Le Bernin
Corpses are more real
than clay, corpses
are an excess of Real.
Each one is the first one
the world has ever seen,
each one, as we touch it
makes our hand visible
for the very first time,
and the blood running
under our skin beat louder
than the rivers that outlive us.
You, Bastard King
drunk with war, bathing your name
in gold like a sick God,
Oh None, Oh No One.
So greedy is your heart.
So arid it gives me a penchant
for violence and perfume.
I want — the words consume
themselves, I want —
lays your weakness down
at my door like meat
on a scale. This is what
you’re doing here. Nothing more.
For I own an inmost weapon
against you and that head
of your army than privation.
Namely, your blood. Blood
is a caress of water but yours,
yours is a red disaster.
I am merciless as the moon.
I possess the red tides
of your pulse. Desire beats
loud beneath your skin,
echoing, echoing, like
the shock of ruin.
How you cry after it,
how it violates your will.
Source : https://karenmaryberrpoetry.wordpress.com/2016/03/20/judith-or-the-book-of-thirst/
A consulter également : http://fichtre.hautetfort.com/archive/2012/06/15/daphne-et-apollon.html
Corpses are more real
than clay, corpses
are an excess of Real.
Each one is the first one
the world has ever seen,
each one, as we touch it
makes our hand visible
for the very first time,
and the blood running
under our skin beat louder
than the rivers that outlive us.
The colour of the air, of dust,
of olive trees, these can be told,
but never the stone eye
surrendering its last hope.
It is summer and we’re still at war.
It is summer and children
fall like dry cloth in the streets.
Mute. Burning as August soil.
Strings of rain have ceased
lashing the roofs of the city,
our songs hang white
like feverish replicas
of the sun’s disk.
My sisters, my brothers,
look at them. Words leave
them. Mind leaves them.
The phlegm of the sky
astounds the earth.
And I — I who bore no child
stare by their side
at this abstruse vault
expecting no reply.
I, all silence — don’t
beleive in neutrality
only in the translucent canal
of my body.
Cyclamen will bloom
again out of their despair.
I will show them
waters limpid as solitude
issuing from heaven.
You, Bastard King
drunk with war, bathing your name
in gold like a sick God,
Oh None, Oh No One.
So greedy is your heart.
So arid it gives me a penchant
for violence and perfume.
I want — the words consume
themselves, I want —
lays your weakness down
at my door like meat
on a scale. This is what
you’re doing here. Nothing more.
Not hauling your war inside
the Holy City. Not pinning my sisters
to the ground like insects,
legs apart, to offer them
to an insane collector.
For I own an inmost weapon
against you and that head
of your army than privation.
Namely, your blood. Blood
is a caress of water but yours,
yours is a red disaster.
Men might escape from thirst
but from their own blood,
certainly never. Listen —
I am merciless as the moon.
I possess the red tides
of your pulse. Desire beats
loud beneath your skin,
echoing, echoing, like
the shock of ruin.
How you cry after it,
how it violates your will.
This is what you’re doing here.
Nothing more. Not sacking
the One City, not laying down
its Sanctuary.
I am shameless as the sea,
that twirls, that kills.
If I forget the blue roots
of my bones, if I don’ t set them
above my highest joy,
then, let my tongue cleave
to the roof of my mouth.
Karen Mary Berr