Dominique Hecq et Béatrice Machet # 5 L'enfance des mots / The infancy of words

L’enfance des mots

Sur la plage, l'enfant creuse

                                        un trou

y installe ses fesses 

                                       enfouis

ses pieds

                sous le monticule de sable

hallucine un volant   

                              broum brroum brroummm

la formule trois s'emballe

                sur la voie royale du rêve

ne crains pas les archaïsmes   anachronismes   clichés

la grammaire étrangère

                                  à elle-même

Sur la plage, l’enfant creuse

                                       un trou

imaginé tunnel géant qui

                                       le conduira

plus bas

      à l’autre bout de la terre

il ne sait rien de l’enfer

du purgatoire ni même du paradis

il se glisse

petite taupe fouisseuse

vers ce qu’il ne sait pas nommer   mine de lumière

le vocabulaire aveugle

                                 à lui-même

Sur la plage, l’enfant creuse

                                        un trou

et l’eau infiniment salée

                                     monte

plus avant

                 comme un demi-monde

une mer à créer à l’œil

                                    qui seul peut s’ouvrir

sur le spectacle

                          des anges dont le sang

coule dans les veines

du ciel où sa mère aphone

                              l’attend

Dans les nuages, la mère creuse

                                          un trou

au bord duquel à plat ventre

                                                elle s’allonge

ses coudes soutiennent le bourdonnement

                                                  de sa tête

sourire béat elle regarde

                                         en bas

sur la plage son enfant

                                     et contemple

 la possibilité d’allers-retours

                                             ne craint pas

 l’éblouissement

The infancy of words

On the beach, the child digs

                                             a hole

places his bottom in it

                                             buries

his feet

             under the mound of sand

hallucinates a steering wheel

                                    vroom vrroom vroommm

the formula three takes off

            on the royal road of dreams

Do not fear archaisms   anachronisms   clichés

on the beach the child digs

                                            a hole

imagined to be a giant tunnel

                                                leading

further down

            to the other end of the earth

he knows nothing of hell

                        purgatory nor even paradise

he slithers down

            the little mole sniffing

for something he can’t name   well of light

vocabularies veiled

                        from his sight

On the beach, the child digs

                                        a hole

and the incredibly salty water

                                                rises

ever higher

                        like half a world

of sea to create by ear

                        that could speak

of the spectacle

                        of angels whose blood

courses through the veins

of the sky where his speechless mother

                                                   awaits him

In the clouds, the mother digs

                                          a hole

bends and lies down

                        buries her elbows in it

her hands cupping the hum

                            in her head

mouth agape she smiles

         down

on the child on the beach

                                    and contemplates

the possibility of round trips

                                    does not fear

dazzling sights

           

Magdalena Ball #18 The Idea of Sound responding to Dominique Hecq #13 Fish Dance

Magdalena Ball #18 The Idea of Sound 

                          Responding to Dominique Hecq #13 Fish Dance

they’re evolving right now

as we speak

your voice in my head, my voice

a computer generated fish

crawling onto dry land

evolution in action, not oil, bodies

flounders eaten by toadfish

jumping from rock to rock

breathing with gills

spitting stones, moving across 

the shore

mute consonants 

press against the earth

gulping air

a natural code

streaming sound, knocking tiny bones 

grinding teeth

vibrating muscles

a symphony of pops, clicks, whistles

even if no one hears

this last ditch reminder

of water

sunlight revealing a school

the hit of loss

feeling the fear of transition

surrendering

Dominique Hecq #13 Fish Dance Responding to

Ali Jane Smith #10 Is that even how you spell it?

after MelindaSmith #6 the glass which is keeping...

the fish oil sounds different to the shark cartilage

and that's exactly what you'd expect:

                                                 a fish out of water.

You’ve done this before

and so, recap

as they say… try

to feel

                                         the shore flat and wide.

Dance!

(forget the moonstruck Pierrot who can sing)

Listen to the bassoon at the top of its range, distorting the idea of sound itself.

Feel it?

And then, yes!

Surrender

                   and rise, slowly

lest you fall

Ali Jane Smith #10 Is that even how you spell it?

after MelindaSmith #6 the glass which is keeping...

there is a situation

it's between shoulder and breast

that polyester-rayon blend

they wear in Hell, you know

the resource-consuming business

of normal normalness

even very wealthy people

go to discount chemists

the fish oil sounds different to the shark cartilage

and that's exactly what you'd expect

swooshin rattlin

am I still naiive

shockable!

but don't hardly show it

no need to try and be at ease

in every kind of company

I don't know why I ever

thought there was

if you think that's funny

let me tell you another

while you clean your teeth

foamin

Anne Kellas #6 Mt Wellington, crayon with ink, responding to Kit Kelen #21 - une façon de s’épanouir ici

Mt Wellington, crayon with ink

In response to Kit Kelen #21 - une façon de s’épanouir ici
https://conversationinpoetry.blogspot.com.au/2018/04/kit-kelen-21-une-facon-de-sepanouir-ici.html

threads broken
and a lessening of less
... like language gone from me

Birdwing
glimpsed in a watercolour sky
 – white
turns into winter mist.

Soft rain
on the grey mountainside
slides
in a lessening of less.

Bare stalks of trees near the summit
lean at an angle in the gale.
Time’s a soft-tissue injury
a rift

threads broken
in the blanket-weave of leaves.
A vague purple shade of green
seeps into the dark.

I cannot speak rainforest or cloud
nor walk mountain paths.
Language slips from me.
There is no sound here.

Magdalena Ball #17: To what retracing in response to #4 Dominique Hecq & Béatrice Machet CRYPTO....

To what retracing

(in response to #4 Dominique Hecq & Béatrice Machet CRYPTO....)

cryptocurrency does not pose

risks to global finance

option one, if you aren’t in finance

then bullish, without safeguards

for crypto read pseudo

which is not to say, nonexistent 

the placebo effect is real

money was always metaphoric

                        

scraps of paper, naked digits           

a slush fund, a pool of liquid assets
flowing in and out

for metaphor you could read, not real

          which is not to say lacking in power

for power read language 

that shifty shaper of reality

especially when combined

with money

option two, if you are in finance

don’t bother with metaphor

it’s a dead end, you must transmit

everything is in the exchange

the expression

            the irreversible, permissionless 
                anonymous

                    transaction

there is no consensus 

            hold tight to your bitcoin wallet

                        the ripple, the seed
                                from which nothing will

grow except a mathematical proof

elegant, secure

and tasteless

Cui Yuwei #12: Birdcall Is White (after Kit Kelen's "Standard revised dream")

Cui Yuwei #12: Birdcall Is White 
(after Kit Kelen's "Standard revised dream")

Here is the link:
https://conversationinpoetry.blogspot.tw/2018/04/kit-kelen-23-standard-revised-dream-of.html

Birdcall Is White
Written and Self-translated into Chinese by Cui Yuwei

this is a note of a dream


《鳥鳴是白色的》

記壹個夢

Toby Fitch #5 King Tide, in response to Peter Boyle #4 Post Howard

King Tide    

we don’t always take stock of 

or shed our satellite stocks but a blonde woman 

pointing at maps became historical and the moon shone 

hysterically on our sector 

                                                   we embraced our shelves 

for a large complex weather event 

an east coast low that we panicked very carefully about

below a fat tsunami cloud 

its every wish and wash like policy breaking the air

waves we saw at least a hundred and fifty 

cubic metres of sand gone

                                                    lying and gushing about the street 

people asked the sea why it had geared up negatively  

the prime minister praised the storm for creating

new lucrative-warm waterfront estates

further inland on scenic new river systems he was spilling over

bubbling on camera gas eeked from his seams

it was like he’d been mined by his own 

sense of the public gaze 

                                               royally

weighing in on the storm which seemed also

for most of its duration to be at war with various other wars

mostly digital and cultural ones that the media

or at least the media we didn’t have active stakes in

blew up and out of proportion 

with the kind of inflammatory commentary 

straight out of the textbook on bushfires and cyclones 

it was hell

                     mental at the end of the dayglo

hi-vis and off in the west with a few helicopters 

dewing the rounds

                                      and a certain kind of peace 

the moving forward kind had to be made 

so the land was employed to right the ship

and the flora and fauna engaged

in the labour that would solidify the electorate

who’d become shaky on all the conflicting beetle grounds 

that needed to be shored up 

                                                        because time doesn’t 

mean anything when you’re about to have Walter lapping 

at your door he was phenomenal

contractually speaking his rivers’ tributes to Ares 

included roots and trunks of many 

wrong-time-wrong-place trees 

and snake effigies hollowed out and named 

after other hallowed dignitories of the prefab past

participle government 

                                             although               

and no matter what Walter employed 

                                                                          to stem the time 

signatures kept mounting up for a cap to unsuit 

the foreign suits who were lining up 

which was mean 

                                  we all thought 

an anti-everything mentality had come home to roast

or was it a spit 

                               i can’t be onshore     

all i know is that it was spinning and revolutions 

only last so long or shift their shop 

into other regions of the globe like hot or cold y-fronts 

so we were all good our behaviour

once the clean-up job had blown over heads

wasn’t in question 

                                      we could go on going about our busyness

of acquiring new states of mind to rent out 

to embody with avatars or to have digested by

our huge accumulation of mouth pieces 

                                                                              we’d amassed 

all the personal profiles of those who’d floundered

and the platforms we’d virtually divested of them were already 

in the crosswinds anyhow

havens were being founded on cities of foam 

                                                                                        we built on 

and on the cultural wastelands and the driftwood  

things were floating around at such opportune angles

and to such a positive degree in the tide 

it was only natural that we adapt the landscape 

had shifted it was a truly wonderful time

to be                                                                       offshore

            invested in our futures