We were scattered across the globe like ashes.
Every muscle, every joint, every bone and vessel dissolved into a heap of powder small enough to hold in your palm
And we threw ourselves to the wind to be blown all over the world

Eventually, we will grow old together deep down in the soil and in between layers of sand and rock. Our fingers will turn into root and once again intertwine.

But for now we are particles of the earth, lost to each other and ourselves
Ashes.

Why talk
When they don't listen?
Why be
When you don't feel?
Why yield
Unto submission?
Why earn
When you can steal?
Why fight
Against the darkness?
Why love
When love will die?
The past is dust and vanity.
The future is a lie.

Ceux-ci partent, ceux-là demeurent.
Sous le sombre aquilon, dont les mille voix pleurent,
Poussière et genre humain, tout s'envole à la fois.
Hélas ! le même vent souffle, en l'ombre où nous sommes,
Sur toutes les têtes des hommes,
Sur toutes les feuilles des bois.

Ceux qui restent à ceux qui passent
Disent : - Infortunés ! déjà vos fronts s'effacent.
Quoi ! vous n'entendrez plus la parole et le bruit !
Quoi ! vous ne verrez plus ni le ciel ni les arbres !
Vous allez dormir sous les marbres !
Vous aller tomber dans la nuit ! -

Ceux qui passent à ceux qui restent
Disent : - Vous n'avez rien à vous ! vos pleurs l'attestent !
Pour vous, gloire et bonheur sont des mots décevants,
Dieu donne aux morts les biens réels, les vrais royaumes.
Vivants ! vous êtes des fantômes ;
C'est nous qui sommes les vivants ! -

Février 1843.

Beyond is a bleak, grey skyline

I barely recognize my vignette

Yet here I am, walking that thin white line

As if I had not met him yet



I barely recognize my vignette

Black swans move like serpentines

As if I had not met him yet

Slow, calculated, but ready to strike at cloud nine



Black swans move like serpentine

He still whispers in my ear, I just cannot forget

Slow, calculated, but ready to strike me at cloud nine

“Pulvis et umbra sumus,” was his epithet



He still whispers in my ear, I just cannot forget

Their banshee bugle wails overcome; I am confined

“Pulvis et umbra sumus,” was his epithet

Like smashed cherries, their eyes were as ****** as port wine



Their banshee bugle wails overcome; I am confined

He wanted to mold to be a useful asset

Like smashed cherries, their eyes were as ****** as port wine

I gladly follow those threats



He wanted to mold me to be a useful asset

What called them on was my mental upset

I gladly follow those threats

There is nothing to regret



What called them on was my mental upset

It is foolish to once think I could outshine

There is nothing to regret

All I have ahead is a relentless battle line



It is foolish to once think I could outshine

I am merely a pathetic statuette

All I have ahead is a relentless battle line

Soon they all will forget



I am merely a pathetic statuette

Onyx swans call me to the brackish streamline

Soon they all will forget

It is there I snipped that innocent white line



Onyx swans call me to the brackish streamline

He influences my mindset

It is there I snipped that innocent white line

Time becomes frigid as I sink into that brine outlet



He influences my mindset

My body is limp in the alkaline

Time becomes frigid as I sink into that brine outlet

It is there I found no lifeline



My body is limp in the alkaline

The onyx swans fly in a v-line sextet

It is there I found no lifeline

He brought me to the finish with no reset



Beyond was a bleak, grey skyline

Yet there I was, walking that thin white line.

S’il m’était donné de choisir, comme une dernière bouée de sauvetage, au faîte de ma déréliction endémique, entre le pinacle à la française à Fontainebleau et la géhenne à deux encablures de la tour de Pise, je choisirais assurément, sans l’ombre d’un doute, sans l’ombre d’une hésitation, sans un cillement d’yeux, le paradis des hardis réprouvés dans la géhenne toscane.

Géhenne pour géhenne s’il m’était donné de choisir comme compagnons de noble moisissure entre Marie Joseph Rose (1763-1814) et Marie-Louise (1778-1851), j’opterais aussi vite que l’éclair qui zèbre l’oeil ivre des cyclones autistes pour l’épouse d’Henri (1767-1820) aux détriments de la créole impératrice et pour le Grenadien plus que pour le Corse (1769-1821).

Entre la géhenne aux relents de sangliers épicés de gui des druides rôtissant sous les langues de flammes du bûcher de Jeanne la Pucelle (1412-1431) et celle aux humeurs de sang du cochon noir scarifié par Cécile Fatiman (1775-1883) épouse Pierrot (Jean Louis Michel Paul) (1761-1857) qui vécut plus que centenaire, permettez que je préfère un bail de cent et quelques douze ans à vol d’oiseau de Bwa Kayiman.

Sur mon échafaud ce n’est pas Louis Le Dernier l’ex-Seizième (1754-1793) et sa fleur de lys que je pleure mais Boukman Dutty (?- 1791), le Jamaïquain et son cou coupé cloué!

S’il m’était donné de choisir à l’heure de mon dernier mercredi des Cendres entre extrême-onction de poussière boréale aux parfums de lavande et de papier bible et viatique de poussière volcanique aux fumets de soufre et de bay-rhum, ce ne serait aucun sacrifice que de faire libation des tourments d’amour et de feu de cette boue vavalesque des Bains Jaunes car je suis né par la volonté des cyclones de cette poussière rouge et noire à la fois, et de cette poussière kako je ne sortirai que par la force des genèses des cyclones-baïonnettes.

When you close your eyes, restless dreamer,
what do you see?
A dusty blossom, a crown of feathers, claws reaching?
Do you hear music? Whispers? Darkness?
Pulvis et umbra sumus, my dear.
We are ravens in flight, the arrow chasing our wings,
reaching towards slumber.
We sleep, but do not rest.

Pulvis et umbra summus.

Omnis mundi mortalis est, temporis crescit

During our struggle to attain peace
the heavens open,
You can only smile in the soaking rain.

Practices must be underscored
by a narrative they can be subsumed by
if they are to elicit change

in the person, fashion personality or craft persona.
"But I am straitened between two:

Having a desire to be dissolved
and to be with Christ, a thing by far the better.

But to abide still in the flesh, is needful for you".
[Pulvis et] umbra sumus.

the words I read are greater than any thought I could ever have, better than any explanation I could ever give, more of my soul than I have ever let anyone see. I still haven’t accepted that I am not those words and I will never be them, those characters, those stories. But after all, “pulvis et umbra sumus”, he said, “we are dust and shadows”.