Words ride on sound-waves
Across smoky rooms and satellites
They carve out keys
That unlock underground rivers
And spark dry flints
Into fires that buzz
Hum and ignite ideas
Through towns and continents
We must use them well
Words that are lightweight skitter
Over the surface of a lake
Skimming the depths that carry them
Or tumble from the jar
Convention requires us to keep
Ready-filled
Like sweets
Wrapped in bright colours
Words heavy with overuse
Deaden the hymn to
What matters to us most
And make it a thing
Purchased on special offer
Bulk buy at the chainstore
Vitality crushed
By their limp weight
Words that are barbs
From which weapons hang
Well-oiled and ready
For the unthinkable
Adorn word palaces
Made of chicken wire
Listen to the wind whisper
The lie through empty holes
As the edifice slinks and bends
With the tide
Cling to words as you cling to life
When they lose their essence
We no longer feel
The world dislocates
And falls out of joint
With itself
Line them up, slow and deliberate
Lay a path we can walk on
Stones, carefully chosen on a shingle beach
Layered and shaped by the tide
Drawn from the bedrock of history
Where word and being are one
Can we choose where we sit
At the eternal church lunch
In that great house of heaven?
Do we have to share a room?
Could it be โฆ dormitories!
What music will there be?
What if itโs country
With a worship leader.
Shall we wear fixed smiles
Through eternal centuries
Playing games to pass the time?
What happens if you are
A private person?
Will there be queues
To meet our heroes
While others stand in lonely corners
Whistling a quiet tune
Looking at their shoes?
Shall I sit on the dunceโs chair
As befits my dotted line of faith
While passers-by
With hooded eyes and doubtful lips
Assess my long-stay permit application
Wait. This is hell.
Or else a church weekend away.
In heaven,
The lines of weak and strong
Break in confusion at the thought of God
Before a limitless horizon.
We struggle through life
Dragging carrier bags
Heavy with what we know
But once a year we dream
That the world stops running
Its habitual course
Just long enough
For God to put in
An appearance
But in our city streets
Everpresent neons bling and hoot
As the wind blows
Newspaper around our ankles
Weighted with words of
All we canโt put right
With our clinical knives and surgical gloves
Under the lamp of our
Great belief in ourselves
Hate hisses and swells across the world
Meanwhile, hot air escapes
From bankers and wise men
While love is just a heart
Scratched between two names
On a toilet door
God, in all this ?
We look for him
In some sweet imagined silent night
Snow dulling the worldโs noise
Angel voices ever singing
Peace in a plastic
Snowstorm bubble
Village church scene
But the cry of the newborn child
Deep gasp fighting for life
Shout of protest on entering this world
And at the status quo
Of what we think we know
Doesnโt wait for the dream
But cuts across time
The cry that guides us
Never leaves us
Calls, through the real
Of the then, the now
And the will be
Bullshits the fiction
And fills our lungs in turn
With clean air
LE CRI – poรจme de Noรซl
La vie nous encombre de
Sacs de courses
Chargรฉs de notre sagesse acquise
Or une fois par an nous rรชvons
Que le monde arrรชte
Son cours habituel
Juste le temps que Dieu
Fasse son entrรฉe
Eclair
Mais dans nos villes
Sous lโรฉternel nรฉon, clinquant, criard
Le vent envoie contre nos jambes
Du papier journal
Lourd de paroles annonรงant
Les maux que nous ne pouvons soulager
Avec scalpel et gants chirurgicaux
Sous la lampe de notre grande
Confiance en nous-mรชmes
La haine siffle, gonfle ร travers le monde
Alors que banquiers et sages
Ne brassent que du vent
Et lโamour se cantonne en un cลur
Taguรฉ entre deux noms
Sur la porte des chiottes (pc WC)
Dieu dans tout รงa ?
Nous lโattendons ailleurs
Dans une quelconque nuit
Douce, silencieuse, imaginaire
Oรน la neige attรฉnue le bruit terrestre
Et les anges dans nos campagnes
Chantent la paix au village
Dans une boule ร neige en plastique
Mais le cri du nouveau-nรฉ
Qui se bat pour respirer
Lance sa protestation
Dรจs son entrรฉe dans ce monde
Contre le statut quo
De ce que nous croyons savoir
Et nโattend pas le rรชve
Pour transpercer le temps
Ce cri qui nous guide
Ne nous quitte plus
Appelle, au cลur du vrai
Dans ce qui รฉtait, qui est, et qui sera
Fait taire le pipeau
Et remplit enfin nos poumons
Dโun air pur
Vertical line wafer-cotton-thin
Top to bottom, heaven to earth
Perfection drawing down to gravity
Pure line cuts through messed-up years
Soul-tearing conflicts, each sideโs tug of war
Pulling to displace it, transform it, own it
Thread-bare it out of all recognition
In order to occupy the centre ground
But this plumbline across which the pendulum swings
The pivotal point of Every Thing
Continues its course
Through every nightmare of human emotion
The scream, the fury, the nourished resentment
Of the woman whose mind has got lost in her life
Soiling herself as she hits out at cars
The power-crazed, feeding on the hearts of others
Childrenโs voices silenced by a real gun
Or made adult too soon, souls sold for cash
The homeless washing t-shirts in a Paris drain
Pride strutting down the sidewalk in smoked-glass shades
The complacent me-dom of righteous indifference
Its scrapheaps of privilege
Paradise to the scavenger
The misplaced hope in fairy tales
The disappointment in reality
Pinned out on a slab with nails between this point and that
Left to be picked at by crows
This divine line takes the electric charge
Of the death-row chair
Full on
Racked by the voltage from our killing fields
3 days of nothing
Before the line resumes where it left off
Regains its purity of form and becomes
The heartbeat underpinning the world, for ever
Vidรฉo – Noรฉmie Daval – lecteur John Featherstone
Verticale, tรฉnue, filament
Haut en bas, ciel ร terre
Perfection rencontre gravitรฉ
La ligne pure traverse les annรฉes ratรฉes
Les conflits ravageurs qui fendent lโรขme
Chacun tirant ร la corde pour sโemparer du fil
Le transformer, dรฉnaturer, รฉlimer
Jusquโร le rendre mรฉconnaissable
Afin dโoccuper la place centrale
Et la balance oscille dโun cรดtรฉ, de lโautre
De ce fil ร plomb
Pivot de Toutes Choses
Qui suit son cours
A travers chaque cauchemar de lโรฉmotion humaine
Le cri, la fureur, lโamertume nourrie,
De la femme dont la vie a dรฉtruit la raison
Qui se souille alors quโelle tabasse les voitures
Lโaffamรฉ de pouvoir, qui se goinfre de cลurs
Les voix dโenfants tues par un vrai fusil
Adultes prรฉcoces, รขmes vendues pour le fric
Les sans-abris qui lavent leur linge dans un รฉgout parisien
Lโorgueil qui se pavane sur les Boulevards derriรจre ses verres tintรฉs
Le moi-roi qui se suffit ร lui-mรชme dans son indiffรฉrence vertueuse
Les ordures du privilรจge, paradis de lโaffamรฉ
Lโespรฉrance mal placรฉe dans les comptes de fรฉe
La dรฉception du rรฉel โฆ
Tendue sur une planche, clous รงa et lร
Abandonnรฉe aux rapaces
Cette ligne divine reรงoit la charge รฉlectrique
De la chaise du couloir de la mort
de plein fouet
Tenaillรฉe par le voltage de nos charniers
Trois jours sans rien
โฆ or la ligne reprend
Retrouve sa puretรฉ de forme et devient
Le battement de cลur qui soutient le monde, ร jamais
Shrink, priest
And confessor
The gym coach listens
In muscular manner
โAnd he said and I said
Too much to bear
No-go relationship
Then thereโs my bossโ
Machines pound
An hour of energy and sweat
Just to stay on one spot
Maintain the status quo
Radio adverts play
Padded child car seats
Only the best for you and yours
Protection guaranteed
Meanwhile
In another world
The children play
With landmines
Under the proud eyes
Of a Paris shopfront
Kids, chips, rugs, dogs
Tumble on a mattress
Paper cup out for coin
Turning billboards
Show the limits of our dreams
Two-time dating
Perfect bodies in sleek cars
Cruise down champagne rivers
Under the gilt stars of a chandelier
The flagpoles of our culture
Rattle empty in the wind
While the god born through its navel
Appears on every screen
Grinning empty blessings
From the filmscript of its mind
Weaving foolsโ gold
We make nests in the ruins
Sing sweet lullabyes
While the eye of a storm
Wipes a world away
The person she thought that she was
Is unravelled by time
The seams of her body
The paths of her mind
The reasoning tongue
Now forked
All certainty gone
The fabric of dreams and of life
Full of holes
Thoughts flicker and swim
Down dim corridors
Collide
Search alien rooms
For half-open doors
To throw in some light
On who sits in her chair
And the shoes that donโt seem
To be hers
Maybe someone out there
Who sewed stars on the night
Knows her name
Mud at the wall 