Pour les cœurs faire gémir sentiers vains arpentés 21 mars 2024
Courtesy freepik.com
Je recherchais en dunes l’expression du profil de l’aimé reconnaître traits vivants aiguisés De nuit pâleur de lune croise mon battement de cil sortilège à renaître pour mes veines enlisées
De leur bouche les lacunes médisances serviles des dédits me repaître mes atours méprisés bleue sirène en lagune fus-je donc proie facile des desseins champêtres pour mes sens dégrisés
Dans les champs s’étendaient des oiseaux bleu azur de leur bec font frémir étendards argentés que les cieux abattaient sans commune mesure pour les cœurs faire gémir sentiers vains arpentés
Lecture du poème:
Brief translation into English
For hearts to groan, vain paths trodden 21 mars 2024
I was looking in the dunes for the expression of the profile of the beloved to recognize sharp living features Of night the pallor of the moon crosses my fluttering lashes spell to be reborn for my trapped veins
From their mouths the lacks servile backstabbing From denials to nourish myself my finery despised blue mermaid in the lagoon was I an easy prey of rural designs for my sobered senses
In the fields blue birds spread themselves from their beaks make shiver silvery banners that the heavens fell without common measure for hearts to groan, vain paths trodden
I am just one breath from a thousand voices19 November 2023
Courtesy pinterest.com
I am the vestige of a fake sermon
the redeemer of a so-called vermin
the fate of which they will determine
heads or tails, palms would examine
I am a slowly revived olive tree
My gentle farmers rekindle me
their dreams of liquid green honey
set in their dead eyes that no longer see
My fruit hangs on the West Bank
where every corner smells death dank
metal on their heads lands with a clank
they think my keepers they outrank
I am a call for prayer in their lost homes
to Jerusalem, Rome and all those golden domes
The mind of each in inner turmoil roams
as fire every inch of their land combs
I am just one breath from a thousand voices
seeping through clenched teeth’s brittle noises
exhaled from tight chests pressed in dead choices
while inhuman armada in kids’ blood rejoices
Reading of the poem:
It was a bitter night. The wind was howling outside and she recalled how it had tugged at her hair and the umbrella almost yanking it out of her gloved hands. She had been glad to have gloves on as it was biting cold outside. Her cheeks seared with the acid bite of the cold. The elements raging outside were no match, however, for the cold that was biting into her heart as the days went by without him. She wondered if he was now gone forever or if he would come back like he had done after a period of absence around a year ago.
She stretched on the sofa where she had been lying down watching the screen without actually taking in what was going on in the Television set just across the room. She looked at the reed in the canal outside her room and could see it bend wildly this way and that as the wind tore away at its roots attempting to uproot the reed. The wind was, however, no match to the resilient reed which withstood the tear of the wind and just bent gracefully one way or the other depending on the twists and turns of the wind.
She felt she should be more like the reed and adapt to the situations as they arose. She should get used to the times when he disappeared however much they hurt. He was anyway like a ghost in her life so she should not expect him to have a normal pattern of behavior. He was gone for longer than the other time but it did not mean that he would not be back again. She felt ice fill her heart as the veracity of his absence sunk into her mind. There was no sunshine when he was not around. Indeed she thought, there was no sunshine without him….
As I realised some of you are kind enough to like my poems in French even though their French is a bit rusty or some just because they like the images and the feel of the poem without understanding much I have resolved whenever I can to put up a translation in English. It is difficult because the French language allows you to hide many more meanings into the same sentence and I find it less possible with the English, especially if one wants to respect the poetry rhythm and requirements. I have attempted to keep the below a Shadorma (in between brackets figures the correct translation of a word that I might have changed a bit to keep the Shadorma syllable count and in one instance I have put up another possible wording where the French word has more than one meaning). Thanks as always for your comments and encouragements 🙂
Geetha Balvannanathan's Blog - Isis Tratum 
You must be logged in to post a comment.