positivement un Ancien, un homme de la Grèce héroïque ou de la Rome libre. »
Giacomo Leopardi vit au moment du plein essor du romantisme qui apparaît comme une réaction contre le formalisme de la pâle copie de l'Antique, de la sécheresse de la seule raison et de l'occultation de la sensibilité frémissante de la nature et des êtres. Mais s'il partage pleinement les obsessions des écrivains et poètes contemporains romantiques pour les héros solitaires, les lieux déserts, les femmes inaccessibles et la mort, Leopardi, rejette l'idée du salut par la religion et tout ce qui lui apparaît comme lié à l'esprit de réaction en se plaignant amèrement du caractère étroitement provincial et borné de ce qu'il nomme « l’aborrito e inabitabile Recanati ». En fait, la synthèse de Giacomo Leopardi est bien différente des conceptions d'un moyen âge idéalisé des romantiques. Elle s'efforce de dépasser le simple rationalisme à l'optimisme naïf, mais ne renie jamais l'aspiration aux « Lumières » qui correspond pour lui à sa passion tumultueuse pour les sciences. Il s'efforce, toutefois, comme par deux ponts dressés au travers de l'abime qui séparent les cultures et les passions de siècles si différents, de relier les idéaux des Antiques que sont le courage civique et la vertu avec les feux de la connaissance que viennent d'attiser les encyclopédistes. A cet effort de confluence des vertus des langues antiques et des sciences nouvelles se mêle une recherche constante de la lucidité qui le tient toujours comme oscillant sur les chemins escarpés de désillusions et aussi du rejet des espoirs fallacieux dans de nouvelles espérances d'un salut terrestre.
De même Silvio Trentin, de par sa haute formation juridique et son engagement constant dans les tragédies et péripéties quotidienne du militantisme, est **** du secours de la religion et de toute forme d'idéalisation du passé. Silvio Trentin reste pleinement un homme de progrès et d'idéal socialiste fortement teinté d'esprit libertaire pris à revers par la barbarie d'un siècle qui s'ouvre par la première guerre mondiale et la lutte inexpiable engagée entre la réaction des fascismes contre l'esprit des Lumières.
Mais, au-delà d'un parcours de vie très éloigné et d'un pessimisme historique premier et presque fondateur chez Leopardi qui l'oppose à l'obstination civique et démocratique de Silvio Trentin qui va jusqu'à prôner une utopie sociétale fondée sur l'autonomie, deux sentiments forts et des aspirations communes les font se rejoindre.

II °) Le même partage des désillusions et de la douleur :
Ce qui relie les existences si différentes de Giacomo Leopardi et de Silvio Trentin c'est une même expérience existentielle de la désillusion et de la douleur. Elle plonge ses racines chez Giacomo Leopardi dans une vie tronquée et comme recroquevillée par la maladie et un sentiment d'enfermement. Chez Silvio Trentin, c'est l'expérience historique même de la première moitié du vingtième siècle dont il est un des acteurs engagés qui provoque, non pas la désillusion, mais le constat lucide d'un terrible reflux historique qui culmine jusqu'à la chute de Mussolini et d'Hilter. A partir de retour dans sa patrie, le 4 septembre 1943, Silvio Trentin débute une période de cinq jours de vie intense et fiévreuse emplie de liberté et de bonheur, avant de devoir replonger dans la clandestinité, en raison de la prise de contrôle du Nord et du centre de l'Italie par l'armée allemande et ses alliés fascistes. Bien entendu il n'y a rien de comparable en horreur entre le sentiment d'un reflux des illusions causé par l'échec historique de la Révolution française et de son héritier infidèle l'Empire et le climat de réaction qui suit le congrès de Vienne et la violence implacable qui se déchaine en Europe en réaction à la tragédie de la première mondiale et à la Révolution bolchevique.


III °) Le partage de la souffrance par deux Esprits dissemblables :
Silvio Trentin retrace bien le climat commun des deux périodes : « Son œuvre se situe bien (...) dans cette Europe de la deuxième décade du XIXe siècle qui voit s'éteindre les dernières flammèches de la Grand Révolution et s'écrouler, dans un fracas de ruines, la folle aventure tentée par Bonaparte et se dresser impitoyablement sur son corps, à l'aide des baïonnettes et des potences, les solides piliers que la Sainte Alliance vient d'établir à Vienne. »
C'est donc durant deux périodes de reflux qu'ont vécu Giacomo Leopardi et Silvio Trentin avec pour effet d'entrainer la diffusion d'un grand pessimisme historique surtout parmi celles et ceux dont le tempérament et le métier est de penser et de décrire leur époque. Silvio Trentin a vu démocratie être progressivement étouffée, de 1922 à 1924, puis à partir de 1926, être brutalement écrasée en Italie. En 1933, il assisté à l'accession au gouvernement d'****** et à l'installation rapide d'un pouvoir impitoyable ouvrant des camps de concentration pour ses opposants et mettant en œuvre un antisémitisme d'Etat qui va basculer dans l'horreur. Il a personnellement observé, puis secouru, les républicains espagnols et catalans si peu aidés qu'ils ont fini par ployer sous les armes des dictatures fascistes, lesquelles ne ménagèrent jamais leurs appuis, argent, et armes et à leur allié Franco et à la « vieille Espagne ». Il a dû assurer personnellement la pénible tâche d'honorer ses amis tués, comme l'avocat républicain, Mario Angeloni, le socialiste Fernando de Rosa, son camarade de « Giustizia e Libertà », Libero Battistelli. Il a assisté à l'assassinat en France même de l'économiste Carlo Rosselli qui était son ami et qu'il estimait entre tous.

IV °) Sur le caractère de refuge ultime de la Poésie :
Silvio Trentin laisse percer la sensibilité et l'esprit d'un être sensible face aux inévitables limites des arts et techniques mises au service de l'émancipation humaine. A chaque époque pèsent sur les êtres humains les plus généreux les limites inévitables de toute création bridée par les préjugés, les égoïsmes et les peurs. Alors la poésie vient offrir à celles et ceux qui en souffrent le plus, une consolation et leur offre un univers largement ouvert à la magie créatrice des mots ou il n'est d'autres bornes que celles de la liberté et la créativité. C'est ce qui nous permet de comprendre qu'au temps où l'Espagne brulait et ou l'Europe se préparait à vivre l'une des époques les plus sombres de l'humanité, la fragile cohorte des poètes, tels Rafael Alberti, Juan Ramon Jiménez, Federico Garcia Lorca et Antonio Machado s'engagea comme les ruisseaux vont à la mer, aux côtés des peuples et des classes opprimées. Parmi les plus nobles et les plus valeureux des politiques, ceux qui ne se satisfont pas des effets de tribune ou des honneurs précaires, la poésie leur devient parfois indispensable ainsi que formule Silvio Trentin :
« [...] si la poésie est utile aux peuples libres, [...] elle est, en quelque sorte, indispensable — ainsi que l'oxygène aux êtres que menace l'asphyxie — aux peuples pour qui la liberté est encore un bien à conquérir] « [...] La poésie s'adresse aussi "à ceux parmi les hommes [...] qui ont fait l'expérience cruelle de la déception et de la douleur».
Le 16 03 2017 écrit par Paul Arrighi
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Alphonse de Lamartine
Bonaparte
Sur un écueil battu par la vague plaintive,
Le nautonier de **** voit blanchir sur la rive
Un tombeau près du bord par les flots déposé ;
Le temps n'a pas encor bruni l'étroite pierre,
Et sous le vert tissu de la ronce et du lierre
On distingue... un sceptre brisé !

Ici gît... point de nom !... demandez à la terre !
Ce nom ? il est inscrit en sanglant caractère
Des bords du Tanaïs au sommet du Cédar,
Sur le bronze et le marbre, et sur le sein des braves,
Et jusque dans le cœur de ces troupeaux d'esclaves
Qu'il foulait tremblants sous son char.

Depuis ces deux grands noms qu'un siècle au siècle annonce,
Jamais nom qu'ici-bas toute langue prononce
Sur l'aile de la foudre aussi **** ne vola.
Jamais d'aucun mortel le pied qu'un souffle efface
N'imprima sur la terre une plus forte trace,
Et ce pied s'est arrêté là !...

Il est là !... sous trois pas un enfant le mesure !
Son ombre ne rend pas même un léger murmure !
Le pied d'un ennemi foule en paix son cercueil !
Sur ce front foudroyant le moucheron bourdonne,
Et son ombre n'entend que le bruit monotone
D'une vague contre un écueil !

Ne crains rien, cependant, ombre encore inquiète,
Que je vienne outrager ta majesté muette.
Non. La lyre aux tombeaux n'a jamais insulté.
La mort fut de tout temps l'asile de la gloire.
Rien ne doit jusqu'ici poursuivre une mémoire.
Rien !... excepté la vérité !

Ta tombe et ton berceau sont couverts d'un nuage,
Mais pareil à l'éclair tu sortis d'un orage !
Tu foudroyas le monde avant d'avoir un nom !
Tel ce Nil dont Memphis boit les vagues fécondes
Avant d'être nommé fait bouilloner ses ondes
Aux solitudes de Memnom.

Les dieux étaient tombés, les trônes étaient vides ;
La victoire te prit sur ses ailes rapides
D'un peuple de Brutus la gloire te fit roi !
Ce siècle, dont l'écume entraînait dans sa course
Les mœurs, les rois, les dieux... refoulé vers sa source,
Recula d'un pas devant toi !

Tu combattis l'erreur sans regarder le nombre ;
Pareil au fier Jacob tu luttas contre une ombre !
Le fantôme croula sous le poids d'un mortel !
Et, de tous ses grands noms profanateur sublime,
Tu jouas avec eux, comme la main du crime
Avec les vases de l'autel.

Ainsi, dans les accès d'un impuissant délire
Quand un siècle vieilli de ses mains se déchire
En jetant dans ses fers un cri de liberté,
Un héros tout à coup de la poudre s'élève,
Le frappe avec son sceptre... il s'éveille, et le rêve
Tombe devant la vérité !

Ah ! si rendant ce sceptre à ses mains légitimes,
Plaçant sur ton pavois de royales victimes,
Tes mains des saints bandeaux avaient lavé l'affront !
Soldat vengeur des rois, plus grand que ces rois même,
De quel divin parfum, de quel pur diadème
L'histoire aurait sacré ton front !

Gloire ! honneur! liberté ! ces mots que l'homme adore,
Retentissaient pour toi comme l'airain sonore
Dont un stupide écho répète au **** le son :
De cette langue en vain ton oreille frappée
Ne comprit ici-bas que le cri de l'épée,
Et le mâle accord du clairon !

Superbe, et dédaignant ce que la terre admire,
Tu ne demandais rien au monde, que l'empire !
Tu marchais !... tout obstacle était ton ennemi !
Ta volonté volait comme ce trait rapide
Qui va frapper le but où le regard le guide,
Même à travers un cœur ami !

Jamais, pour éclaircir ta royale tristesse,
La coupe des festins ne te versa l'ivresse ;
Tes yeux d'une autre pourpre aimaient à s'enivrer !
Comme un soldat debout qui veille sous les armes,
Tu vis de la beauté le sourire ou les larmes,
Sans sourire et sans soupirer !

Tu n'aimais que le bruit du fer, le cri d'alarmes !
L'éclat resplendissant de l'aube sur tes armes !
Et ta main ne flattait que ton léger coursier,
Quand les flots ondoyants de sa pâle crinière
Sillonnaient comme un vent la sanglante poussière,
Et que ses pieds brisaient l'acier !

Tu grandis sans plaisir, tu tombas sans murmure !
Rien d'humain ne battait sous ton épaisse armure :
Sans haine et sans amour, tu vivais pour penser :
Comme l'aigle régnant dans un ciel solitaire,
Tu n'avais qu'un regard pour mesurer la terre,
Et des serres pour l'embrasser !

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S'élancer d'un seul bon au char de la victoire,
Foudroyer l'univers des splendeurs de sa gloire,
Fouler d'un même pied des tribuns et des rois ;
Forger un joug trempé dans l'amour et la haine,
Et faire frissonner sous le frein qui l'enchaîne
Un peuple échappé de ses lois !

Etre d'un siècle entier la pensée et la vie,
Emousser le poignard, décourager l'envie ;
Ebranler, raffermir l'univers incertain,
Aux sinistres clarté de ta foudre qui gronde
Vingt fois contre les dieux jouer le sort du monde,
Quel rêve ! et ce fut ton destin !...

Tu tombas cependant de ce sublime faîte !
Sur ce rocher désert jeté par la tempête,
Tu vis tes ennemis déchirer ton manteau !
Et le sort, ce seul dieu qu'adora ton audace,
Pour dernière faveur t'accorda cet espace
Entre le trône et le tombeau !

Oh ! qui m'aurait donné d'y sonder ta pensée,
Lorsque le souvenir de te grandeur passée
Venait, comme un remords, t'assaillir **** du bruit !
Et que, les bras croisés sur ta large poitrine,
Sur ton front chauve et nu, que la pensée incline,
L'horreur passait comme la nuit !

Tel qu'un pasteur debout sur la rive profonde
Voit son ombre de **** se prolonger sur l'onde
Et du fleuve orageux suivre en flottant le cours ;
Tel du sommet désert de ta grandeur suprême,
Dans l'ombre du passé te recherchant toi-même,
Tu rappelais tes anciens jours !

Ils passaient devant toi comme des flots sublimes
Dont l'oeil voit sur les mers étinceler les cimes,
Ton oreille écoutait leur bruit harmonieux !
Et, d'un reflet de gloire éclairant ton visage,
Chaque flot t'apportait une brillante image
Que tu suivais longtemps des yeux !

Là, sur un pont tremblant tu défiais la foudre !
Là, du désert sacré tu réveillais la poudre !
Ton coursier frissonnait dans les flots du Jourdain !
Là, tes pas abaissaient une cime escarpée !
Là, tu changeais en sceptre une invincible épée !
Ici... Mais quel effroi soudain ?

Pourquoi détournes-tu ta paupière éperdue ?
D'où vient cette pâleur sur ton front répandue ?
Qu'as-tu vu tout à coup dans l'horreur du passé ?
Est-ce d'une cité la ruine fumante ?
Ou du sang des humains quelque plaine écumante ?
Mais la gloire a tout effacé.

La gloire efface tout !... tout excepté le crime !
Mais son doigt me montrait le corps d'une victime ;
Un jeune homme! un héros, d'un sang pur inondé !
Le flot qui l'apportait, passait, passait, sans cesse ;
Et toujours en passant la vague vengeresse
Lui jetait le nom de Condé !...

Comme pour effacer une tache livide,
On voyait sur son front passer sa main rapide ;
Mais la trace du sang sous son doigt renaissait !
Et, comme un sceau frappé par une main suprême,
La goutte ineffaçable, ainsi qu'un diadème,
Le couronnait de son forfait !

C'est pour cela, tyran! que ta gloire ternie
Fera par ton forfait douter de ton génie !
Qu'une trace de sang suivra partout ton char !
Et que ton nom, jouet d'un éternel orage,
Sera par l'avenir ballotté d'âge en âge
Entre Marius et César !

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Tu mourus cependant de la mort du vulgaire,
Ainsi qu'un moissonneur va chercher son salaire,
Et dort sur sa faucille avant d'être payé !
Tu ceignis en mourant ton glaive sur ta cuisse,
Et tu fus demander récompense ou justice
Au dieu qui t'avait envoyé !

On dit qu'aux derniers jours de sa longue agonie,
Devant l'éternité seul avec son génie,
Son regard vers le ciel parut se soulever !
Le signe rédempteur toucha son front farouche !...
Et même on entendit commencer sur sa bouche
Un nom !... qu'il n'osait achever !

Achève... C'est le dieu qui règne et qui couronne !
C'est le dieu qui punit ! c'est le dieu qui pardonne !
Pour les héros et nous il a des poids divers !
Parle-lui sans effroi ! lui seul peut te comprendre !
L'esclave et le tyran ont tous un compte à rendre,
L'un du sceptre, l'autre des fers !

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Son cercueil est fermé ! Dieu l'a jugé ! Silence !
Son crime et ses exploits pèsent dans la balance :
Que des faibles mortels la main n'y touche plus !
Qui peut sonder, Seigneur, ta clémence infinie ?
Et vous, fléaux de Dieu ! qui sait si le génie
N'est pas une de vos vertus ?...
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Victor Hugo
L'expiation (VII)
VII.

Une nuit, - c'est toujours la nuit dans le tombeau, -
Il s'éveilla. Luisant comme un hideux flambeau,
D'étranges visions emplissaient sa paupière ;
Des rires éclataient sous son plafond de pierre ;
Livide, il se dressa ; la vision grandit ;
Ô terreur ! une voix qu'il reconnut, lui dit :

- Réveille-toi. Moscou, Waterloo, Sainte-Hélène,
L'exil, les rois geôliers, l'Angleterre hautaine
Sur ton lit accoudée à ton dernier moment,
Sire, cela n'est rien. Voici le châtiment :

La voix alors devint âpre, amère, stridente,
Comme le noir sarcasme et l'ironie ardente ;
C'était le rire amer mordant un demi-dieu.
- Sire ! on t'a retiré de ton Panthéon bleu !
Sire ! on t'a descendu de ta haute colonne !
Regarde. Des brigands, dont l'essaim tourbillonne,
D'affreux bohémiens, des vainqueurs de charnier
Te tiennent dans leurs mains et t'ont fait prisonnier.
À ton orteil d'airain leur patte infâme touche.
Ils t'ont pris. Tu mourus, comme un astre se couche,
Napoléon le Grand, empereur ; tu renais
Bonaparte, écuyer du cirque Beauharnais.
Te voilà dans leurs rangs, on t'a, l'on te harnache.
Ils t'appellent tout haut grand homme, entre eux, ganache.
Ils traînent, sur Paris qui les voit s'étaler,
Des sabres qu'au besoin ils sauraient avaler.
Aux passants attroupés devant leur habitacle,
Ils disent, entends-les : - Empire à grand spectacle !
Le pape est engagé dans la troupe ; c'est bien,
Nous avons mieux ; le czar en est mais ce n'est rien,
Le czar n'est qu'un sergent, le pape n'est qu'un bonze
Nous avons avec nous le bonhomme de bronze !
Nous sommes les neveux du grand Napoléon ! -
Et Fould, Magnan, Rouher, Parieu caméléon,
Font rage. Ils vont montrant un sénat d'automates.
Ils ont pris de la paille au fond des casemates
Pour empailler ton aigle, ô vainqueur d'Iéna !
Il est là, mort, gisant, lui qui si haut plana,
Et du champ de bataille il tombe au champ de foire.
Sire, de ton vieux trône ils recousent la moire.
Ayant dévalisé la France au coin d'un bois,
Ils ont à leurs haillons du sang, comme tu vois,
Et dans son bénitier Sibour lave leur linge.
Toi, lion, tu les suis ; leur maître, c'est le singe.
Ton nom leur sert de lit, Napoléon premier.
On voit sur Austerlitz un peu de leur fumier.
Ta gloire est un gros vin dont leur honte se grise.
Cartouche essaie et met ta redingote grise
On quête des liards dans le petit chapeau
Pour tapis sur la table ils ont mis ton drapeau.
À cette table immonde où le grec devient riche,
Avec le paysan on boit, on joue, on triche ;
Tu te mêles, compère, à ce tripot hardi,
Et ta main qui tenait l'étendard de Lodi,
Cette main qui portait la foudre, ô Bonaparte,
Aide à piper les dés et fait sauter la carte.
Ils te forcent à boire avec eux, et Carlier
Pousse amicalement d'un coude familier
Votre majesté, sire, et Piétri dans son antre
Vous tutoie, et Maupas vous tape sur le ventre.
Faussaires, meurtriers, escrocs, forbans, voleurs,
Ils savent qu'ils auront, comme toi, des malheurs
Leur soif en attendant vide la coupe pleine
À ta santé ; Poissy trinque avec Sainte-Hélène.

Regarde ! bals, sabbats, fêtes matin et soir.
La foule au bruit qu'ils font se culbute pour voir ;
Debout sur le tréteau qu'assiège une cohue
Qui rit, bâille, applaudit, tempête, siffle, hue,
Entouré de pasquins agitant leur grelot,
- Commencer par Homère et finir par Callot !
Épopée ! épopée ! oh ! quel dernier chapitre ! -
Entre Troplong paillasse et Chaix-d'Est-Ange pitre,
Devant cette baraque, abject et vil bazar
Où Mandrin mal lavé se déguise en César,
Riant, l'affreux bandit, dans sa moustache épaisse,
Toi, spectre impérial, tu bats la grosse caisse ! -

L'horrible vision s'éteignit. L'empereur,
Désespéré, poussa dans l'ombre un cri d'horreur,
Baissant les yeux, dressant ses mains épouvantées.
Les Victoires de marbre à la porte sculptées,
Fantômes blancs debout hors du sépulcre obscur,
Se faisaient du doigt signe, et, s'appuyant au mur,
Écoutaient le titan pleurer dans les ténèbres.
Et lui, cria : « Démon aux visions funèbres,
Toi qui me suis partout, que jamais je ne vois,
Qui donc es-tu ? - Je suis ton crime », dit la voix.
La tombe alors s'emplit d'une lumière étrange
Semblable à la clarté de Dieu quand il se venge
Pareils aux mots que vit resplendir Balthazar,
Deux mots dans l'ombre écrits flamboyaient sur César ;
Bonaparte, tremblant comme un enfant sans mère,
Leva sa face pâle et lut : - DIX-HUIT BRUMAIRE !

Jersey, du 25 au 30 novembre 1852.
Continue reading...
Carl Sandburg
Old Timers
I AM an ancient reluctant conscript.

On the soup wagons of Xerxes I was a cleaner of pans.

On the march of Miltiades' phalanx I had a haft and head;
I had a bristling gleaming spear-handle.

Red-headed Caesar picked me for a teamster.
He said, "Go to work, you Tuscan *******,
Rome calls for a man who can drive horses."

The units of conquest led by Charles the Twelfth,
The whirling whimsical Napoleonic columns:
They saw me one of the horseshoers.

I trimmed the feet of a white horse Bonaparte swept the night stars with.

Lincoln said, "Get into the game; your nation takes you."
And I drove a wagon and team and I had my arm shot off
At Spottsylvania Court House.

I am an ancient reluctant conscript.
Continue reading...
Alexander K Opicho Dec 2013
O love ! O love ! why are you ever devoid of logic ?
O LOVE! O LOVE! WHY ARE YOU EVER DEVOID OF LOGIC?

Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; aopicho@yahoo.com)


Mankind in its pathetic folly entice you in a dint of stupor
Knowing not your true colour and texture
Endeavoring to achieve glory in your mastery
With the so limited human capacity
In grey faith that you are a cradle of bliss
But O love! Why are you ever crooked?

Young men and women in strength of their sinews
Toil day and night in ******* of humanity
Praying and whining incantations with the hope for optimal love
Ornamenting their bodies with diamond and bronze
Fibre and silk ornamented to helm of providence
In the foolish quest for love equillibria
But in full stretch of your vice, you impish love
You catapult all away to the shifted goal posts
O love! O love! Why are you ever ruthless?

You hate the learned but you favour the strong
You hate professors but you favour the soldiers
You hate the rich but you favour the agile
You hate the lawyers but you favour the footballers
You hate the pastors but you favour the ruffian
You hate the whites but you favour the Negroes
You hate the groomed but you love the ragamuffin
You hate the chaste but you favour the mistress
O love! O love! Why are you ever illogical?

Love, I revere you for wickedness and irrationality
In all of your history you scored sum *** laude  
In the duo as blend of your domain, Look;
You never dwell in a genuine companionship
You like where the couth will interject;
Amidst fornication between married and single ones
Amidst adultery in the triangle of foul compassion
Amidst miscegenation between black and white
Amidst infatuation between the whole and the lame
Amidst conjugal appetite between the old and the young
Amidst concupiscence between house master and houshelp
Amidst immorality of married master over the wallowing servant
Amidst libidos between literate teacher unto the peasant pupil
Amidst disordered passion among the sly lesbians
Amidst impious ******* among the suave gays
O love! O love! You are the  most wicked force!

Love I am told; your colour is red
You may be red or you may not be red
But all in all, you deserve poetical veneration
For your herculean ability to bend the most wise;
In your force you made sagacious Shakespeare to bend
In your force you made Princes Diana to bend and bend
Bending downwardly stooping for Afawoyed the moor,
In your stupefying dint you made Napoleon de Bonaparte
To bend and bend downwardly stooping for Josephine
Josephine a famed she-Casanova in the gone Paris
Among the then humanity and the then animality,
In your impairing machinery you set sons on their fathers
In the roman empire of Antony and Ceaser
In the scramble for Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen
Beauty of her aquiline nose heavily hovered perhaps  
In the eyes of the Roman beholders
The father and the son only to sent the empire
To the love forlorn smithereens!
Continue reading...
JJ Hutton Apr 2011
drunk poet
the leaves of my mind die,
without rustle, without why,
an incessant new season of direction
of spring, of beauty, of need,
orthodox and counterclocks
of bathroom stalls and
desperation calls--
in the tile we prove our worthwhile
as the hounds and haunts of yesterday
test our haul,
and I'm a magician and a *******,
a lover and a shotty terrorist,
the mad house rings,
sing, sing, sing
of yesterday--of fever dreams,
make me levitate to heavens,
push me away for doorknobs
and summer screens,
those are temporary,
lionesses in heat,
to be appeased
for the watering hole
and mouths of summers sought to soon--
we can romanticize the afternoon,
we can romanticize the mundane gloom,
but in the end we are nomads,
bouncing off shoreline and magazine subscription,
confused of endings
and brave in the face
of annihilation.
Rewrite the histories of our forefathers,
rewrite the reinventions of the wheel,
until it's all progress and simmering,
until the *** is full and festering,
when the now is soon,
and yesterday is dead,
the magnificence of misery--
hits like a runaway diaper truck
to add injury to insult,
to add scorpion to sting,
and if your mother is a dancer,
be not ashamed,
but praised,
she filled a primal need,
more than can be said about
Hemingway or Artaud or Bonaparte or the spring,
I have mountains to climb
and ****** rhymes to satisfy--
if you feel love,
boast,
if not welcome to hell,
a perpetual ****** roast
of ego,
of soul,
of every lover you let go--
the luck lies at stoplight kisses,
the luck lies in ***** sheets
and clean sneakers,
if sorrow is a gateway drug,
heaven is my fix,
if sorrow is a gateway drug,
I'll buy two hells a week for
the rest of my endless years,
if you love me,
do it,
don't doubt,
don't simmer,
ignite,
burn  brighter than former,
than the mourner,
than the funeral singer,
and make dinner on the ground,
we'll howl as the gravestones depreciate,
we'll howl as the stock market
solidifies in ice,
we'll howl as we realize the trite,
and I'm wrong often
but mostly right,
ask the machine gun,
and the sparrow hauling the olive branch,
ask murderers and the stain on your pants,
time is a circus of the three-ring variety,
too much to focus,
too much to bore,
too much to whine,
but under the cover of freedom--
enough to die in contentedness
and lie in the pangs of eternity
with a sigh, a slip of the tongue
and a pair of rolling eyes--
let not your daughter drown,
let not the horns on your head weigh you down,
the tomorrow is soon,
the now is ancient,
the promises to be fulfilled
will leave you begging-
bring on the fantasy,
the daydreamed celibacy,
the marooned integrity,
I've got a moon,
fourteen clouds,
and a headrush from nicotine--
drink of my youth, it's light, easy, cheap--
enough to get you drunk,
but lacking the dexterity of luck--
the burden, the burden
of always giving a ****.
- From Anna and the Symphony
Continue reading...
Sethnicity May 2015
12.21.12 MyEndCallEnder
I am the black sludge poured into morning mouths
The thickening blood like mucus oozing from the nose,
the failed vandal on the doorstep wringing
I felt this ick coming before, like bricks in the bell tower… Grimacing
I am the shifting surface of your beach front property
The wax of mudslide and sleep of glacier drift wiped away
You once tried to save me…,
But you should have saved yourselfrightchoseless… Sickening
I am the quite traveler giving ride to whomever
Provider of spectacles no testicales can compare
Hope you are ready for the next one cause my revolution’s in the air
Get the Mayans and the Call Lenders Cause I’m the blender you’re the pear!


Your thoughts fickled mine things
My water of youth your cesspool for fuel
The conduit of my poles peeled for golden rings
Have the nerve to say I’m not self-sustaining
Uninhabitable!   I’ve been more than hospitable!
What a virus that makes it self service unsuitable
To favor ill behavior for the sake of a savior
Your heads may bow to the east
But your *** still ***** none the least
Time after time provide I with a bountiful feast
So you Land on my Lover to satisfy your lust
Hover her then leave her collecting trophies, Moon Dust!?
Even the God of War has been fondled by your touch
They whisper, Oh how they want to flee me
They satellite and bend the light
And fore tell of my death
Well, Be Gone! And leave your clothes behind!
That flesh, My skin of desert and shore sand given.
The enchanted threads for your living experience
Be Gone! And don’t bother with packing up and cleaning
There will be no interrogation no exile from Eden

I’ll burn this wicked garden to the ground
Arrange my poles, and swish waters to cool it down
They are white clouds in my blackened blue atmosphere
Casting shadows on the crusted earth of my flesh
I frown a deep sound like bass clef
Their tall tale torn apart
The last vault too big to fail now broken Bonaparte
My molten core resurrecting to the surface
I smoke out for every hemp plant chopped and burned in vain
I offer fruit for Gods and you look pone it with distain  
These Human parasites stuck to my feet!
One whim of solar wind should cure me of their feverous heat


Ignore the Calendar your end will be what I vendor
NO refunds or replays back to binary Control Alt Delete’
You say the past will repeat yet look in a mirror, tongue and cheek
What is it that you seek? Have you forgotten My rule?
What you sew into me is what you reap
I’ve soaked in seeds of blood and tears now its harvest thyme to weep
#poetry #21 #12 #calendar #122112 #mayan #sethnicity #theendisnear
Continue reading...
RJP Sep 2018
Bonaparte
Im dressed in rags but I'm made of riches, promise
I'm the insurance man, a timetabler
Wake me from my slumber,
I'll give you a tenner, doctor, mother,
Double pain relief, those blasted tablets
****** liqueur sent me to sleep.
Chemically numbing,
My dad's never hugged me you know
Old time copper threw me
In the lock-up for stealing liquor.

I'm the self fulling prophecy
Hoping for childish deliverance

Some like it hot I like it cold like a copper coin dropped into my pocket.
Continue reading...
Joseph C Ogbonna May 2021
Bonaparte
He that trod upon subservient Europe
with the imperial guards' fighting prowess,
did himself and his heartthrob the empress,
entrench thrones jointly owned by their hookup.
He that caused guns to rage on Europe's plains
and cannons to thunder on Egypt's sands,
sent hussars and mamluks to distant flight.
He usurped crowns for his dear siblings' gains,
and enthroned loyalists to head vanquished lands.
But was banished for good from France's sight
after a stunning loss on Belgium's plains.
Napoleon Bonaparte 1769-1821
#napoleon #history #military
Continue reading...
Kitbag of Words Feb 2014
A Graphic: The Abbreviated Shelf Life of a New Poet
The Abbreviated Shelf Life of a New Poet
Reads
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1000        |
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                 ------------0--------------------------------  Poems


Data points the number of reads per poem: 725, 12, 11, 10, 0, 0


"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever"
Napoleon Bonaparte
Don't ***** my numbers up please! Oh well, you did, a little, but I don't plan to update the chart, and I don't do negative numbers...yet
Continue reading...
M Lundy Feb 2012
Your Boyfriend
Honey, if I gave a **** about your boyfriend
I would have given it by now.
Although, I will say I have my opinions
formed from a party,
a few conversations,
some comments,
and a whisper or two.
So from what I can tell, your boyfriend
checks his hair in the mirror.
is more worried about beer pong than
          how much you've had to drink.
speaks incorrect French.
whines like a little ***** when he goes
          without a "goodnight."
is safe, boring, beige paint.
boxes you up into the same routine.
is insecure.
would be paired with Napoleon Bonaparte
          in a wrestling duel.
is obsessed with his muscles instead of your laugh.
is making you miss your chance
                             to take a chance.
Copyright 2012 M.E. Lundy
Continue reading...
Antoine-Vincent Arnault
Au général Bonaparte
x(Après la paix de Campo-Formio.)


Aucune gloire désormais
Ne vous sera donc étrangère ?
Et vous savez faire la paix
Comme vous avez fait la guerre !

Autant que l'intrépidité
Qui vengea l'honneur de la France,
J'admire, au moins, cette prudence
Qui lui rend sa tranquillité ;

Qui dans les chemins des conquêtes
A su s'arrêter à propos,
Et préférer notre repos
À tant de palmes toutes prêtes.

L'art des illustres meurtriers
A son prix au temps où nous sommes,
J'en conviens ; mais les grands guerriers
Ne sont pas toujours de grands hommes.

L'olivier, au front de Pallas,
Votre modèle, votre emblème,
Avec le laurier des combats
Ne formait qu'un seul diadème.

Ceignez ces feuillages rivaux
Que vous décernent les suffrages
De la déesse des héros :
C'était aussi celle des sages.

Si la valeur, l'humanité,
Sont les vrais titres à la gloire,
Chaque page de votre histoire
Contient votre immortalité.

Écrit en 1797.
Continue reading...
Victor Hugo
Éblouissements
Ô temps miraculeux ! ô gaîtés homériques !
Ô rires de l'Europe et des deux Amériques !
Croûtes qui larmoyez ! bons dieux mal accrochés
Qui saignez dans vos coins ! madones qui louchez !
Phénomènes vivants ! ô choses inouïes !
Candeurs ! énormités au jour épanouies !
Le goudron déclaré fétide par le suif,
Judas flairant Shylock et criant : c'est un juif !
L'arsenic indigné dénonçant la morphine,
La hotte injuriant la borne, Messaline
Reprochant à Goton son regard effronté,
Et Dupin accusant Sauzet de lâcheté !

Oui, le vide-gousset flétrit le tire-laine,
Falstaff montre du doigt le ventre de Silène,
Lacenaire, pudique et de rougeur atteint,
Dit en baissant les yeux : J'ai vu passer Castaing !

Je contemple nos temps. J'en ai le droit, je pense.
Souffrir étant mon lot, rire est ma récompense.
Je ne sais pas comment cette pauvre Clio
Fera pour se tirer de cet imbroglio.
Ma rêverie au fond de ce règne pénètre,
Quand, ne pouvant dormir, la nuit, à ma fenêtre,
Je songe, et que là-bas, dans l'ombre, à travers l'eau,
Je vois briller le phare auprès de Saint-Malo.

Donc ce moment existe ! il est ! Stupeur risible !
On le voit ; c'est réel, et ce n'est pas possible.
L'empire est là, refait par quelques sacripants.
Bonaparte le Grand dormait. Quel guet-apens !
Il dormait dans sa tombe, absous par la patrie.
Tout à coup des brigands firent une tuerie
Qui dura tout un jour et du soir au matin ;
Napoléon le Nain en sortit. Le destin,
De l'expiation implacable ministre,
Dans tout ce sang versé trempa son doigt sinistre
Pour barbouiller, affront à la gloire en lambeau,
Cette caricature au mur de ce tombeau.

Ce monde-là prospère. Il prospère, vous dis-je !
Embonpoint de la honte ! époque callipyge !
Il trône, ce cokney d'Eglinton et d'Epsom,
Qui, la main sur son cœur, dit : Je mens, ergo sum.
Les jours, les mois, les ans passent ; ce flegmatique,
Ce somnambule obscur, brusquement frénétique,
Que Schœlcher a nommé le président Obus,
Règne, continuant ses crimes en abus.
Ô spectacle ! en plein jour, il marche et se promène,
Cet être horrible, insulte à la figure humaine !
Il s'étale effroyable, ayant tout un troupeau
De Suins et de Fortouls qui vivent sur sa peau,
Montrant ses nudités, cynique, infâme, indigne,
Sans mettre à son Baroche une feuille de vigne !
Il rit de voir à terre et montre à Machiavel
Sa parole d'honneur qu'il a tuée en duel.
Il sème l'or ; - venez ! - et sa largesse éclate.
Magnan ouvre sa griffe et Troplong tend sa patte.
Tout va. Les sous-coquins aident le drôle en chef.
Tout est beau, tout est bon, et tout est juste ; bref,
L'église le soutient, l'opéra le constate.
Il vola ! Te Deum. Il égorgea ! cantate.

Lois, mœurs, maître, valets, tout est à l'avenant.
C'est un bivouac de gueux, splendide et rayonnant.
Le mépris bat des mains, admire, et dit : courage !
C'est hideux. L'entouré ressemble à l'entourage.
Quelle collection ! quel choix ! quel Œil-de-boeuf !
L'un vient de Loyola, l'autre vient de Babeuf !
Jamais vénitiens, romains et bergamasques
N'ont sous plus de sifflets vu passer plus de masques.
La société va sans but, sans jour, sans droit,
Et l'envers de l'habit est devenu l'endroit.
L'immondice au sommet de l'état se déploie.
Les chiffonniers, la nuit, courbés, flairant leur proie,
Allongent leurs crochets du côté du sénat.
Voyez-moi ce coquin, normand, corse, auvergnat :
C'était fait pour vieillir bélître et mourir cuistre ;
C'est premier président, c'est préfet, c'est ministre.
Ce truand catholique au temps jadis vivait
Maigre, chez Flicoteaux plutôt que chez Chevet ;
Il habitait au fond d'un bouge à tabatière
Un lit fait et défait, hélas, par sa portière,
Et griffonnait dès l'aube, amer, affreux, souillé,
Exhalant dans son trou l'odeur d'un chien mouillé.
Il conseille l'état pour ving-cinq mille livres
Par an. Ce petit homme, étant teneur de livres
Dans la blonde Marseille, au pays du mistral,
Fit des faux. Le voici procureur général.
Celui-là, qui courait la foire avec un singe,
Est député ; cet autre, ayant fort peu de linge,
Sur la pointe du pied entrait dans les logis
Où bâillait quelque armoire aux tiroirs élargis,
Et du bourgeois absent empruntait la tunique
Nul mortel n'a jamais, de façon plus cynique,
Assouvi le désir des chemises d'autrui ;
Il était grinche hier, il est juge aujourd'hui.
Ceux-ci, quand il leur plaît, chapelains de la clique,
Au saint-père accroupi font pondre une encyclique ;
Ce sont des gazetiers fort puissants en haut lieu,
Car ils sont les amis particuliers de Dieu
Sachez que ces béats, quand ils parlent du temple
Comme de leur maison, n'ont pas tort ; par exemple,
J'ai toujours applaudi quand ils ont affecté
Avec les saints du ciel des airs d'intimité ;
Veuillot, certe, aurait pu vivre avec Saint-Antoine.
Cet autre est général comme on serait chanoine,
Parce qu'il est très gras et qu'il a trois mentons.
Cet autre fut escroc. Cet autre eut vingt bâtons
Cassés sur lui. Cet autre, admirable canaille,
Quand la bise, en janvier, nous pince et nous tenaille,
D'une savate oblique écrasant les talons,
Pour se garer du froid mettait deux pantalons
Dont les trous par bonheur n'étaient pas l'un sur l'autre.
Aujourd'hui, sénateur, dans l'empire il se vautre.
Je regrette le temps que c'était dans l'égout.
Ce ventre a nom d'Hautpoul, ce nez a nom d'Argout.
Ce prêtre, c'est la honte à l'état de prodige.
Passons vite. L'histoire abrège, elle rédige
Royer d'un coup de fouet, Mongis d'un coup de pied,
Et fuit. Royer se frotte et Mongis se rassied ;
Tout est dit. Que leur fait l'affront ? l'opprobre engraissé.
Quant au maître qui hait les curieux, la presse,
La tribune, et ne veut pour son règne éclatant
Ni regards, ni témoins, il doit être content
Il a plus de succès encor qu'il n'en exige ;
César, devant sa cour, son pouvoir, son quadrige,
Ses lois, ses serviteurs brodés et galonnés,
Veut qu'on ferme les veux : on se bouche le nez.

Prenez ce Beauharnais et prenez une loupe ;
Penchez-vous, regardez l'homme et scrutez la troupe.
Vous n'y trouverez pas l'ombre d'un bon instinct.
C'est vil et c'est féroce. En eux l'homme est éteint
Et ce qui plonge l'âme en des stupeurs profondes,
C'est la perfection de ces gredins immondes.

À ce ramas se joint un tas d'affreux poussahs,
Un tas de Triboulets et de Sancho Panças.
Sous vingt gouvernements ils ont palpé des sommes.
Aucune indignité ne manque à ces bonshommes ;
Rufins poussifs, Verrès goutteux, Séjans fourbus,
Selles à tout tyran, sénateurs omnibus.
On est l'ancien soudard, on est l'ancien bourgmestre ;
On tua Louis seize, on vote avec de Maistre ;
Ils ont eu leur fauteuil dans tous les Luxembourgs ;
Ayant vu les Maurys, ils sont faits aux Sibours ;
Ils sont gais, et, contant leurs antiques bamboches,
Branlent leurs vieux gazons sur leurs vieilles caboches.
Ayant été, du temps qu'ils avaient un cheveu,
Lâches sous l'oncle, ils sont abjects sous le neveu.
Gros mandarins chinois adorant le tartare,
Ils apportent leur cœur, leur vertu, leur catarrhe,
Et prosternent, cagneux, devant sa majesté
Leur bassesse avachie en imbécillité.

Cette bande s'embrasse et se livre à des joies.
Bon ménage touchant des vautours et des oies !

Noirs empereurs romains couchés dans les tombeaux,
Qui faisiez aux sénats discuter les turbots,
Toi, dernière Lagide, ô reine au cou de cygne,
Prêtre Alexandre six qui rêves dans ta vigne,
Despotes d'Allemagne éclos dans le Rœmer,
Nemrod qui hais le ciel, Xercès qui bats la mer,
Caïphe qui tressas la couronne d'épine,
Claude après Messaline épousant Agrippine,
Caïus qu'on fit césar, Commode qu'on fit dieu,
Iturbide, Rosas, Mazarin, Richelieu,
Moines qui chassez Dante et brisez Galilée,
Saint-office, conseil des dix, chambre étoilée,
Parlements tout noircis de décrets et d'olims,
Vous sultans, les Mourads, les Achmets, les Sélims,
Rois qu'on montre aux enfants dans tous les syllabaires,
Papes, ducs, empereurs, princes, tas de Tibères !
Bourreaux toujours sanglants, toujours divinisés,
Tyrans ! enseignez-moi, si vous le connaissez,
Enseignez-moi le lieu, le point, la borne où cesse
La lâcheté publique et l'humaine bassesse !

Et l'archet frémissant fait bondir tout cela !
Bal à l'hôtel de ville, au Luxembourg gala.
Allons, juges, dansez la danse de l'épée !
Gambade, ô Dombidau, pour l'onomatopée !
Polkez, Fould et Maupas, avec votre écriteau,
Toi, Persil-Guillotine, au profil de couteau !

Ours que Boustrapa montre et qu'il tient par la sangle,
Valsez, Billault, Parieu, Drouyn, Lebœuf, Delangle !
Danse, Dupin ! dansez, l'horrible et le bouffon !
Hyènes, loups, chacals, non prévus par Buffon,
Leroy, Forey, tueurs au fer rongé de rouilles,
Dansez ! dansez, Berger, d'Hautpoul, Murat, citrouilles !

Et l'on râle en exil, à Cayenne, à Blidah !
Et sur le Duguesclin, et sur le Canada,
Des enfants de dix ans, brigands qu'on extermine,
Agonisent, brûlés de fièvre et de vermine !
Et les mères, pleurant sous l'homme triomphant,
Ne savent même pas où se meurt leur enfant !
Et Samson reparaît, et sort de ses retraites !
Et, le soir, on entend, sur d'horribles charrettes
Qui traversent la ville et qu'on suit à pas lents,
Quelque chose sauter dans des paniers sanglants !
Oh ! laissez ! laissez-moi m'enfuir sur le rivage !
Laissez-moi respirer l'odeur du flot sauvage !
Jersey rit, terre libre, au sein des sombres mers ;
Les genêts sont en fleur, l'agneau paît les prés verts ;
L'écume jette aux rocs ses blanches mousselines ;
Par moments apparaît, au sommet des collines,
Livrant ses crins épars au vent âpre et joyeux,
Un cheval effaré qui hennit dans les cieux !

Jersey, le 24 mai 1853.
Continue reading...
Anais Vionet Nov 2023
josephine’s place
It was the summer of 2014, I was just about to turn 13, spending June of summer vacation with my Grandmère, in Paris. Tonight we’re at a fundraising benefit for African relief (it’s always something). It was a coveted ticket, I was told, because Keira Knightley and Rita Ora were there - somewhere. It was being held at an empire-styled museum-estate in Paris, once owned by Josephine Bonaparte.

The rooms were ornate in the extreme, with dark, woodland, panoramic wall murals, large, finicky-looking furniture, heavy, with gold encrusted - everything. It made the small, dark rooms and tight passageways seem foreboding and claustrophobic.

A boy named Théo was my ‘date’ for the evening (NOT my idea). When my Grandmère was a girl, back when hoop skirts were the fashion and F. Scott Fitzgerald was just sharpening his pencils, a girl didn’t attend a function without a date. Théo was in my grade at school, but he was a couple of inches shorter than me, and his voice seemed different every time he talked. He was a surprise; I don’t even know how she found him.

As we snaked through the main house to the solarium, in a parade of otherwise middle aged, formally dressed guests, the dim hallway squeezed us down to a single-file line. Théo kept trying to take my hand, in the darkness, like he’s scared or something. “Stop that!” I warned him.

Then I saw a mirror - ‘Oh!’ I thought in surprise, stopping dead in the hallway to check my hair, straighten my dress, and pose for my imagination. I became aware Théo was talking, again - he always was - saying, “You're wa wa wa,” or something. Call me a casual and indifferent listener.

“Were you talking to me” I asked, “or just making words up?” He looked exasperated - why?
“You're blocking the way,” he said, anxiously, in a squeaky voice, the way he said it made me think he’d said it before.
He gently took my arm to move me along and I wobbled in my high-heels, I wasn’t very good with heels yet. “Easy,” I cautioned him, my arms briefly flailing.

“You know,” I said defensively,“ someone PUT that mirror there.. probably Napoleon or Josephine - they WANTED people to stop there.” Men are so illogical, it’s a wonder they survive.

As we finally entered the solarium, there was a jazz trio playing ‘C’est si bon’ (Arm in arm), what else? I said, “I’m starving.” A long table along a blue-glass wall featured desserts and champagne. My stomach growled.
I looked around, there was nothing for it - action must be taken - and Théo was useless.
“Want to go get something to eat? I asked him.
He lit up as if awakened, “McDonalds?” he asked. Our conversations were in French, naturally. His joy probably meant his parents didn’t like him eating there (American cuisine! = junk food).
“Bien sûr,” (of course) I said, grinning.

I found my Grandmère in a cluster of elegantly dressed patrons - and there was Keira Knightley - gorgeous, in a dress like she wore in that ‘pirate’ movie - she movie-star glittered, otherworldly.
“I’m starving,” I informed Grandmère, “we’re going to get something to eat,” I turned to show her Théo’s delighted face - he was her idea, after all.
“I was hoping to introduce you…” she started.
“Please!” I asked, bouncing up and down on my toes with some urgency, taking her hand.
“Very well,” she said, sighing, after a moment.

I turned away, wrestling my too-large iPhone-6-plus from my sparkly party clutch.
“Hey Siri, Call Charles,” I commanded. A moment later Charles picked up.
“McDonalds, Champs-Élysées,” I said, as Théo grinned, rubbing his hands in glee. “We’re in the solarium,” I added.
“Eyes on,” Charles said, indicating that he had me in sight.
#fundraisers #paris #napoleon #mcdonalds #2014
Continue reading...
Sid Lollan Nov 2018
Talkin' [to myself] Blues
Constellations of Time
    suffocated, deadspace in my neural lapses—

                                               —still, I caught the fly
                                                             ­ with my hand.

Constellations of Time—
         and I am cowboy in the outer expanses of sanity

faithful cowpoke and Lenape murderer,
native lover, too,
dun American guru
       like john wayne defunct.
but when we speak like droogs,
       this be:
       America: A Detective Story

and I’m the dogged dreams of america:
Humphrey Bogart with his dame Liberty

No, I am Robert Mitchum, too.
Remember Philip Marlowe?


I once was america’s psychosis, and still am.
[I am
the soul who walked above
the soul who walked below;

Constellations of Time—
        like gooey cosmic spider webs;
[and I ******* hate spiders]
Fear of Death
…is being stuck, and
fear of that horrible cosmic spider coming home for dinner!

For,
I am
Monsieur Bonaparte’s Hollywood counterpart
who puts the war before the art,
but not the horse before the cart

DEATH

is where my story starts;
railroads,
like the spine of a country and constellations of time
–im on a plain–
ghosts in dust bowl clusters
reflect like
dust particles, like western stars, scattered—
and im on shifting razor planes and who do the math?
Continue reading...
POSSIBLE Jul 2017
B0n3 4p4R7
There is Presence.  Presence....and there is Light.

“Where am I? What, what,  Who am I?  Am I alive or dead?"  

A suppressed thought makes itself known,
But the neural signal splinters like a bone blown

Far Apart,

Like how my world falls

The way a Cop knocks,
Aggressive *** Nap. bonaparte

Door sound off the hinges,
Safe within , Mi casa es fort knox
Torn apart and a bit Noid
but I’m off the binges,

Drugs gone for years, Ta this day I sew to mend the fringes
So cold my needless frost their tips in silver grips

But It's not over till I clipp the wings
of the Ego above the mountain
and Watch till it fall past ridges

Red sunset stays still while I cry sacrifice

Burn my past like a pagan offering,
measurement of change
Translates to suffering,
the kind the  attached mind brings with age
Like what gravity did to  lay ink to this page

Narrative of the self as a nature staff,
unattached, Barista Like i pour out my past,

To create or destroy, Maybe both
Phoenix rise I was borne of ash
Should I be watering these plants or murdering these beats
I can do both, Stand still as I grow up theese weeds
from under ya feet

Trace up your body, then fold round  like origami,
Hold you still forever, While we pour the waters of truth
Down your throat till you drowning
and crave nothing but the desert drought

I am Enkidu,  started and was born in the forest you so forlorn
I seek the taste, primal essence and grace,
Seem invulnerable to me, but  they lay waste

You offer the black death, while the government reaps of black debt

Living hand in hand with the shadow silhouette,
Sweet sweet  smell of tobacco cigarette
Held holy in hardworked hands

Impoverished Living hand in hand with the capitalist statuette,
live in ignorance staring at the stars
forget the front faced life
like a space cadet

I’ll  bring you out with the kind of light I emit
Green mixed with blue, hope and will brings true legit
Action, which moves you from
The darkest passion the mind brings
Desire so seems everlastinging
But antipode to Omniamorous offering,

Use discernment
there is that which is
Last like poison, but first like Nectar
Then Hard When you start
Hard work make a turn for the better

The search for truth, now sweet as a melon, careful i labor to not live as a felon
Beat never meta, caught you off guard
Trapped out from the top of the pyramid
Tap 5 mana and and a demon
Summon that  Donald trump card
Continue reading...
Alexander K Opicho Apr 2014
CHRISTMAS IN FUNERAL
He brought us up with dovish love
He cautioned us to be serpent wise,
He took us to schools each of us
In a genuine dream to forestall future misery
He fed us well from his meagre earnings,
He discriminated not love among the siblings
We grew up united in family bond,
He made us all to walk tall and proud
As sons and daughters of credible father,
He taught me in particular to read Mahatma Gandhi,
He inspired me with love for Napoleon Bonaparte,
He named me Alexander as a nomenclatural ritual
To procure spiritualities of charm and intellect,
He did us good and indeed we must all agree
As evinced in the love he gave to our mother,
We saw no fearful stress of threatening estrangement
As our mother always clang to us with superior enthusiasm.

He only began to feel pain on every swallow,
Saliva, other liquids and solid stuffs he painfully swallowed
He lost and lost weight on each day as we could do nothing,
But his wisdom and sense of humane picked,
Phenomenally usual precursor of impending death,
He got emaciated and weakling, his feeding decimated,
I desperately took him to hospital and surrendered him
To a man wearing humongous glasses on his bearded face,
The community of that place called him a doctor,
He checked my father and came out with a stark tiding;
Young man, your father has throat cancer!
The barium swallows has indicated all these,
There is eminent presence of tumors and carcinoma
Known for their foul perpetration of oesophagus cancer,
I received this dooms day news with mild trepidation,
He was discharged back to his village home
He died two days later in his hut, on his marital bed
The wooden bed with wick-work of strappings and strings
Crafted from stone hard animal hides and skins,
And it was Christmas day of December 2000,
At three in the afternoon, when my father died
Succumbing to death caused by throat cancer.
Continue reading...
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2015
they once had beautiful handwriting
we know how those doctors about to retire type:
index punch, index punch, left hook index tap,
brawler's right kiss index tap -
thumbs are for the spacebar!
but this little oddity got me thinking: i can tell
you that my grandfather had beautiful handwriting,
and a massive library, and all of this... under
a communist regime... more books than
the modern capitalist household, let me tell you -
oddly enough i followed suit, never truly recognised
my father aged eight at victoria coach station -
4 - 8 under my grandfather's construct -
6 - 8 psyche of a child given a doberman by
his mother and left, upon return asking
for a devil's mask in warsaw, the same devil
mask a furore at a fancy dress party in school
ripped by friends all wanting the share of
suffocating under plastic.
but this got me thinking, i never had the
proper handwriting fluidity for an A grade in
english during examination, that's always a grade
more than anything you put your mind to
in terms of content. so... on handwriting fluidity:
omega alpha beta flows nice, because the greeks
managed to convene that letters had to
have names, no wonder the export of greek lettering
into mathematics and science...
imagine if it was the romanic letters:
that's *** arr squared: peeing on the arc of triumph
seeing sqaures?! bonaparte with a bunch of pirates?!
no! πr2, the area of the ****** circle!
never mind that, that's just me overstepping
the giggles, but i think because of the non-complex
denotation of the romanic letters we have terrible
handwriting, just like it sounds, punched in by dyslexic
judy separately: look - a'    b'e    c'e     d'e    e'  z'ed.
no wonder the alphabet turned to programming
and cyborg fancies - plus it's no fun trying to remember
alpha bravo charlie... i mean, it's a bit ****, that nato
phonetic ******* over the phone: oscar v. ω?
ω! romeo v. ρ? ρ! sierra v. σ? σ! let's face it, greek
too ancient and romanic trying to speed up... no wonder
there's a bit of charlie and the x-ray;
or maybe this whole phoneticism is a way to say -
keep that ugly so we can lego it into beautiful stances
of the fencing tongue.
Continue reading...
Victor Hugo
Ce siècle avait deux ans
Data fata secutus.
DEVISE DES ST-JOHN.

Ce siècle avait deux ans ! Rome remplaçait Sparte,
Déjà Napoléon perçait sous Bonaparte,
Et du premier consul, déjà, par maint endroit,
Le front de l'empereur brisait le masque étroit.
Alors dans Besançon, vieille ville espagnole,
Jeté comme la graine au gré de l'air qui vole,
Naquit d'un sang breton et lorrain à la fois
Un enfant sans couleur, sans regard et sans voix ;
Si débile qu'il fut, ainsi qu'une chimère,
Abandonné de tous, excepté de sa mère,
Et que son cou ployé comme un frêle roseau
Fit faire en même temps sa bière et son berceau.
Cet enfant que la vie effaçait de son livre,
Et qui n'avait pas même un lendemain à vivre,
C'est moi. -

Je vous dirai peut-être quelque jour
Quel lait pur, que de soins, que de vœux, que d'amour,
Prodigués pour ma vie en naissant condamnée,
M'ont fait deux fois l'enfant de ma mère obstinée,
Ange qui sur trois fils attachés à ses pas
Épandait son amour et ne mesurait pas !

Ô l'amour d'une mère ! amour que nul n'oublie !
Pain merveilleux qu'un Dieu partage et multiplie !
Table toujours servie au paternel foyer !
Chacun en a sa part, et tous l'ont tout entier !

Je pourrai dire un jour, lorsque la nuit douteuse
Fera parler les soirs ma vieillesse conteuse,
Comment ce haut destin de gloire et de terreur
Qui remuait le monde aux pas de l'empereur,
Dans son souffle orageux m'emportant sans défense,
À tous les vents de l'air fit flotter mon enfance.
Car, lorsque l'aquilon bat ses flots palpitants,
L'océan convulsif tourmente en même temps
Le navire à trois ponts qui tonne avec l'orage,
Et la feuille échappée aux arbres du rivage !

Maintenant jeune encore et souvent éprouvé,
J'ai plus d'un souvenir profondément gravé,
Et l'on peut distinguer bien des choses passées
Dans ces plis de mon front que creusent mes pensées.
Certes, plus d'un vieillard sans flamme et sans cheveux,
Tombé de lassitude au bout de tous ses vœux,
Pâlirait s'il voyait, comme un gouffre dans l'onde,
Mon âme où ma pensée habite comme un monde,
Tout ce que j'ai souffert, tout ce que j'ai tenté,
Tout ce qui m'a menti comme un fruit avorté,
Mon plus beau temps passé sans espoir qu'il renaisse,
Les amours, les travaux, les deuils de ma jeunesse,
Et quoiqu'encore à l'âge où l'avenir sourit,
Le livre de mon cœur à toute page écrit !

Si parfois de mon sein s'envolent mes pensées,
Mes chansons par le monde en lambeaux dispersées ;
S'il me plaît de cacher l'amour et la douleur
Dans le coin d'un roman ironique et railleur ;
Si j'ébranle la scène avec ma fantaisie ;
Si j'entre-choque aux yeux d'une foule choisie
D'autres hommes comme eux, vivant tous à la fois
De mon souffle et parlant au peuple avec ma voix ;
Si ma tête, fournaise où mon esprit s'allume,
Jette le vers d'airain qui bouillonne et qui fume
Dans le rythme profond, moule mystérieux
D'où sort la strophe ouvrant ses ailes dans les cieux ;
C'est que l'amour, la tombe, et la gloire, et la vie,
L'onde qui fuit, par l'onde incessamment suivie,
Tout souffle, tout rayon, ou propice ou fatal,
Fait reluire et vibrer mon âme de cristal,
Mon âme aux mille voix, que le Dieu que j'adore
Mit au centre de tout comme un écho sonore !

D'ailleurs j'ai purement passé les jours mauvais,
Et je sais d'où je viens, si j'ignore où je vais.
L'orage des partis avec son vent de flamme
Sans en altérer l'onde a remué mon âme ;
Rien d'immonde en mon cœur, pas de limon impur
Qui n'attendît qu'un vent pour en troubler l'azur !

Après avoir chanté, j'écoute et je contemple,
À l'empereur tombé dressant dans l'ombre un temple,
Aimant la liberté pour ses fruits, pour ses fleurs,
Le trône pour son droit, le roi pour ses malheurs ;
Fidèle enfin au sang qu'ont versé dans ma veine
Mon père, vieux soldat, ma mère, vendéenne !

Juin 1830.
Continue reading...
Myrrdin Aug 2018
Perspective
I weigh 1/4 of a blue whales heart
I am as tall as Napolean Bonaparte
I am as old as Oprah's Book Club
When I do not like myself
I think of these things
And suddenly, I look very different.
#perspective #whale #napoleon #tall #book #club #oprah #different
Continue reading...
Félix Arvers
À MM. Barthélemy et Méry
Chantres associés et paisibles rivaux,

Qui mettez en commun la gloire et les travaux,

Et qu'on voit partager sans trouble et sans orage

D'un laurier fraternel le pacifique ombrage ;

Lorsque de toutes parts le public empressé,

Chez l'heureux éditeur chaque jour entassé.

De vos vers en naissant devenus populaires

Se dispute à l'envi les dix-mille exemplaires,

Pardonnez, si je viens à vos nobles accents

Obscur admirateur, offrir ma part d'encens.


Sur les abus criants d'un odieux système,

Lorsque le peuple entier a lancé l'anathème,

Et contre ces vizirs honnis et détestés,

S'est levé comme un homme et les a rejetés ;

Du haro général organes satiriques,

Vos vers ont démasqué ces honteux empiriques ;

Votre muse, esquissant leurs grotesques portraits,

D'un ridicule amer assaisonnant ses traits

Contre chaque méfait, vedette en permanence.

Improvisait un chant, comme eux une ordonnance,

Combattait pour nos droits, et lavant nos affronts,

D'un iambe vainqueur stigmatisait leurs fronts.

Mais lorsqu'ils ont enfin, relégués dans leurs terres,

Amovibles tyrans, pleuré leurs ministères.

Votre muse, à leur fuite adressant ses adieux.

Dans une courte épitre a rendu grâce aux dieux.

Dédaignant d'accabler, tranquille et satisfaite.

Ces ignobles vaincus meurtris de leur défaite.


Lors il fallut trouver dans ce vaste univers

Un plus noble sujet qui méritât vos vers :

Et vous avez montré dans les champs d'Idumée

L'Orient en présence avec la grande Armée,

Le Nil soumis au joug et du vainqueur d'Eylau

Le portrait colossal dominant le tableau.

Et quel autre sujet pouvait, -plus poétique.

Présenter à vos yeux son prisme fantastique ?

Quel autre champ pouvait, de plus brillantes fleurs

Offrir à vos pinceaux les riantes couleurs ?

Une invisible main, sous le ciel de l'Asie,

A, comme les parfums, semé la poésie :

Ces peuples, qui, pliés au joug de leurs sultans,

Résistent, obstinés à la marche du temps ;

Ces costumes, ces mœurs, ce stupide courage

Qui semble appartenir aux hommes d'un autre âge,

Ces palais, ces tombeaux, cet antique Memnon

Qui de leurs fondateurs ont oublié le nom ;

Ce Nil, qui sur des monts égarés dans la nue,

Va cacher le secret de sa source inconnue ;

Tout inspire, tout charme ; et des siècles passés

Ranimant à nos yeux les récits effacés.

Donne à l'éclat récent de nos jours de victoire

La couleur des vieux temps et l'aspect de l'histoire.


Votre muse a saisi de ces tableaux épars

Les contrastes brillants offerts de toutes parts :

Elle peint, dans le choc de ces tribus errantes

Le cliquetis nouveau des armes différentes,

Les bonnets tout poudreux de nos républicains

Heurtant dans le combat les turbans africains.

Et, sous un ciel brûlant, la lutte poétique

De la France moderne et de l'Asie antique.

Temps fertile en héros ! glorieux souvenir !

Quand de Napoléon tout rempli d'avenir,

Sur le sol de l'Arabe encor muet de crainte,

La botte éperonnée a marqué son empreinte,

Et gravé sur les bords du Nil silencieux

L'ineffaçable sceau de l'envoyé des cieux !

Beaux jours ! où Bonaparte était jeune, où la France

D'un avenir meilleur embrassait l'espérance.

Souriait aux travaux de ses nobles enfants,

Et saluait de **** leurs drapeaux triomphants ;

Et ne prévoyait pas que ce chef militaire

Vers les degrés prochains d'un trône héréditaire

Marchait, tyran futur, à travers tant d'exploits ;

Et mettant son épée à la place des lois,

Fils de la liberté, préparait à sa mère

Le coup inespéré que recelait Brumaire !


Mais enfin ce fut l'heure : et les temps accomplis

Marquèrent leur limite à ses desseins remplis.

Abattu sous les coups d'une main vengeresse,

Il paya chèrement ces courts instants d'ivresse.

Comme j'aime ces vers où l'on voit à leur tour,

Les rois unis livrer sa pâture au vautour ;

Des pâles cabinets l'étroite politique

Le jeter palpitant au sein de l'Atlantique,

Et pour mieux lui fermer un périlleux chemin,

Du poids d'indignes fers déshonorer sa main.

Sa main ! dont ils ont su les étreintes fatales,

Qui data ses décrets de leurs vingt capitales.

Qui, des honneurs du camp, pour ses soldats titrés.

Après avoir enfin épuisé les degrés.

Et relevant pour eux les antiques pairies,

Sur les flancs de leurs chars semé les armoiries,

Pour mieux récompenser ces glorieux élus,

A de la royauté fait un grade de plus.


Et vous, qui poursuivant une noble pensée,

Aux travaux de nos preux fîtes une Odyssée,

Qui montrant à nos yeux sous un soleil lointain

Ces préludes brillants de l'homme du destin,

Avez placé vos chants sous l'ombre tutélaire

D'une gloire historique et déjà séculaire,

Mêlés dans les récits des âges à venir,

Vos vers auront leur part de ce grand souvenir :

Comme, sous Périclès, ce sculpteur de l'Attique

Dont la main enfanta le Jupiter antique,

Dans les siècles futurs associa son nom

A l'immortalité des Dieux du Parthénon.
Continue reading...
Victor Hugo
Le chasseur noir
Qu'es-tu, passant ? Le bois est sombre,
Les corbeaux volent en grand nombre,
Il va pleuvoir.
- Je suis celui qui va dans l'ombre,
Le Chasseur Noir !

Les feuilles des bois, du vent remuées,
Sifflent... on dirait
Qu'un sabbat nocturne emplit de huées
Toute la forêt ;
Dans une clairière au sein des nuées
La lune apparaît.

- Chasse le daim, chasse la biche,
Cours dans les bois, cours dans la friche,
Voici le soir.
Chasse le czar, chasse l'Autriche,
Ô Chasseur Noir !

Les feuilles des bois -

Souffle en ton cor, boucle ta guêtre,
Chasse les cerfs qui viennent paître
Près du manoir.
Chasse le roi, chasse le prêtre,
Ô Chasseur Noir !

Les feuilles des bois -

Il tonne, il pleut, c'est le déluge.
Le renard fuit, pas de refuge
Et pas d'espoir !
Chasse l'espion, chasse le juge,
Ô Chasseur Noir !

Les feuilles des bois -

Tous les démons de saint-Antoine
Bondissent dans la folle avoine
Sans t'émouvoir ;
Chasse l'abbé, chasse le moine,
Ô Chasseur Noir !

Les feuilles des bois -

Chasse les ours ! ta meute jappe.
Que pas un sanglier n'échappe !
Fais ton devoir !
Chasse César, chasse le pape,
Ô Chasseur Noir !

Les feuilles des bois -

Le loup de ton sentier s'écarte.
Que ta meute à sa suite parte !
Cours ! fais-le choir !
Chasse le brigand Bonaparte,
Ô Chasseur Noir !

Les feuilles des bois, du vent remuées,
Tombent... on dirait
Que le sabbat sombre aux rauques huées
À fui la forêt ;
Le clair chant du coq perce les nuées ;
Ciel ! l'aube apparaît !

Tout reprend sa forme première.
Tu redeviens la France altière
Si belle à voir,
L'ange blanc vêtu de lumière,
Ô Chasseur Noir !

Les feuilles des bois, du vent remuées,
Tombent... on dirait
Que le sabbat sombre aux rauques huées
À fui la forêt ;
Le clair chant du coq perce les nuées,
Ciel ! l'aube apparaît !

Jersey, le 22 octobre 1852.
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Juan de Dios Peza
A garibaldi ¹
El aura popular me trajo un día
Un nombre que la fama y la victoria
Coronaron de luz y poesía
En la tierra del arte y de la gloria.

Brotando del estruendo de la guerra,
De patricia virtud germen fecundo,
Cruzó como relámpago la tierra,
Y como himno triunfal vibró en el mundo.

Símbolo de una causa redentora,
Conquistó aplausos, lauros, alabanza,
Y brilló sobre Italia como aurora
De libertad, de unión y de esperanza.

¡Garibaldi! con júbilo exclamaba
Entusiasmado el pueblo por doquiera,
Y América ese nombre lo agregaba,
Como nuevo blasón, a su bandera.

¡Oh titán indomable! tú traías
Sobre tu fe la inspiración del cielo,
Y eras para tus pueblos el Mesías
Anunciado por Dante y Maquiavelo.

En la lucha león, niño en el trato,
Clemente y fraternal con los vencidos,
Fue tu palabra el toque de rebato
Que despertó los pueblos oprimidos.

Por donde quiera que tu faz asoma,
Su salvador el pueblo te proclama,
Y Bolonia, Milán, Nápoles, Roma,
Responden a tu esfuerzo y a tu fama.

Es de un hijo de Esparta tu bravura;
Fuego de Grecia en tu mirar entrañas;
Y en el Tirol tu bíblica figura
Parece un semidiós de las montañas.

Tu abnegación sublime me conmueve;
No es mi laúd quien tu alabanza entona:
La eterna voz del siglo diez y nueve
Por todo el mundo tu valor pregona.

Tuviste siempre corazón entero
Donde ningún remordimiento anida,
Pecho de bronce, voluntad de acero,
Ojos radiantes de esperanza y vida.

Marino en la niñez, acostumbrado
A combatir la tempestad a solas,
Diste a tu genio el vuelo no domado
Del huracán al encrespar las olas.

No me asombra en Egipto Bonaparte
Que las altas pirámides profana;
Me admiras tú, clavando tu estandarte
En la desierta pampa americana.

Al César vencedor el turbio Nilo
Aun en sus ondas con terror retrata,
Mientras tu rostro escultural, tranquilo
En su cristal azul dibuja el Plata.

¿Dónde habrá más virtud y más
nobleza:
En el que al mundo en su ambición oprime,
O en el que, sin corona en la cabeza,
Unifica su patria y la redime?

¡Eras un gladiador! Te halló más fuerte
Que un cedro de los Alpes tu destino.
Forma, desde tu cuna hasta tu muerte,
Un bosque de laureles tu camino.

Cuando la hiel de todos los dolores
Cayó en tu abierto corazón de atleta,
Fue la cruz de los grandes redentores
La visión de tu numen de profeta.

Viendo en toda la Italia una familia,
Tanto te sacrificas en su abono,
Que cuando audaz conquistas la Sicilia,
Por no romper la unión, la das al trono.

¡Bendigo tu misión! El mundo ingrato,
Que hoy aplaude tu nombre y lo venera,
Olvidará que fuiste un Cincinato
En tu retiro augusto de Caprera.

Negará que tu te republicana,
Iluminando siempre tu horizonte,
Brilló en Palermo, deslumbró en Mentana,
E irradió como sol en Aspromonte.

Olvidará también que tus legiones
Llevaron siempre combatiendo, fieles,
Por escudos sus nobles corazones,
Las glorias de la patria por laureles.

Mas no podrá negar que, entre prolijos
Goces, te vimos con amor profundo,
Dar tu sangre y la sangre de tus hijos
Por defender la libertad del mundo

No sólo Roma con viril acento
Ensalzará tu nombre, ilustre anciano,
Que ya dejas perpetuo monumento
En cada corazón americano.

Francia se enorgullece con tu nombre;
Méjico rinde culto a tu memoria;
Y no hay una nación que no se asombre
De tu fe, de tu genio y de tu gloria.

Sirva a los pueblos libres de amuleto
Tu nombre, que la historia diviniza,
Y el mundo mire siempre con respeto
El ánfora que guarde tu ceniza.

La República fue tu culto santo
La unión de Italia tu ambición suprema,
La blusa roja tu purpúreo manto,
Y el gorro frigio tu imperial diadema.
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Victor Hugo
Splendeurs
I.

À présent que c'est fait, dans l'avilissement
Arrangeons-nous chacun notre compartiment
Marchons d'un air auguste et fier ; la honte est bue.
Que tout à composer cette cour contribue,
Tout, excepté l'honneur, tout, hormis les vertus.
Faites vivre, animez, envoyez vos foetus
Et vos nains monstrueux, bocaux d'anatomie
Donne ton crocodile et donne ta momie,
Vieille Égypte ; donnez, tapis-francs, vos filous ;
Shakespeare, ton Falstaff ; noires forêts, vos loups ;
Donne, ô bon Rabelais, ton Grandgousier qui mange ;
Donne ton diable, Hoffmann ; Veuillot, donne ton ange ;
Scapin, apporte-nous Géronte dans ton sac ;
Beaumarchais, prête-nous Bridoison ; que Balzac
Donne Vautrin ; Dumas, la Carconte ; Voltaire,
Son Frélon que l'argent fait parler et fait taire ;
Mabile, les beautés de ton jardin d'hiver ;
Le Sage, cède-nous Gil Blas ; que Gulliver
Donne tout Lilliput dont l'aigre est une mouche,
Et Scarron Bruscambille, et Callot Scaramouche.
Il nous faut un dévot dans ce tripot payen ;
Molière, donne-nous Montalembert. C'est bien,
L'ombre à l'horreur s'accouple, et le mauvais au pire.
Tacite, nous avons de quoi faire l'empire ;
Juvénal, nous avons de quoi faire un sénat.

II.

Ô Ducos le gascon, ô Rouher l'auvergnat,
Et vous, juifs, Fould Shylock, Sibour Iscariote,
Toi Parieu, toi Bertrand, horreur du patriote,
Bauchart, bourreau douceâtre et proscripteur plaintif,
Baroche, dont le nom n'est plus qu'un vomitif,
Ô valets solennels, ô majestueux fourbes,
Travaillant votre échine à produire des courbes,
Bas, hautains, ravissant les Daumiers enchantés
Par vos convexités et vos concavités,
Convenez avec moi, vous tous qu'ici je nomme,
Que Dieu dans sa sagesse a fait exprès cet homme
Pour régner sur la France, ou bien sur Haïti.
Et vous autres, créés pour grossir son parti,
Philosophes gênés de cuissons à l'épaule,
Et vous, viveurs râpés, frais sortis de la geôle,
Saluez l'être unique et providentiel,
Ce gouvernant tombé d'une trappe du ciel,
Ce césar moustachu, gardé par cent guérites,
Qui sait apprécier les gens et les mérites,
Et qui, prince admirable et grand homme en effet,
Fait Poissy sénateur et Clichy sous-préfet.

III.

Après quoi l'on ajuste au fait la théorie
« A bas les mots ! à bas loi, liberté, patrie !
Plus on s'aplatira, plus ou prospérera.
Jetons au feu tribune et presse, et cætera.

Depuis quatre-vingt-neuf les nations sont ivres.
Les faiseurs de discours et les faiseurs de livres
Perdent tout ; le poëte est un fou dangereux ;
Le progrès ment, le ciel est vide, l'art est creux,
Le monde est mort. Le peuple ? un âne qui se cabre !
La force, c'est le droit. Courbons-nous. Gloire au sabre !
À bas les Washington ! vivent les Attila ! »
On a des gens d'esprit pour soutenir cela.

Oui, qu'ils viennent tous ceux qui n'ont ni cœur ni flamme,
Qui boitent de l'honneur et qui louchent de l'âme ;
Oui, leur soleil se lève et leur messie est né.
C'est décrété, c'est fait, c'est dit, c'est canonné
La France est mitraillée, escroquée et sauvée.
Le hibou Trahison pond gaîment sa couvée.

IV.

Et partout le néant prévaut ; pour déchirer
Notre histoire, nos lois, nos droits, pour dévorer
L'avenir de nos fils et les os de nos pères,
Les bêtes de la nuit sortent de leurs repaires
Sophistes et soudards resserrent leur réseau
Les Radetzky flairant le gibet du museau,
Les Giulay, poil tigré, les Buol, face verte,
Les Haynau, les Bomba, rôdent, la gueule ouverte,
Autour du genre humain qui, pâle et garrotté,
Lutte pour la justice et pour la vérité ;
Et de Paris à Pesth, du Tibre aux monts Carpathes,
Sur nos débris sanglants rampent ces mille-pattes.

V.

Du lourd dictionnaire où Beauzée et Batteux
Ont versé les trésors de leur bon sens goutteux,
Il faut, grâce aux vainqueurs, refaire chaque lettre.
Ame de l'homme, ils ont trouvé moyen de mettre
Sur tes vieilles laideurs un tas de mots nouveaux,
Leurs noms. L'hypocrisie aux yeux bas et dévots
À nom Menjaud, et vend Jésus dans sa chapelle ;
On a débaptisé la honte, elle s'appelle
Sibour ; la trahison, Maupas ; l'assassinat
Sous le nom de Magnan est membre du Sénat ;
Quant à la lâcheté, c'est Hardouin qu'on la nomme ;
Riancey, c'est le mensonge, il arrive de Rome
Et tient la vérité renfermée en son puits ;
La platitude a nom Montlaville-Chapuis ;
La prostitution, ingénue, est princesse ;
La férocité, c'est Carrelet ; la bassesse
Signe Rouher, avec Delangle pour greffier.
Ô muse, inscris ces noms. Veux-tu qualifier
La justice vénale, atroce, abjecte et fausse ?
Commence à Partarieu pour finir par Lafosse.
J'appelle Saint-Arnaud, le meurtre dit : c'est moi.
Et, pour tout compléter par le deuil et l'effroi,
Le vieux calendrier remplace sur sa carte
La Saint-Barthélemy par la Saint-Bonaparte.

Quant au peuple, il admire et vote ; on est suspect
D'en douter, et Paris écoute avec respect
Sibour et ses sermons, Trolong et ses troplongues.
Les deux Napoléon s'unissent en diphthongues,
Et Berger entrelace en un chiffre hardi
Le boulevard Montmartre entre Arcole et Lodi.
Spartacus agonise en un bagne fétide ;
On chasse Thémistocle, on expulse Aristide,
On jette Daniel dans la fosse aux lions ;
Et maintenant ouvrons le ventre aux millions !

Jersey, novembre 1852.
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John Edward Smallshaw Jul 2015
The country court
Fun fun times in the now and here and in no man's land between the lines where everything that's anything and no one who can be anyone or any one who can be everyone goes.

The weasel may be popped, but the shop's open the whole year through, fun fun things for us to do and who'd have thought that they only bought to keep up with the next door Jones.

Rags and bones and pony carts, Napoleons and Bonaparte's all come to them asylum men who in their white coats, stethoscopes at hand lead the madness of the marching and who'd have thought that they were mad, one and all of them asylum men.

Work they said will cure the blues, but I choose not to take advice, they look twice and shake their heads, Supermen in lockdown wards on lockdown beds with locked in minds find Lois with the golden hair, she's watching any someone over there and it happens to be me, what glee, one more Nero on the deck to fiddle things, in my neck of the woods, goods in, goods out and that's what madness is about, absolutely pointless drivel dribbled by the 14th Earl of anywhere she's just a girl, not allowed the umpire shouts, not PC get out of here and in no man's land the band lays down, Napoleon marches on one more town, Havisham sits in her wedding gown and dust gathers in the corridors.
It's Wednesday and a workday,  sanity is in short supply and insanity is a bit like being inAsda or inHarrods.. or so they say.
#dickens
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