T Wignesan Biography

EDUCATION

School-leaving certificates (SC: 1951: Grade One, HSC: 1953 (Cambridge University) , GCE: 4 A-levels and 1 subsidiary,1955 (London University) , Inns of Court School of Law (London: Certificate of Academic Standing, Bar Standards Board,1953-56) , Official School of Languages: 3rd Yr-Spanish Literature & Civilization (Madrid: 1970) , Diploma in Hispanic Studies (Madrid University: 1971: Extraordinary Prize) , Master's in Spanish Literature (Madrid: Instituto de Cultura Hispanica & University of Paris VIII: 1972-73: Très Bien/Distinction) , Doctorat d'Etat ès lettres et sciences humaines (Sorbonne-Pantheon; 1983-87: Très Honorable à l'unanimité- Magna-cum-laude) .

CAREER
ex-private tutor (Malaysia, Germany, Spain: to doctors in teaching hospitals: La Paz, Puerta de Hierro, La Conception et Ciudad Francisco Franco,1967-72)
ex-School teacher (Malaysia: St. Aloysius School, Mantin, Vivekananda English School, Chung Hwa Middle School in Seremban, Malaya; Colegio Claret, Spain) , Lecturer (England: Commonwealth Institute, Germany: University of Maryland, European Division, Heidelberg; France: University of Sorbonne-Nouvelle at the doctoral level/DEA) , Adjunct- Professor at AGSIRD-American Graduate School of International Relations and Diplomacy, and Research Fellow: Chargé de recherches with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS: 1973-1998) .

Ex-Journalist (Malaysia: 'Malay Mail',1954; 'Malayan Times',1962) , London, England 'Straits Times Press Group' of Singapore(1964-65) ; 'Guidepost', Spain (1967))
Publisher's editor: Rayirath Raybooks Publications (Kuala Lumpur/London) ,1961-64.

Founder-Editor of the 'Revue de Poïétique Comparée' and 'Asianists' ASIA'.

For publications-books, check:

www.authorsden.com/twignesan3
www.poetrysoup.com/me/t_wignesan
www.cyberwit.net/authors/twignesan

Translation of Autumn Leaves-Les feuilles mortes de Jacques Prevert
by T Wignesan
Autumn Leaves/Les feuilles mortes de Jacques PREVERT (1900-77)
Translated by T. Wignesan
(Note: As far as I can make out, this poem is at the heart of all versions of «
The Autumn Leaves ' -
Sung by Edith Piaf, Juliette Gréco, Yves Montand, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra,
Bing Crosby and the like…) T. Wignesan
https: //www.youtube.com/watch? v=DJZtOwaizjE
Mix - Chet Baker & Paul Desmond: 'Autumn Leaves'
https: //www.youtube.com/watch? v=Gsz3mrnIBd0
Oh!
Je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes
Oh!
How I wish you'd remember
des jours heureux où nous étions amis
the joyous days when we were friends
En ce temps-là la vie était plus belle
In those days life was more beautiful
et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui
and the sun shone brighter than nowadays
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle
Dead leaves one gathered by shovels
Tu vois je n'ai pas oublié
You see I have not forgotten
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle
Fallen leaves one shoveled at will
les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
memories and regrets as well
et le vent du nord les emporte
and the wind from the north swept them
dans la nuit froide de l'oubli
into the cold night of forgetfulness
Tu vois je n'ai pas oublié
You see I have not forgotten
la chanson que tu me chantais
the song you sang to me
C'est une chanson qui nous ressemble
It was a song likened to ourselves
Toi tu m'aimais
You who loved me
et je t'aimais
and I likewise repaid
Et nous vivions tous deux ensemble
And we lived each with the other
toi qui m'aimais
you who loved me
et que j'aimais
and you I likewise loved
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment
But life puts apart those in love
tout doucement
with infinite care
sans faire de bruit
without much ado
et la mer efface sur le sable
and sea waves efface on the sands
les pas des amants désunis
the footprints of lovers put asunder
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle
Loads of dead leaves one shovels
les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
memories and regrets as well
Mais mon amour silencieux et fidèle
But my love silent and steadfast
sourit toujours et remercie la vie
always smiles and gives thanks to life
Je t'aimais tant tu étais si jolie
I loved you so much for your beauty
Comment veux-tu que je t'oublie
How could you wish that I forget you
En ce temps-là la vie était plus belle
In those days when living was far more joyous
et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui
and the sun burnt brighter than nowadays
Tu étais ma plus douce amie…
You were my sweetest friend…
Mais je n'ai que faire des regrets
But all I can do is to feel regretful
Et la chanson que tu chantais
And the song you sang
toujours toujours je l'entendrai
forever forever rings in my ears
C'est une chanson qui nous ressemble
It's a song akin to us
Toi tu m'aimais et je t'aimais
You who loved me and I likewise you
Et nous vivions tous deux ensemble
And the two of us lived together
toi qui m'aimais que j'aimais
you who loved me and I likewise you
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment
But life puts apart those in love
tout doucement
with infinite care
sans faire de bruit
without much ado
et la mer efface sur le sable
and sea waves efface on the sands
les pas des amants désunis.
the footprints of lovers put asunder.
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, December 14,2020
Criss-Cross Acrostic: Ai My Eye and Ai Ai My Sore Eyes
Criss-Cross Acrostic: Ai My Eye
Criss-Cross Acrostic:
Note: *Construe as " words" not as " letters" : Lines 1 and 3 read alike reversed;
Lines 2 and 4 read alike reversed; likewise vertically and diagonally from updown
or down-up mode.
'Ai Ai My Eye! '
I Was Saw Eye
Eye Saw Was I
Eye Was Saw I
I Saw Was Eye
Another Permutation:
« Ai Ai My Sore Eye! '
I Sore Was I
Saw I Sore Eye
Sore I Saw Eye
I Was Sore I
FURTHER PERMUTATIONS for SORE EYES
Eye Sore Saw I
Saw I Sore Eye
I Saw Sore Eye
Sore Eye Saw I
Saw I Sore Eye
Eye Sore Saw I
Sore Eye Saw I
I Saw Sore Eye
Eye Sore Saw I
Sore Eye Saw I
Saw I Sore Eye
I Saw Sore Eye*
This last quatrain diagonally reads as:
'Ai Ai Sore Eye' (phonetically) : « Ai Ai Saw I'
Never Never ever will I query by T Wignesan
Never Never ever will I query…by T Wignesan
For Andrea MOTIS and the Joan CHAMORRO Jazz
Band's version of Nancy Wilson's « Never Never will I marry » (Original lyrics
by Frank Loesser)
https: //music.youtube.com/watch? v=mKCdi71MRi4&list=RDAMVMmKCdi71MRi4
Never Never ever will I query
What lies beyond the Dead
No race No religion not Country
I will blindly not be duped or led
Born to one Mother and lone Father
Long bred from Dark Ancestor
Neanderthal or Fontéchevade Brother
Will I let some god put asunder
No doubts No fears nor Myths
To keep this World in one Family
Never Never will I ever blunt Truths
Split countries to foist ethnic party
One father-mother One brother-sister
No nose No chin No brow Nor skull
One from the other higher or better
What Just god would want us Hell
No more wars to boost economy
No more lurid lies to breed enmity
No more priests dividing Almighty
No more excuses to halt equality
Never Never ever will I bury
The Dead in shrouds blood red
Gone to worlds far from envy
Gone to worlds where gods aren't bred…
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, December 7,2020
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXXII - 82
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY - LXXXII
for Carlos Bousoño, the eminent Spanish critic, poet and professor
who maintained that if you don't like the 'humorist',
you're not likely to find much to laugh at in/with his (sense of) 'humour'
IF ever I had a country, a country where every TOM-Cat, Dirty-DICK and Royal
HARRY wrote what his fellows called POESY
And if ever I were the only SON of a GUNny Sack-Bag incapable of pouting lines
to an astronomically non-sensical degree
And as punishment thereof - sans appeal - if I were to be appointed by the
Supreme Inter-Galactico-Cosmo-IL-logical Council of the Arbiters of Tyrannic
Taste the one and only ARBITER and JURY
And should my fellow-poets ever so much as utter or let escape a squeak on,
relating to or about what they cook-up as stew or porridge of
un-hermeneutical ETERNAL VERITIES which they print publish post (ne'er you
mind: plagiarize) and/or pander to their pridefully painted images potpourri
I would first and foremost issue an EDICT - nay, even a DECREE - to CONFINE
each and every one of my bumble-bee constantly buzzing comrade BARDS, purveyors
and promotors of mutually unintelligible verse within their own ivory
PENTHOUSES of phantasmagorical (a) musings
under pain of summary banishment - should they ever so much as 'peine in poiein
» - to the GREAT ATTRACTOR WALL of GALAXIES and so be it, I pray thee
And this, even if I were to be confined to my very own solitary dungeon and be
condemned to listen to - against my will, day and night, for ever and ever -
the ethereally soul-uplifting poutings of the Poetasters of Isphahan in their
wordy giddy swirls of SUFI
And even if I never ever had no country where POETRY had need of mutually EGOBOOSTING
commentary
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, April 5,2020
Villanelle: Alright Guys: Heave and Ho And let it go
Villanelle: Alright guys: Heave and Ho! And let it go
(Confinement to one's home though fines during « outings' add to revenue,
private companies take orders from far-flung lands for masks, gloves and
ventilators and protective surgical equipment when the Chinese already informed
The WHO of the epidemic on December 16,2019 and the South Koreans manufactured
the 'testing-gear » from artificial genes in February while tourists returning
from the East were freely landing - without being tested - all over the West: «
Pointless closing the barn door when the horse has bolted! »)
Alright guys: Heave & Ho! And let it go
...No need to fear the Coast's wide open clear
Ne'er Hem & Haw! Wash hands ere ye go
Bind hands behind backs Lick face or blow
…No need to worry Be not sorry, 'Dear'
Alright guys: Heave & Ho! And let it go
Guys on top say it feels good to row
…Knudge elbows and spit on nose and ear
Ne'er Hem & Haw! Wash hands ere ye go
Masks and ventilators sell for much more
…Than war-time manufactured cheap ware
Alright guys: Heave & Ho! And let it go
The guy who pays is the guy who's pinned low
…The Guy at the Top rows free from fear
Ne'er Hem & Haw! Wash hands ere ye go
Stay home and watch Top Dogs whinge O! Woe!
…Take-aways with cooks' sneeze good with beer
Alright guys: Heave & Ho! And let it go
Ne'er Hem & Haw! Wash hands ere ye go
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, March 23,2020
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXXI-81
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY - LXXXI - 81
IF ever I had a country, a country without even a single Shredding Machine
And if ever I were elected/nominated/appointed by the powers that be SPEAKER of
the Lower House of Parliament whose power to shine however were to be curtailed
by the Upper House's sheen
A country where all laws were enacted without much heed to the rhyme nor reason
of the Bard's Stratford-upon-Avon's mellifluous flow of theme
Where every legal analyst: Professor of law Attorney-at-Law entertained his or
her own opinion as to what the Laws of the State: relating to the Chief
Executive, Rules and Regulations of Proceedings in or out of officialdom:
libels, torts, crimes, misdemeanours or even what the Constitution may mean
And if ever any elected official or foreign dignitary were to be invited or
chose to invite himself whether by rights or not to address the House and read
from a
« tele-prompter » or printed text that was obviously Ghost-written, I'd shred
the Speech with my front-teeth and unkempt nails and jump up and down with glee
as though I were dancing the polka on the printed pages as they most certainly
blatantly comport ideas, words and expressions of some heinous GHOST come to
tease, torture, detract, confound, contradict and condemn all that is decent in
the human being which is not mean
And all this, so be it, I swear before the populace I can never be GUILTY of
breaking the LAW should I shred the words of some GHOST who lies, distorts,
turns on head some or all the TRUTHS held to be sacred in my Nation's History
since no ghost may rightfully sue me (Sleep tight, Peach of a Teach!) for
having even stolen a measly red, yellow or green pea, pod or bean
And this, even if I were to be put through the piranha jaws of the Republic's
Shredding-Immigration-Machine
Even if I never ever had no country worthy of being shredded and pulverized in
the Wall of Black Holes's grinding-machine
(c) T. Wignesan, Paris, February 8,2020
IMP-EACH-MENT-AIR-DITTY: IV
IMP-EACH-MENT-AIR-DITTY - IV
Leer on face droning phony his Speech
Coast-Guard nasal-ed win bareback on Leech
Triumph of Demo-Crazy
World aghast by Lunacy
DEMOCRACY strappado-ed on staid Beach
Lone Life-Saver shed ONE tear on lost Beach
While Leech kicked bareback biting hand of Teach
Peach tore to shreds SOTU
Corona-Virus-ed YAHOO!
Now POTUS sons romp and riot on Beach!
POTUS Son-in-Law Prophet Peace Preach!
Indicted Jockey borne aloft by Leech:
Gold-grab Land-grab God-grab!
Blow this World up so drab!
Let the Self-CHOSEN-Few reign with Leech!
Shame! Shame on US! Last bastion of Speech!
The World held its breath hoping YOU'd us teach!
Your sons laid their lives down
To uphold righteous Crown:
Empty words rot on Omaha Beach!
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, February 3,2020
IMP-Each-Ment-Air-Ditty III
IMP-EACH-MENT-AIR-DITTY III!
Holy Smoke! Odour of incense on Beach!
Trainers marched with saddles to straddle Leech!
« SILENCE! » Dull as Thunder!
« Under pain of locker! »
Grave mist hung low on Life-Savers each!
CJOTUS kept clock arms for each to preach
Who summoned Founding Fathers onto Beach!
« This race is no Trial!
Draw horse blood in phial!
Drink! » said Chief Life-Saver Nation to teach!
Coast-Guard in Cloak-Rooms begged bets to reach
The magic number to put to sleep Teach
« Hold back horses until
All bets are in the till!
I'll let none throw law-books on my Leech! »
Indicted Jockey rode-off bareback on Leech!
To save face while saddled Life-Savers preach:
« No Nuts 'n Bolts-on, please!
This fake Trial must cease! »
Come November who'll lose this race on Beach?
(c) T. Wignesan, Paris, January 29,2020
Imp-Each-Ment-Air-Ditty II
IMP-EACH-MENT-AIR-DITTY - II
Coast-Guard droned and whined striding on Beach
« Who dares to teach me how to close breach?
Hand over the saddles!
I'll dump them in puddles!
No-one, I say, rides bareback on Leech! »
Peach of a Teach lay bareback on Beach
Counting on four bets to counter Leech
« What if Coast-Guard turns coat?
Calls no bets after vote? »
Who's to reach for reins to saddle Leech?
Hocus-Pocus! POTUS! Teach Impeach!
Who rules as Leech trots on beyond reach?
Now we have hung Jury
ImPeachMentAlIty
No more bets, please! Beseech not Teach to preach!
Leech filly chairs G-20! O! Screech!
Vice-POTUS heifer draws 50G bleach!
High stakes family fun
The World is a top spun!
Will POTUS filly rule from the new breach?
(c) T.Wignesan - Paris, January 15,2020
Imp-Each-Ment-Air-Ditty
Imp-Each-Ment-Air-Ditty
Once peach of a Teach on beach tried to preach
The art of closing the reach in a breach
The Coast-Guard drew his gun
Shot a hole in the bun
Now Teach leaks through breeches during Speech
Teach then placed bets on a horse called Leech
Before Whistle-Blower could cry « Impeach! »
Leech took off in anger
To smite Whistle-Blower
House closed down for lack of bets on Leech
Whistle-Blower held breath to teach impeach
Upper House closed the breach to foist Leech
Said Teach: « No more bets, please! »
Leech learned to trot with ease
Then Teach rode Leech without a screech
Teach then said: « Place all bets out-of-reach!
This race will take first place: Each-to-Each! »
Twenty-two trillion debt
The pit is full and wet
Whose finger will dam dike in the breach?
(to be continued)
© T. Wignesan - Paris, December 17,2019
Villanelle: Never political but spiritual the ancient Indo-Chinese pilgrim
ties
Villanelle: Never political but spiritual the ancient Indo-Chinese pilgrim
ties
In Memory of the late pathologist (and amateur Astronomer)
Associate Professor CHONG Siew Meng, National University of Singapore*
Never political but spiritual the ancient Indo-Chinese pilgrim ties
Which pierce through skin and bone and the cryptic genetic code
Friends hatched from the same mould needn't rely on vice nor lies
Wu Ch'eng-en's « Monkey » didn't waft down Monsoon winds for spice
But to imbibe Siddhartha* Truth: the Golden Mean* at Nalanda* abode
Never political but spiritual the ancient Indo-Chinese pilgrim ties
And took back to the Middle Kingdom « Eight-Fold Path* » wise
That neither « ancestral worship » nor Taoist logic sought to exclude
Friends hatched from the same mould needn't rely on vice nor lies
Then the fierce Boddhidharma* stared down the Emperor Chinese
And from « Four Noble Truths* » sprang Chan/Zen in enigmatic mode
Never political but spiritual the ancient Indo-Chinese pilgrim ties
Whilst in deserts iconoclast prophets tore down the sacred edifice
The Essenic Tribe traced the descent from Tusita Heaven to Mary mode
Friends hatched from the same mould needn't rely on vice nor lies
The Dead Sea Scrolls lie buried in some hidden vault full of lice and mice
While Crusaders drive Saracens from the Holy Land onto the migrant road
Never political but spiritual the ancient Indo-Chinese pilgrim ties
Friends hatched from the same mould needn't rely on vice nor lies
Notes
•An ex-Victoria Institution pupil from Kuala Lumpur. In Malaysia and Singapore,
it is not uncommon to find many Chinese and Tamils forming quite close
relationships, the most renowned of such friendships thrived between the late
Prime Minister LEE KUAN YEW and the late Senior Vice-Premier S. RAJARATNAM, the
latter born and raised in Malay(si) a. Lee Kuan Yew shed tears in public at
Rajaratnam's funeral.
•Siddhartha: « he who achieves his aim »
•Golden Mean (the Middle Way) : « away from all self-indulgence and selfmortification
»
•Nalanda: ancient university (in the present-day State of Bihar) to which
several Chinese pilgrims like the renowned Yi-jing or I-tsing (635-713 CE) made
their way to learn Sanskrit and Pali in order to translate Buddhist works to
take back home. On the way, they stopped at SriVijaya in Sumatra for the very
same reason.
•Eight-Fold Path: right view; right intention; right speech; right action;
right livelihood; right effort; right mindfulness; right concentration.
•Bhodhidharma: a Tamil « Brahmin » who took the Buddha's teaching to China and
there meditated for years facing a wall in a cave until followers sought his
knowledge which gave birth to Chan in China and Zen in Japan. It is also said
that he initiated the martial arts at Shao-lin.
•Four Noble Truths: « Suffering as part and parcel of Life »; « Sensual
craving as the cause of suffering »; « Acquisition of identity »; « Suffering
can be eradicated by following the Eight-Fold Path »
© T. Wignesan - Paris, October 10,2019
Beyond the Heart, the Head and the Soul reigns unsullied Belief
Beyond the Heart, the Head and the Soul reigns unsulleable Belief
How he blurted in a moment of self-lacerating glory-be pique
Who will in a thousand years retrieve my poems from digital rot
A thousand years grind grim in fermenting ocean-filth freak
Rather think in terms of a hundred or two twisted tight in knot
By then no scales may balance conflicting efforts set adrift
Wild tsunamis would have raged over lands and cities lying low
And the mighty and the rich abandon ports to set up amont aloft
And none will seek to extend meaning beyond the beclouded glow
None will batter brains split hairs over words poets proudly sow
No conniving committees allocate prizes as at musical-chairs play
Past the highest achievements scientific excellence on us bestow
For neither love nor purity of soul will be Man's cultural mainstay
For the stunted Psyché still wallows in the Doldrums of Belief
By what we impute to holy Prophets Popes and Poets' mischief
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 7,2019
Translation of Mat POKORA's Je suis tombe by T Wignesan
Translation of Mathieu POKORA's « Je suis tombé, tombé, tombé » by T Wignesan
(NOTE: I just thought I'd translate the lyrics (see the French original
herebelow) of this lilting catchy tune not just because of its self-mocking
candid insouciance and playful seriousness, but also for the way the melody
clings and swings all on its own - in the least expected of moments - in the
hinterlands of one's leisureliness. There is something endearing about a guy
who chants about himself being a victim of his « head-over-heels » love for a
girl to the extent he feels he ought - in his confounded opinion - to be
interned in a lunatic asylum (just imagine enduring strait-jackets,
electroencephalograms, high-voltage charges to the brain and frontal lobotomy -
all for his LOVE!) . Won't you agree?)
Laid Low Am I, Fallen, Fallen
If ever you forget
The day our eyes first met
All that we said to each other
In the dim back of the bar
If ever Life were
To lend me no hand
Abandon us both, no
Wishing not to dally with us
We'd be lost, that's for sure
But not for very long
We'd meet up again, I'm certain
Even as it were a game for children
Likely as not, we'd be lost
But as time goes by
Making it together again, for sure
Like in those games of ours of yore
(REFRAIN) :
Fallen low am I, Fallen, Fallen
Wounded
Kudos, My Queen, you have won
I've lost my bearings and ought to be interned
Crushed low am I, crushed, crushed
Low, low, mighty low
Hurt in the heart am I
All Hail, Liege! Your lowly subject am I
Naught but a madman, a madman to be put away
Have hit rock bottom, floundering down in the dumps
If ever you take fright
Trust in me
I'll bear all your pain
You'll see how things mend
If ever you're given to doubt
This promise I'll keep
To keep you on a safe course
With words of tenderness
(REFRAIN)
If ever you forget
If ever you are afraid
Know, never will it all end, no
The joy in our hearts will never set
If ever you forget
If ever you are afraid
It'll never be over, never
Never
(REFRAIN)
© T. Wignesan - Paris, October 25,2019
Click on this un-official version of the song:
https: //www.youtube.com/watch? v=n0UC1ymzfnw
'Tombé'
Si jamais t'oublies
Nos premiers regards
Tout ce qu'on s'est dit
Dans le fond du bar
Si jamais la vie
N'est pas d'mon côté
Ne veut pas de nous, non
Ne veut plus jouer
On se perdra, c'est sûr
Mais jamais longtemps
On se retrouvera, j'suis sûr
Comme un jeu d'enfants
On se perdra pour sûr
Mais avec le temps
On se donnera, c'est sûr
Comme dans nos jeux d'antan
Je suis tombé, tombé, tombé
Je suis touché, bravo ma reine tu as gagné
Je n'suis qu'un fou, un fou à enfermer
Je suis tombé, je suis tombé
Je suis tombé, tombé, tombé
Je suis touché, bravo ma reine tu as gagné
Je n'suis qu'un fou, un fou à enfermer
Je suis tombé, je suis tombé
Si jamais t'as peur
Aies confiance en moi
J'prendrai ta douleur
Tu verras, ça ira
Si jamais tu doutes
J'te fais la promesse
De garder sur ta route
Les mots, la tendresse
On se perdra, c'est sûr
Mais jamais longtemps
On se retrouvera, j'suis sûr
Comme un jeu d'enfants
On se perdra pour sûr
Mais avec le temps
On se donnera, c'est sûr
Comme dans nos jeux d'antan
Je suis tombé, tombé, tombé
Je suis touché, bravo ma reine tu as gagné
Je n'suis qu'un fou, un fou à enfermer
Je suis tombé, je suis tombé
Je suis tombé, tombé, tombé
Je suis touché, bravo ma reine tu as gagné
Je n'suis qu'un fou, un fou à enfermer
Je suis tombé, je suis tombé
Si jamais t'oublies
Si jamais t'as peur
C'est jamais fini, non
Il est là le bonheur
Si jamais t'oublies
Si jamais t'as peur
C'est jamais fini, non
Non
Je suis tombé, tombé, tombé
Je suis touché, bravo ma reine tu as gagné
Je n'suis qu'un fou, un fou à enfermer
Je suis tombé, je suis tombé
Je suis tombé, tombé, tombé
Je suis touché, bravo ma reine tu as gagné
Je n'suis qu'un fou, un fou à enfermer
Je suis tombé, je suis tombé
Je suis tombé, tombé, tombé
Je suis touché, bravo ma reine tu as gagné
Je n'suis qu'un fou, un fou à enfermer
Je suis tombé, je suis tombé
Published on June 30,2019 - Original lyrics by Mat POKORA.
IF YOU PULL A LONG BREXITING FACE: XLIV
IF YOU PULL A LONG BREXITING FACE: XLIV - 44
IF you pull a long-twisted Brexiting face
Pulled three more years by Santa Theresa May
« Eyes » to the Right and « Nose » to the Left gaze
Is the fate of phase after Letwin amendment delay
If you pull a long-pained Brexit-fixit-now face
Deal or No-Deal come yet what the Devil may
Scoff at Benn Act to be torn apart in court case
Set then precedence in Case Law if PM won't obey
If you still keep pulling that long Back-Stop face
Stick foot in the slamming EURO door to stay
Le Vieux Continent put-off by antique grimace
Would Mary Queen of Scots excise Henry VIII's UK
If you then pull the long borderless Irish face
Migrant mice will grow fat on illicit trade mellée
Till the microbiote in the innerns all borders efface
And the Brexit Isles will split asunder in dismay
Then if you pull the long put-together fallen face
Towed across the Atlantic moored as the 51st to allay
The fears of Norman Conquests taking over the States
Guess who foists upon the World the Union Jack - Hurray!
© T. Wignesan - Paris, October 19,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: XLIII - the Embalmed Mona Lisa under
the Glass Pyramid
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: XLIII- the Embalmed Mona Lisa in the Glass Pyramid
If you pull a long stymied face
Make certain you peel eyes that do not stray
Or else the faces you make will make-up put out-of-place
Yet the legions who march past portrait make for dire prey
If you keep pulling that mock long-pulled enigmatic face
Not even oil on poplar buttressed by beech oak sycamore or maple
Nor butterfly braces lock Mona Lisa's back-warping brace
Sfumato style phase out smile eyelashes eyebrows from wood panel
If you must pull that long neither nor face
Two faces fused in one while in the family way
Dumbfounded tourists be trampled under divisive gaze
Did not Leonardo cross-eyed dab paint in reverie gay
If you then insist on pulling a long-painted face
Own mocking glances at François 1er's La Gioconda, nay
Count yourself among millions Lady Gherardini's to praise
Think of the billions it takes to care for her image and so pay
Yet if you then keep pulling that long-amused face
Watching myriad eyes searching the reasons for your precious sway
Pied-Piper armies come trampling trapped in a momentary craze
The pent-up pilgrims in your glass sanctum-sanctorum catharsis obey
© T. Wignesan - Paris, September 25,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XLII - 42
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: 42
If you pull a long-bored acrimonious face
Looking hardly at anyone passing your way
Your sunken cheeks spiting your own face
But those bitter bitten lips will give you away
If you keep pulling that long forsaken-look face
Wondering why each face will not own mask betray
Slop around in slippers not deigning to tie shoe-lace
Know that « la caque sent toujours le hareng »* all day
If you then must keep pulling your long sagging face
To thwart all and everything not going your way
The noble Fa-Ling lines stop at the mouth without grace:
The « Flying Serpent enters the mouth', the Chinese say
If you still insist on pulling that long worsted face
Since no-one will miss you once you're gone, you say
Just think how many have not even by « contumace'
Pulled a long lost face some weary dreary day
So if you're the kind to pull a put-up pleasant face
See no smile lurking in within the Sun's awakening ray
Hear no Garden Warbler trill livening up the pace
Know then, Friend, you're loose change in the cash tray
Note: * Literally, in French, means: 'the herring barrel always stinks of
herring », but figuratively, as in this instance, means:
« you can't hide your origins ».
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, September 18,2019
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXX - Bang Bang Who Shot Me Down
Like A Pariah Dog - Follow Up
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXX - Bang! Bang! Who Shot Me Down like an Unlicensed
Pariah
Dog! Follow Up!
IF ever I had a country, a country without a dim shadow of a doubt not subject
to the whistle of a Woman Referee nor of a Video Assistant Referee where
bullets whistle supersonic from trigger-happy automatic weaponry
And where, as you already know, I was unanimously called upon by common consent
of the Congress and the Chief Executive - yes, including the ever-recalcitrant
Senate to a no-decision-taking thwarting degree - to take into my sole healing
hands the duty of imposing holy SILENCE in the pistol-packing « bang-bang »
Land of the Free
Where, most regrettably the Powers-that-Be, it appears, have failed to hark to
the hints, innuendoes and warnings overtly embodied in our ULTIMATUM and humbly
addressed to their Royal Highnesses who somewhat obliviously ignore the fate of
some 50,000 of their compatriot-citizen subjects being held as « hostages » at
the mercy of the bloodthirsty NRA Army crying out for some
« human » BLOOD instead of the insipid Polar Bear and Ermine blood-stained ICE
CREAM cones they are obliged to suck on to assuage their insatiable lust for
splitting and spilling the contents of skulls in orgies
And while we hear from our Dirty-Tricks-Department whose intrepid sions had
infiltrated - not just for the pleasure cruise - the PACQUEBOTS during the
initial pell-mell boarding spree THAT Admiral Greta THUNBERG has been nursing
(yet to be verified) her own plans for annexing Hans Anderson territory for the
greater glory of Greta Garbo country with an eye on the Nobel Peace Prize
gratuity
Even if we find it painfully difficult to understand how in the Hamlet Court no
sign nor response is yet forthcoming to agree to the maximum of 10%(NOTE: we
have raised the bar from well-under to the top!) of the $100 million buying
fee offered by Harry S. Truman in his ATOMIC FOLLY for a mere chunk of useless
GREEN-less rock with the icing thinning by the day everyone can see
So, the QUESTION here is not just one of TO BE or NOT TO BE but one of what's
brewing in Macbeth's WITCHES' CAULDRONS? -stoked by the NRA Army - the 50,000
Danes? who have no right to
« be bloody, bold, and resolute » or « laugh to scorn » the apocalyptic fire
and brimstone about to be unleashed on the WHOLE WORLD with one push on the
remote control button whether SILENCE of late reigns in the You-Knighted
Country
YES, Siree! That's what I'd do - press the button - if ever I were appointed
the SOLE REFEREE by Congressional decree
And this, even if I never ever had no country ruled by the moule à
gaufre/waffle iron of mighty musketry
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, September 11,2019
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXIX - Bang Bang Who Shot Me Down
Like An Un-Licensed Dog
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXIX - Bang! Bang! Who Shot Me Down like an Unlicensed
Dog!
IF ever I had a country, a country certainly
not subject to the whistle of a Woman Referee -- even of a Video Assistant
Referee - where bullets whistle supersonic from trigger-happy automatic
weaponry
And if ever I were called upon by common consent
of the House of Reps, the Senate and the Chief Executive - yes all three - to
take into my sole healing hands the duty of imposing SILENCE in the pistolpacking
« bang-bang » Land of the Free
I would first and foremost send a Special Envoy - well-trained in the art of
extracting gold from rotten teeth - to persuade the Nobel Committee (with
besides a caveat to pressure the Swedish PM and Chief Justice from issuing a «
non-ingérence » edict) to stay forthwith the conferment of the Nobel Prize to
authors and poets for a century (writers who in any case would have secured by
attaining their senior age ALL the principal publisher-controlled and mutuallyrotated
prizes and who would have by that pinnacle-age amassed gigantesque illgotten
gains through royalties) and instead implore the Nob-Com to let my
country have the equivalent in weight of DYNAMITE in the care and production of
the Alfred Nobel family
Next, I'll charter all PAQUEBOTS, such as, the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth
- even the newly-salvaged and to be refurbished Titanic - and then I'll have
their hulls loaded and packed to the brim with the Nobel Dynamite, and will I
not then appoint? the fifteen-year-old THUNBERG as the Admiral-of-the-Fleet
and will I not let it out? to ALL 300-million or more gun-owners yearning for
some much-needed target practice the right to free-passage on these luxury
liners together with their legally-acquired NRA-authorized automatic « manmowers
» — all for the noble cause of annihilating from Europe thick, stumpy
teens or hags who block all passages, side-walks, mall-halls, zebra-crossings,
railway and airport entrances, y comprise « la plus belle avenue du Monde: les
Champs-Elysées » with their 'ambling-rambling » gait - for a hard-to-miss
target-drilling spree
And then, when the licensed gun-owners trample over one another and their
trillion-strong hunting-gear to get on board, all itching-ready to pump moltenlead
into bulging, pulpy and thick-tough flesh, I'll order Admiral Thunberg to
set course for GREENLAND under the pretext of getting and honing-in some target
practice while sampling the local brand of ICE-CREAM laced with polar-bear and
ermine blood, while all 50,000 Danish citizens line the shores to welcome the
NRA-supporters with their automatics, I'd issue an ultimatum to His/Her Royal
Danish Majesty once the hunting-corps take up strategic positions on Danish
iced-soil to SELL the ISLE for less than 10% of the sum offered by Harry TRUMAN
after WWII or ELSE face up to the aurora borealis detonation - through remote
satellite control - of solid Swedish Nobel dynamite and face up to the fury of
my NRA-Army
YES, Siree! That's what I'd do if ever I were appointed the SOLE REFEREE by
Congressional decree
And this, even if I never ever had no country ruled by the moule à
gaufre/waffle iron of mighty musketry
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, August 17,2019
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: LV - Mind unwinding tweezers
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: LV - Mind unwinding tweezers
If you let « bygones be bygones », there'll be no FUTURE left, and since we
can't always live in the EVER PRESENT (yet that's what we all do) , WHAT are we
living for? By the same token, if we
« followed » the above dictum 'to the letter », there'd be no more WARS nor
VENDETTAS, no more DIVORCES nor PATERNITY SUITS or even personal slights…. even
if you don't know what I really mean!
IF « It's an ill wind that brings/blows no one any good! », wherever you go,
ensure that you have a thermometre on you, for the instant you feel the
faintest breeze grace your temples, whip out your
« thermo » and check your temperature, and if it's
« normal », rush home and keep the windows and doors wide open in anticipation
of PRESENTS (hope the apertures are wide enough to permit the passage of a
shining Ferrari, for instance) that are bound to tumble into your lucky lap!
You lucky Devil!
This's a 'guessing game ». Someone once said:
« Ich bin ein Berliner! » at the Brandenburg Gate to a large cheering crowd.
Yet, no one bothered to check his birth certificate! When you know who called
into question his predecessor's inalienable birth rights, he didn't doubt the
veracity of the secret-valise codes he received from the man. Now, what would
the President say in similar circumstances?
« Ich bin ein Zzzzz..….! (fill in the blank space)
« … the ball is in your court now » says the guy who has run out of words… not
so the Coco girl who said - after winning - « I gave my Mom a heart attack! '
What's so 'rotten in Denmark' to keep « buyers » away…
« No ifs and buts, I'll bet the shirt on my back » that we'd leave by October
31st. Will the EU buy that!
« The British royalty will have to go if ever there were traffic jams » (due to
the royal processions on London's streets) , said a Prince who still loves the
rides attired in full regalia and refuses to go...
« To a Poet, Who would have me praise certain bad poets, imitators of his and
mine
You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another's said or sung,
‘Twere politic to do the like by these;
But was there ever dog that praised his fleas. «
W. B. Yeats,1865 - 1939
Sir, mighty Nobel pen drunk on Gaelic langue
'Twere more politic to cut the dog's tongue
And let the saliva drool on festering fleas
Than to scratch with claws in joyful ease!
T. Wignesan,19— - 20—
(c) T. Wignesan, Paris, August 8,2019
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES - LIV: Swatting flies in Buckingham Palace
from the White House
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES - LIV: Swatting flies in Buckingham Palace from the White
House
When Bianca Nobilissima, the statuesque Sea Anne-Anne anchor in her Star-Trek
heat-wave get-up exposing her sculptured architectural buoy spaces from head to
heel (even Mr. Spock would raise eyebrows wishing he were human) disclosed -
with the riotous rowdy Westminster Parliament for a backdrop - that she would
give « anything » (? ? ?) to be (not necessarily verbatim) « a fly on the wall »
during the British premiership « changing-of-the-guard » at Buckingham Palace
just to see if the new Brexit-PM would actually « kiss » Her Majesty's
graciously proffered hand or just merely « sniff » at it, to say the least, she
must have had no inkling whatsoever of the grave danger she was courting for
right in those phantasmagoric surroundings resides a DUDE who is a past-master
at « swatting » flies whether on, against or behind the wall or, for that
matter,
even through the wall!
Guess WHO was watching the same emission? for HE, too, proclaimed how he would
love to be « a fly on the wall » just to listen to growls and growses in
Democratic corridors of power on impeachment designs after the Senate Mueller
hearings! ! !
The Teutonic strains in the principally Norman royal household might
reverberate to the chilling ribaldry of the Koninklijke Chorale Caecilia --
(under the baton of Paul DINNEWETH and the ethereally uplifting voices:
Martine REYNERS (soprano) , Philip DEFRANCQ (tenor) and Joris DERDER (baritone)
-- through Carl ORFF's care-may-the-Devil-be: CARMINA BURANA performance:
http: www.al-production.be
Would that the newly-ordained PM recall the medieval poet's Old-German
in these lines:
Were din werit alle min
von deme mere unze an den Rin,
des weht ih mih darben,
daz diu chunegin von Engellant
lege an minen armen.
Translation (taken from the internet without credits) :
Were all the world mine
from the sea to the Rhine,
I would starve myself of it
so that the Queen of England
might lie in my arms.
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 29,2019
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXVIII
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXVIII
for Suzanne DELANEY, in appreciation
(Prelude: CAN THE WRONG MAN BE RIGHT? ABSOLUTELY!
If only he were NOT guilty of the self-same crime!
For instance, here in Europe, acceding to « nationality»
status can be quite ludicrously irrational: those migrants
even 'totally ignorant' of the host country's culture
and official tongue obtain their 'citizenship papers »
sooner or later, while clinging desperately to their
own culture and country to the exclusion of their hosts'- some more
fortunatethough enjoy « dual nationality » and therefore DUAL rights to LOYALTY
! And talk tough once they take over responsibile positions in society. And the
ones on whom the latter prey most of all are precisely
those « other» less fortunate migrants at their mercy!)
IF ever I had a country, a country NOT « wholly' put together by
either IMMIGRANTS or REFUGEES, you see, but by conquering
IMPERIAL ENSLAVERS on the backs of blacks and
on those fleeing from hunger, from religious
intolerance as 'indentured-labourers », mainly, you'll agree
WHERE the indigene was routed and rounded up into
RESERVES through superior 'fire-power' by the
COLONIAL and local ARISTOCRACY
AND where TAXES and LEVIES imposed by the « Foreign Power »
drove the locally-born MASTER to revolt against the MOTHER
COUNTRY
Until the whole CONTINENT united « nation » after « nation »
to become the foremost mid-twentieth century « COLONIAL »
SAVIOUR of the WORLD country
Only to find its internal structure and economic power usurped
by other NON-NATION constituting ethnies
AND one-by-one take over from the original WASP founding PATER
FAMILIAS confederacy
Yes, then, I'd keep the NEW-COMER from wagging his/her tongue or
shooting his/her mouth tout azimuth - despite the legislative mandate -
as though he/she were the backbone of the nation or from attempting to
take over my « dear » country as if it were their « god-given » patrimony
Even if I never ever had no country stuck together with spit and elbow-grease
to look like a pyrotechnically-powere Bollywoodian jamboree
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, July 22,2019
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: LIII - Tongue Teasers
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: LIII - Tongue Teasers
Whether the glass is « half full » or « half empty », what counts is WHO «
drank' the 'other half », the « better half »? Lucky Devil!
« By hook or by crook » always drag the virgin in to read your book while you
devise ways to make her your life-long cook!
This's probably what the French mean by the phrase: « défrayer un territoire
vièrge » (i.e., « open up virgin territory ») , say, in reference to fundamental
research.
When preachers want you to be the epitome of « milk of human kindness », do
they want you to suck or suckle breasts?
Don't make a fuss about not wanting to receive presents of not much value, for
you can always give them away to the poorer cousin clan residing in hutments
down the road.
If you « croc-a-dile », even once in a while (depending on whether the tile was
made of mud, concrete or platinum) , you risk being fed for the rest of your
life with infusions via tubes.
Why « make hay while the sun shines » when you can simply free all the caged
herbivorous animals we raise to feed ourselves, and after they would have
supped to their hearts' content, just shoot and slaughter and devour them?
True, « the dog is Man's best friend », but only so long as he continues to
feed the dog; otherwise, as in the recent case of a dying recluse in the
States, dogs will feed themselves on the Master (it's not clear whether he was
alive or dead) — clothes, flesh and bones to boot! (Anthony Burgess described
in one of his novels a case of having to traverse at one's own risk a monkeyinfested
forest. One great big-hearted man carried bags of nuts to appease
their hunger whenever he had to gain the other side of the forest. One fine
day, he clean forgot to haul the bags of nuts, and he just dldn't make it
across the wild in one piece!)
If you « cast pearls before swine », know that they would lap it up without
compunction and expel the same with the habitual choruses of grunts, together
with the abominable swill husbandmen feed them, and you would have a hard — if
not a beastly - time extracting them from the nauseating quagmire of sties,
that is, if the abattoir-butchers would not contest your rights to the pearls!
If you don't believe me, go see 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' (1974) : you, too
might get your head caved in with a sledge-hammer, your twitching body dumped
in the deep-freeze or hung on a steel hook against the wall awaiting carving to
supply the local butcher right round the corner!
To catch a monkey, all you have to do is to bore a small hole in a coconut for
it to get its hand through to the luscious kernel: the monkey will grab as much
of the kernel in its submerged hand and be trapped. It wouldn't occur to the
monkey to let go of the kernel to extract its hand free! The case of « Freedom
Fighters » always wanting more territory than they know they can legitimately
aspire or lay claim to.
And what do « freedom fighters », who have been defeated by the overwhelming
forces of the State, do after the rebellion or revolution? The few surviving
leaders will write poetry or cultivate their philosophic image for posterity;
the rest - the rank and file and cadres - deprived of civil-life training or
upbringing and a general education turn to « organized » crime for a living, to
wit, theft, drug-dealing, sexual exploitation for personal gain, money-lending
and the nefarious international remittance business, trafficking in the
lucrative migrant « slave-trade » and also the legitimate catering and grocery
trade — all coming under the umbrella of the respectable IMPORT-EXPORT business
nomenclature!
After the lost revolution
Even the failed rebellion
Remain collected funds bullion
Cash stashed by the? ? ? million
Make 'them' bourgeois onion
To pay politicking henchmen- minion!
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, July 17,2019
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: LII 52 - Tongue-Tweezers
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: LII - Tongue Tweezers
Tit for Tat
Butter for Fat
Rat for Cat
Left for Right
Day for Night
Might for Right
Tick for Tack
Lick for Lack
Lice for Sack
Rice for Mice
Dice for Vice
Nice for Voice
Sap for Lap
Cap for Gap
Rap for Nap
Loose for Tight
Pound for Bite
Penny for Wight
Lord for Light
Black for White
Diddle for Riddle
Fiddle for Middle
Horse for Sadle
Stable for Fable
Jingle for Jangle
Bungle for Wrangle
Mingle for Mangle
Single for Double
Goble for Gamble
Mumble for Rumble
Lass for Dad
Had for Glad
Mom for Mad
Laid for Paid
Brother for Maid
Died for Raid
Bow for Wow
Row for Sow
Slew for Brow
Seed for Reed
Need for Weed
Greed for Deed
Pine for Mine
Brine for Wine
Sign for Line
Whine for Dine
Groin for Loin
Grind for Join
Bread for Würst
Butter for Toast
Steak for Roast
Trumpet for Boast
Storms for Coast
Armour for Joust
Bat for Mat
Ball for Bat
Hole for Rat
Den for Lion
House for Sion
World for Zion
Tit for Tat
Gutter for Rat
Rap for VAT
Flour for Oven
Levure for Leaven
Govern for Heaven!
Sign by Sign
Line by Line
Words di-vine?
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, July 14,2019
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: LI 51 - Tongue-Teasing Epigrams
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: LI - Tongue-Teasers
If you want to give someone a « taste of his own medicine', you must first
obtain sufficient quantities of the same medicine in the market, and if it's
out-of-stock - TOUGH LUCK! - you have to employ some pharmaceutical company to
manufacture it for you! GOOD LUCK!
If you write « poetry » without first acquainting yourself with what has
already been put out in the field over the ages - which might take/cost you a
few « lifetimes » wholly devoted to the task - you might only be « beating the
dead horse » over and over again, severally in theme, tone and style. TANT PIS
!
If, on the other hand, someone or some school (might even be a « publisher »)
tells you they can « teach » you how to write « great poetry », you should
first try them out by asking them to write it themselves and win all the
coveted prizes available (and they are legion!) in the field, y compris the
NOBEL, before obviously following their advice, though they might not take
kindly to hearing this from you, especially if you are a poet, yourself!
« Poetry' can be a very lucrative commodity bandied about by businessmen!
If, by common consent of all the governments in the world, LAWYERS/SOLLICITORS
and their ilk are put on « salary » - financed through appropriation of one $
or one € from every wage-earner (the latter wouldn't mind at all!) - there is
little doubt for conjecture, before the end of the present generation ALL LAW
FACULTIES all over the world will close down for good!
Likewise, if all governments paid so-called CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS (with some
notable exceptions like, perhaps, UNICEF, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, INSTITUT
PASTEUR, MEDECINS SANS FRONTIER, to name just a few) to keep them from
producing highly expensive publications in glossy techni-colour print (which no
one ever reads, I'm certain, and which stokes the colossal « waste disposal »
industry) , the
« lungs » of the world like the Brazilian jungles won't be suffering from DEEP
VEINOUS THROMBOSIS!
True, « CRIME DOES (NOT) PAY », yet it's the « criminal » who gets richer and
richer at the expense of his victims, and, as everybody already knows, the «
best » and richest lawyers are at the rich man's beck and call to keep the LAW
at bay! LEGISLATION is almost always written by lawyer-politicians who provide
« loopholes » for those who know how to look for them! Whoever said: 'JUSTICE
is blind' is him/her-self « purblind »!
Back to Aurélien BARRAU, the young French Astrophysicist and Philosopher-Poet
(he obtained with the highest academic honours
« doctorates » in astro-physics and philosophy from the best French academic
establishments) - is right now the foremost « advocate » most eloquently
campaigning against
« climate change » issues in France and has publicly declared, with proof in
hand, that « climate change » is IRREVERSIBLE and its catastrophic consequences
will occur in the lives of our children.
(See his book out this year: LE PLUS GRAND DEFI de l'HISTOIRE de l'HUMANITE:
Face à la catastrophe écologique et sociale. Paris: Ed. Michel Lafon,2019,
145p.)
Here are relevant quotes from this book: « Certain trends in the excesses of
consumerism will by necessity result in economic decline. Perhaps even,
sometimes, in the loss of comfort. But, if the (detrimental ecologic) situation
were to become
« lethal » - and this's the case today - economic growth cannot make any sense
or be of any interest. The means defeats the end. » (p.34) (…) « To migrate
towards a vegetarian regime of dieting would be very beneficial for ecology:
the industry devoted to meat production is one of the most pollution prone
imaginable. One kilogram of beef requires 10,000 litres of water, even a calory
of meat requires 4 to 11 calories of vegetable matter, animal husbandry emits
more green-house gas than all other human activity - including transport - and,
in 2050, this will be the primary cause of penury in food in the world. » And
he goes on to say that the avoidance of meat consumption will reduce the
incidence of cardio-vascular, diabetic and cancer-inducing diseases. (pp.35-
36)
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, July 12,2019
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: L 50 - Tongue-Teasing Epigrams
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: L (50) - Tongue-Teasers
The « early bird catches the worm » only because the worm has not woken up yet.
« I don't love you! I hated your father! » - must be the real reason why «
Mother F.….r » is so popular a swear-word (correct me if I'm wrong) In the USA.
Is being « down and out » just a passing condition of being « broke and
depressed » or the more serious predicament of being « technically knocked out
» cold on your back? ? ? ?
« Time and time again » the Church or Temple bells toll to keep the worshipper
away by reminding him of the « hidden » trap about to be sprung. The 'true
believer' follows his own « conditioned reflexes' which don't wring his
conscience.
If you grow tired of the wife's cooking, invite friends to dinner, and they'll
be honour-bound to let you sample theirs. But, if you grow averse to the wife's
jokes in bed, best to invite your enemies to share the conjugal bed. You'll
soon make lots of friends, followed by lots of dinner parties with the promise
of delicious post-prandial desserts.
Generally, « shooting Stars » shoot themselves while sliding down slippery
holly wood or hanging from the holly tree when the agent overlooks the Star for
some one more « willing » and younger.
The Manager-Trainer who « chucks in the towel » even before the final countdown
- despite the protesting affirmations of his « poulain » that he could go
yet another dozen rounds - has to be the only humane soul in a sado-masochistic
world of « bear-baiting » barbarity where two trained performers batter each
other's brains to the accompaniment of wild screams and yells of blood-thirsty
drunks insensitive to broken bleeding noses, caved-in swollen black-eyesockets,
broken ribs and concussion - the image of Muhammad Ali's delirium
tremens palsy!
The « priceless jewel » is almost always a Classical Master's painting adorning
« sfumato » most palatial buildings under high security guard, but a true
poet's words merely string some broken pearly line in the fading memory of a
sensitive soul to make him look out into the chirping chastening world!
Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were both illegitimate and both apprenticed
to Masters at an early age at their own wilfull asking. Both showed genius at
an early age and were the object of much envy from teacher as well as peers.
Leonardo kept notes by writing backwards and was ambi-dextrous. He's remembered
for 'Mona Lisa » and the « Last Supper » and for his anatomical and
mathematical sketches and drawings. Michelangelo was compelled by patrons to
paint, instead of working on sculpture which was his forté. Witness
« David ». Yet, his paintings imbibed as he painted glorify the 'Cistine
Chapel'.
With compass through calculus
With scalpel on 'stolen » corpses
With paint in sfumato colours
Thru back-neck-bending calouses
With dreams of 'winged' opuses
Frescoes or burial sculptures
Wills of born and made geniuses
When Megan was interviewed after the match and was asked to display her now
famous « Bolt-like' stance, she obliged and said:
« This's called the s..t-eating grin! » Now, what would her HAKKA look like on
Inauguration Day!
Hers!
This's in response to Ronald Hull's comment on my Unquotable Quotes: XLIX in
Authorsden.com, dated 6/7 July 2019:
« According to the French Astrophysicist and philosopher-poet Aurélien BARRAU,
b.19 May 1973, in Paris - a Senior Research Fellow (and Full Professor at the
University of Grenoble-Alpes) with the French National Centre for Scientific
Research (CNRS) , Honorary Member of the Institut Universitaire France, Visiing
Professor at Stanford and Princeton, the 2006 Laureate of the Russian
Bogoliubov Prize, among others - no scientific theory, apart from - for the
moment - Einstein's Special and General Relativity theories - can be proven to
be wholly valid or be taken definitely into account in the overall assessment
and calculation of the COSMOS's underlying functional principles in all its
detail be it the Big Bang or Big Crunch or BIG BOUNCE or the behaviour of the
BLACK HOLES, etc., (though he somewhat defers to the « String Theory » and the
« Multi-Verse » concept, and critiques Einstein's lack of foresight in the
comprehension of the role of « particle physics » in the scheme of things
entire.
Here is a relevant quote:
'Que des génies absolus comme Newton ou Einstein (et d'autres) aient contribué
de façon décisive est évidemment indéniable. Mais l'essentiel des progrès est
dû à un magnifique effort collectif qui ne relève pas du « est-ce Monsieur A ou
Madame B qui a raison? ». C'est beaucoup plus subtil et intriqué que cela.
Nous ne sommes pas dans une arène de « parieurs » qui doivent miser sur le bon
cheval. Le meilleurs choix est souvent un contrepoint de propositions qui
s'entremêlent. '
My translation (take it for what it's worth) :
'That the great geniuses like NEWTON or EINSTEIN (and others) had contributed
in a decisive way (to our knowledge) is undeniably evident. But the essence of
progress is due to a laudable collective effort which does not depend on «
whether it was Mister A or Madam B who was right? » It's much more subtle and
involved than that. We are not in an arena of « bettors » who are called upon
to bet on the winning horse. The best choice is often the counterpoint of
propositions which intertwine. »
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, July 9,2019
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: XLIX - Tongue Teasers
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: Tongue-Teasers - XLIX
« Third Degree » is when you add « Insult to injury ».
If you take everything everybody says with a « pinch of salt », we'll soon be
able to drink ocean water free of charge - and eat plastic weeds and fish
growing on the shores.
A « sweet tooth » soon rots to the root.
If you send coal to Newcastle, you'll feel the heat as far down in your muscles
as/at Neuchatel or Machu Pichu castle!
'Think twice' before you jump but don't jump anyway, for thinking so is a «
vice » and thinking « twice » won't make it any the more « wise » or « nice »!
If you don't « listen' to what you normally « say', you risk having both your
ears boxed-in tight!
If SALSA is favela-bred « dirty-dancing », then TANGO is stylish, high-class
but prudish titillating « teasing ».
A « yawn » is a « yarn » about it being not so much a sign of insomnia or even
boredom as an act of having lost the thread of the speech or argument in a
debate on the stage.
By « tightening the belt » when times get hard, the Wise Guy who coined the
phrase really meant to say: « Don't « indulge » yourself or else you'd have an
« extra mouth » to feed!
A wrinkled brow is only « an unmade bed » at the end of the night - not a sign
of wisdom or authority!
A « scrum » in rugby is not so much an « head-on » clash as a « bum-stretching
» exercise: the last anchor-man stifles snorting!
Andalusian Flamenco dancers who are invariably women at most « palos »,
imitate/mimic the MALES of birds in the courting process through frisky headand-
hind-jutting movements while their men - mostly - prefer to sit it out
with « palmas » - clapping their women onto greater action. Who courts whom
? ? ? ?
Do English football fans sing « Swing Low, Sweet Chariot… » at football matches
because they want to be taken back to Africa without their « chains »? ? ? ? ?
Who took them to the Americas in the first place? ? ? ? ?
Are you having « sex » when you masturbate?
Answer « Yes » and you are right!
Answer « No » and you're right tight!
Which girls are the best?
Those who enjoy themselves?
Or, those who let you enjoy yourself?
Answer the « former » and you're …..
Answer the « latter » and you're equally…..
The Child is Father of the Man, but Man is Father of any and of all the « gods
», for not only he 'invented'
them (as figments of his imagination) , but has been interfering with the Will
of the Almighty ever since…
What goes up must come down? ? ? Even if all objects « fall » at the same speed,
owing to « gravity », the French astro-physicist and philosopher-poet maintains
that it's the Earth that catapults itself to receive the falling objects
(correct me if I'm wrong, Aurélien) . The question is, When thunder strikes down
onto the earth, is it the Earth which produces and projects THUNDER from down
under? ? ? Isn't it, then, rather a question of « What goes up, goes up and stays
UP! » NOT « What comes down! »
This's for Dr. Edward Phillips at Authorsden.com in response to his comment on
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES XLVIII: Tongue-Teasers (Poetry) - 7/6/2019 5: 51: 28 AM
'Your are either wise beyond reason, or unreasonably wise. I haven't yet got
you figured out. But I'm getting onto you..I think.':
The response: « The LAST barrier to fall is still the INTELLECTUAL barrier,
after the SKIN, HAIR, NOSE, CHIN, BROW and SEX barriers! » Happy hunting!
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, July 6/7,2019
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: XLVIII - Tongue Teasers
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: XLVIII - Tongue Teasers
If the « Yellow Race » could have invented the alphabet, they wouldn't still be
seeing « Images » when they close their eyes. Picasso, Dadaism, Surrealist and
Abstract painting (including Borroughs and Gysin's cut-up and fold-in
techniques) is the art of representing Chinese characters upside down,
backwards and upwards - all jumbled up in one frame at a time!
Bad breath results from swearing; fragrant breath from not breathing while you
are talking nonsense.
If you tell no lies, you'll never be believed!
He/She who rides pillion is a « tail-carrier »!
Be choosy about making friends and you'll end up at Land's End!
A missed « home-run » is when you get home just too late to catch the guy
slipping out of the back-door!
If you can't tell a « swallow » from a « bellow », that's because you've got
your mouth full or is it because it's a mouthful?
A Teetotaller is a « tea-taster » of tea cups on a golf course to see if they
were laced with green-tea leaves or « grass »!
Mountaineering is the art of endearing yourself to ZEUS in the hope of being
promoted to the pantheon of Greek gods at Olympus Mountain. Mountaineers,
therefore, should not be rescued at the expense of the taxpayers' money. Make
ZEUS pay, if you can!
Since you are at the top/head of the evolutionary ladder/table, eat what you
can and « cane » what you can't to better digest them!
Jack of 'all trades » couldn't make a living with spades, so he scaled Jack's
Bean Stalk, stole and sold the « beans » to build a Castle in the Air, all to
no purpose, for the Spanish authorities refused to provide the sewerage system;
that's how building 'castles in the air » became an Iberian specialty. Witness
whole new townships lying fallow in the Costa del Sol, for example!
When « God » created Man, He made certain the inhabitants of the Land of the
Rising Sun would never be able to trace their origins back to…. and condemned
them to eating « whale » meat forever and ever!
When HOMO ERECTUS on his long late trek from Africa, some 55,000 years ago, set
out to seek a more durable partner, he met NEANDERTHAL MAN fleeing the Ice
Age's rigours and ravages, and the two met and copulated in the Mid-East and
gave Modern Man our common genome. The question is, How did they communicate?
How do you say, in sign language,
« Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir? » (Translated: « Do you want to
‘sleep' with me tonight?) French style, please!
Here's an attempt:
? @ % # () $? €?
= + X X X + X X X
V §! =
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Will you let my goats graze on your downy pastures?
What if sharp horns get stuck in my deep dentures?
That'll give our kids much gamboling pleasures.
When Shirley MacLaine (Bless her cheeky Soul!) saw a great big golden-haired
'Atlantis Man » standing right behind her in the Canary Islands (where she went
to film, I presume) , the same question crops up: in which tongue did they « rub
» minds? Must be ante-Homer Uhr-Greek, of course! Or perhaps in Red-Indian
sign language?
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, July 4/5,2019
THREE WAYS of Swiping the World Cup
THREE WAYS of Swiping the World Cup
'It is sweet and fitting/glorious to lay your life down for your country » -
from a poem by HORACE
(See my story selected to represent France in the 2006 World Cup held in
Germany, entitled: « ZERO - ZERO » and published in Everyone has a Good Story:
football. Barcelona: caféDiverso,2006, pp.158-156. (Maximum length of
stories: 1800 words.)
Manager/Coach: …a well-aimed kick at the hamstring should do the trick
Player: …what…where's the string anyway
M: …you mutt head…don't you know anything outside of the G-string
P: …you're asking me to do…to commit a crime
M: …so…this's for your country…your nation's glory is at stake
P: …right there in front of all the world watching
M: …so what…when the invasion takes place, cameras are ready to report the
glorious sacrifice of the patriot…think of the Normandy landings
P: …you mean, this…this what you're asking me to do in broad limelight is
excusable
M: …what d'ya think…how many cups are won thru respect of the game's rules or
even of other « allied » teams
P: …I don't know if I really can expose myself in that fashion
M: ….d'ya want to warm the reserves' bench all thru the cup knock-out stage
P: …ai…ai…what if I miss and kick her calf or something
M: …what if I put you out of the next stage lineup
P: … you wouldn't do that…who'll replace me
M: …you want to bet…look it's simple…keep your eyes on the referee…when she
looks the other way, jab your boot right into her heel... from the back...
P: …what about the crowd…
M: …they'd be all roaring raucous mad, half out of joy, the other half in pain
P: …what about the VAR guys
M: …what about them…they'd be watching the action taking place elsewhere,
besides all that festive flabbergast will dazzle their eyes and cripple their
minds
P: …you sure will put me in right from the start…no? ...not like that Dolphin
Maccaroni gal forced to sit it out game after game… all for just a couple of
minutes at the end… the best charger with the ball I've played against...when
she bounces down the turf, it's like a shoal of dolphins riding the crest of a
tsunami, I tellya
M: …you agree to do this for your country and I'll guarantee ya full play-time
but if you don't, your number will be up on the HUBLOT board before half the
half-time
P: …so I have no choice
M: …you're a clever girl… so you agree…ok…just a couple of other chores, if ya
don't mind… when there's a scramble for the ball right in front of our goal,
just make sure you use both hands to deflect the ball away from the goal-posts
P: …what d'ya mean…deflect with hands…that's a penalty for sure
M: …not any more…the rules have been changed since before the quarter-finals…
now you can handle… even fondle the ball or even berth it under your jersey an'
Molly-coddle it an' walk right into the goal… no penalty… go right ahead and
try… in fact, don't try…just do it OR
P: …don't blame me if I get a RED card then
M: … don't ya worry…just do what I tellya and you'll make it to the next World
Cup safely bound
P: …look, if that's what it is, I'll see what I can do
M: … don't just 'see' what you can do…DO IT OR else
P: … well, do you think you can put all this in writing and affix your signa…
M: … the only thing you'll see if you don't agree to do what I want is the tv
screen in your hotel room… don't ya see, the nation's honor is at stake
P: …ok…ok since you put it that way
M: ...bright girl….now there's just one other thing… you know that mastodon who
drills unstoppable goals thru rat holes
P: …you mean that champion with the short platinum mop
M: …yeah, I mean the same alright… the rest of the time on the field, keep
close to her…in fact, close enough to whisper your private number in her ears…
soon enough she'll get the point, but stay stuck to her… so stuck so she can't
keep her feet on the ball… make eyes at her... if she still doesn't take the
hint...trip her up and fall right onto her an' don't get up till they carry
both of you out on the same stretcher...
P: …what ya trying to do…make me a …
M: … remember this's for your country… dulce et decorum est pro patria mori…
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, June 30,2019
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: XLVII - Tongue-Twisting Epigrams
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: XLVII - Tongue Twisters
If you want to « have » your cake and « eat » it at one and the same time,
simple enough, just split it into two equal parts like an isosceles triangle
into two right-angle triangles; then « eat » (take a bite) at one half first,
then « have » (another bite) at the other half of the cake and so on and so
forth until there's nothing left.
Correct me if I'm wrong, since the true value of PI - the circumference of a
circle divided by its radius - can never be properly ascertained/calculated
(damn the Roman soldiers for murdering Archimedes at Syracuse just when he was
about to make the discovery) , how is it possible that NASA landed its
spacecraft on the moon in 1969 and brought the astronauts back to Earth? A mere
decimal point(s) difference in the trillions so far made available by highpowered
computers could, I presume, land the spacecraft in Andromeda. Well, I'm
exaggerating, of course! But, Aurélien Barrau, the French astrophysicist and
philosopher poet, affirms that NO scientific theory is « exact' (barring
Einstein's Relativity theories for the moment) for they can never be proven to
be « exact » since they require an infinite number of experimental proof not
just on Earth, but in the far-flung corners of the expanding Universe to be
held true and verifiable forever… And Barrau is an honorable man!
If you look into a mirror and see your left as your left, right as your right,
top under bottom, and back to front, it simply means, My Friends, you're DEAD
as doornails!
ARS GRATIA MARTIA
Women who ride horses astride should marry horses. No ordinary man can please
them in their bumping élan stride.
True, one « swallow » doesn't make for a « summer' of joy, but it could help
you put the « pill » down before it gets stuck in the gullet and keeps you from
raising yet another unwanted « feller ».
Aim high in life and the harder you'd fall! - the story of politicians,
tyrants and emperors, to cut the story short…
We're all « losers » at one time or another, but the one who survives it all is
the ONE who knows how to shove the blame onto others.
Do those who suck up to the 'Perons' sell well their records to Gauchos in the
Savanas (casting no aspersions on their innate talents, nor on the excellence
of the lyrics and melodiy) being in « sixes and sevens » with them!
Blow your own trumpet and you'll end up out-of-breath. « Blow » some one
else's, and you'd likely end up choked to death!
Why do tyrants, self-appointed emperors and other martial-minded « mentors »
always want to get their butt's kicked by marching their men up to Moscow? ? ?
A « cad » by any other name is still a CAD who must prey on some defenseless
orphan. The latter from then on wishes/prays to have his name changed to hide
his shame.
If you take a « leak » in a puddle, it'll still look like a puddle, though much
of a muddle owing to the mud in its gravel.
STOP looking for the 'needle in the haystack' and reduce it to a hackneyed
phrase of a metaphor by using instead a laser-detector.
If you « lie in the bed you make », does it really matter who crowds you out
for love's sake? ? ?
Presidents and/or Prime Ministers
Run their countries through speeches
Written by obscure ghost-writers
Who themselves plagiarise poetasters
Who siphon punchlines from philosophers
And poets shunned by publishers
To reign as « Intellectual » preachers
« A banana a day keeps the West Indian away (from England) », said the
Trinidadian Nobel Literature laureate V.S. Naipaul in the fifties, but who
would keep Brexit Britain from dancing to the tune of the Steel Bands when the
British West Indian cricket batsmen knock the hell out of the West Indian fast
bowlers when they charge down the Pavilion end on to the pitch at Lords? ? ?
Perhaps the East Indian British? ? ?
(One famed woman paramour claims they don't have the « staying power » required
to keep her going even for a year!)
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, June 27,2019

UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: XLVI - Tongue-Twisting Epigrams
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: XLVI - Tongue-Twisting Epigrams
An aborted foetus never stops growing in the mind of the aborted mother. She
never tires of making more babies to nurture the memory of the aborted baby.
The Heart and Soul are as close as the Foot and Sole: they are up to no good;
they smell just as bad.
Don't curry favour with a woman who likes it hot.
Waste not, want not: you can neither not want water nor waste it and re-use it,
immediately.
It's an ill-wind that brings no-one any fragrant smells or scents.
A tight-fisted man often dies intestate.
Eat what you can and what you can't - slaughter them first before you can them.
Think of the « Devil » and you bet he'll turn up for sure! If only the «
Debtor » would do likewise!
« Running Dogs » is the nickname of dogs whose muzzles never stop running while
they are in the act of running.
If you pay for sex, it would be wise not to « eat it » as well, though most of
the « sex » offered for free is worse than the « bite' of
the African Killer Bee.
A square peg in a round hole makes the hole hissing hot, heaving and heavenly.
Laws are made to be broken, so are hearts. Take a break and break the Laws
first.
Mind your own business and the Stock Market will go bust.
A Tycoon in a Typhoon
Fell into a swiveling swoon
So he took a big spoon
Shoveled enough of his boon
And gave it all to a goon
Who dumped it in a spittoon
Typhoon blew him to the Moon.
Uni-Verse is a one-line poem. Multi-Verse: infinite one-line poems.
Free-Verse: maddening, chaotic non-sensical non-poems.
If you pour oil on troubled waters, the Mid-East will go up in smoke and the
rest of the World will live in relative peace throughout the millennium, but
the Republican Party will then be tussling attempting to extirpate the
Democratic spike in its hind quarters with nuclear pliers.
Since, according to the astro-physicist philosopher-poet Aurélien Barrau, both
Time and Space are like ourselves mere 'objects in evolution' in the Cosmos -
in other words, mere « contents » not the « containers » - how is it possible
that we have all a fixed and readable past somewhere on Earth? ? ?
A loose tongue is a lost tongue. It usually hangs out long at the mouths of
joints frequented by late night revelers.
An Englishman's house is his castle, but he won't mind if you let him stay for
centuries to run your country.
In the Land of the Rising Sun, everybody rises with the sun and keeps it for
himself for fun.
The Sun never sets on those who rise with the sun.
A Red Indian is a Denisovian Homo Erectus from Africa before he became a
Chinese, crossed by the Neanderthal Heidelbergensis.
Indians are not humans, but 'Superior Caste Hindus'.
Since we are all genetically hybrids, what's the good in harping on the
'Nation» as a community or breed? ? ? Or on the United Nations of America? ? ?
The way male trainers and managers handle and hug their wards in the Women's
World Cup, it is plain they would have a hard time making it into the Oval
Office, unless they also take to « twittering » with gusto on a daily basis.
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, June 25,2019
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: XLV - Tongue-Teasing Epigrams
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: XLV - Tongue teasing epigrams
A stitch in time can save an arranged marriage and stave off a family feud, not
to mention everlasting vendettas.
Still waters run deep in sleep.
When the hens begin to crow, the cocks don't grow.
A whipped dog bites not the whip that flails it, but the hand that feeds it
just for the nonce.
When in Rome do as Nero did, but watch out for Brutus's unkindest cut of all.
Empty vessels often return from the Spice Isles laden with gold, cinnamon and
measles.
If you want to paint the town red, first make certain you have loads and loads
of red paint.
If the pot keeps calling the kettle « Black », well, just read the Charter of
Human Rights to it; contrariwise « electrify » both.
If it rains cats and dogs, just eat ‘em and save enough money for a trip to the
Riviera to watch cats and dogs parading Stars in diamond-studded leashes.
Want not, beg not, but choose the charities you give to.
Beggars are not choosers but prostitutes are!
ADULTery - What if the spouses were teenagers or even children! In which case,
why not: « TEENAGery » or « CHILDery »? If you think in terms of « adulterate
», then why not: « ADULTERATERY »? ?
Cows that think that the other shore is always greener should wear glasses.
Pies in the sky are reserved for astronauts and Mr. Spock's fleet crew.
An apple a day can cost more than a doctor some day the way the Arctic is
already melting.
Forewarned is fore-damned.
When lightning strikes you, it matters little whether you « hear » thunder near
or far away.
A woman who tango(e) s without a partner looks like a jigsaw-puzzle up-sidedown.
Keep punching and you'll end up with tinnitus ringing in your later (y) ears.
You don't need a lawyer to tell the « whole » and
« nothing » but the TRUTH in a criminal court, but then the Jailor might not be
particularly fussy about the truth; He/She only wants to know if you had broken
the Law.
A lawyer is a lire
Salvaged from the mire
Trample not its attire
Subject of much satire
Paragon of righteous fire
In duty-bound entire
Oh! What a lordly Sire!
Since, according to the astro-physicist Aurélien Barrau,
It's not the Earth's gravity which makes the Moon revolve round us - for it
progresses like the Earth in a straight-curved line round the Sun - should not
the Chinese take a second look at the Lunar Calendar on which the Yi Jing's «
temps principle » is based? ? ?
Parallel lives never greet!
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, June 23,2019
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: XLIV - Tongue-Teasing Epigrams
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: XLIV
Don't translate poems if you want yours read.
A pain in the ass is a pain nevertheless.
A « race' in any other language is still the shape of the nose.
Every cloud hides shining gold that reveals the silver lining.
It's the darkest cloak which keeps its silver from jingling in its lining.
Every clout makes you see silver stars while lining up for more stout.
It never rains but giggles.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket; just lay them.
The child is farther from the man.
Spare the rod and drill the child (with electric…)
The proof of the pudding is in the ridding
Burn the candle at both ends and end up keeping midnight oil vigil in the
igloo.
Do tight-rope walkers eat only string hoppers?
The Piped-Piper pipes a pitiful panegyric to Pan past the precipice…
The « dachshund' trotting out on an outing with its master never fails to take
its house - under the same roof - for an airing.
Even a stitch in time cannot save the rhyme in the above run-on line.
Rats tend to desert a ship full of lousy fat cats.
The pot calling the wok: mad!
The wok calling the kettle: cad!
The kettle calling the pan: bad!
The pan calling the cook: lad!
The cook calling the « chef': Dad!
All groggy agog and cooking glad!
A chip of the old computer hard-disk block.
All the World's a cage.
An eye for an eye multiplies drives; tit for tat and that's that.
Two and Two make Two times Two.
2 + Too make Two Toos. No?
If you beat about the bush, the Bushes most likely'll not complain, but if you
beat the Bushes, you would have nothing to gain.
A State within a State (l'Etat dans l'Etat) , a Nation breeds a single State,
yet no Nation or State rules those who secretly usurp the State.
If you went and told it to the Marines every time somebody tells you to, you'll
have precious little left to tell your psychoanalyst, psychiatrist or Priest,
but fat chance the Church will close down even if you shut up for good.
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, June 21,2019
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: XLIII - Tongue-Teasing Epigrams
UNQUOTABLE QUOTES - XLIII(Continued)
A black-listed writer tops every publisher's reading list.
Half a loaf is better than no love.
Don't dig your ears while tying your shoe laces. Just wear slippers.
Eat only what's available in the stable if you're able to put it on the table.
A friend in need is a friend who feeds your greed.
Take care of the Ps and the wife will take good care to Pound you.
A journey of a thousand miles ends with the last step, said Old Tse.
Kill not the brother-in-law, not until the sister is dead.
If you butter your bread on both sides, you'll better learn the art of licking
hands.
Hang not the hangman with his own noose. Make sure to shoot him before you hang
him.
Even a blind cat has to rat-race.
Take the load off your own fat before you scat.
Shoot to kill only if your will will not let you stand still.
A marked man is the marksman's man.
A dime a dozen always turns up when you're frozen.
He who cries thief - even in mischief - is often the chief of the thieves.
Turn coat and betray the holes in your shirt.
A snake in the grass cannot tell leather souls from top brass.
Early to bed makes the lass grow stealthy, squelchy and full of lice but nice.
Immolate yourself and learn that you can moult your soul.
Even if you're forced to burn your boats, you'll always stay afloat by eating
oats.
Where there's a will, there's no giving way/away.
Run with the hares and you'll surely drop into snares.
Hunt with the hounds and you'll surely make many kinds of sounds.
Run with the hares and hunt with the hounds and you'll eat yourself out-ofbounds.
Birds of a feather pay the same tailor.
What goes up bursts into fireworks before it comes down in fluff and ash.
All that glitters cannot be sold unless you run your own tv show.
If you judge books by their torn covers, you'll probably end up singing
Op(e) rah in Amanpour.
If you kick the can down the street often enough, you'll end up in the Women's
World Cup canned.
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, June 18,2019
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXVII
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY - LXXVII
IF ever I had a country proud of its wall-less porous boundary
And if ever by no mistake of the Supreme High Command of the International
Militaro-Business Conspiracy I were appointed the CHIEF TARIFF IMPOSER and
Eminence Grise of and on all the self-righteous realms rocambolesque republics
and renegade run-of-the-mill rotten rotting rostrum-raving riven ribald
rascally rickety refugee-raised democracies
Mark my words I'll put an end to the raping of my dearly-beloved national
integrity by
One, importing all available rutting Queen Bees of the 'Killer African Bees'
and have them breed with local wasps of high pedigree in the front-line of
battle along the Southern Border under every tree where I'd let Red Ant-Hills
multiply free
Two, import Myanmar Pythons with a taste for digesting young fresh human flesh,
mixed with the local brand of Everglades alligators, down the Mississippi and
the Colorado River sprinkled liberally with the Grand Canyon brand of the
Rattle-Snake with their tell-tale warning-rattle nipped off, together with the
silent army of Black Widows clad in their enticing mantilla webs, as a secondline
of defense against the illegal refugee
Next, if they still keep coming I'd roundup all the lazy good-for-nothing
thick-maned Bisons of the prairies and have them lined up for a Charge-of-the-
Heavy-Brigade stampede by whipping their asses to the sound of the Land of the
Free
And if this doesn't stem the tide of illegal immigrants, drug dealers and
tourists with empty pockets, I'd call on the faithful Black and White striped
Tribe of Appalachian SKUNKS with my tonitruant bugle, line them up so that
their posteriors faced Tierra del Fuego and let them squirt to their hindhearts'
desire even at the risk of driving the entire population out of the
country
Yes Siree, this's what I'd do as the Eminence Grise and Chief Imposer of
Tariffs of My Beloved Contree
And this even if I never ever had no country worth saving for the ennui of a
penny
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, June 11,2019
Translation with Commentary of MAIS QUE DIEU ME PARDONNE by
T Wignesan
Translation of Kendji Girac and Claudio Capeo's Que Dieu me pardonne by T
Wignesan
Lyrics by Kendji Girac and Renaud REBILLAUD
https: //www.youtube.com/watch? v=xP2jp31jFMc
(The two young French songsters' duet, now, yo-yo-ing in the upper echelons of
c-Star charts rendered through guitar and acordeon in a spirit of respectful
joie-de-vivre is a veritable lilting paeon to the unstinting heart, not to
mention the reverence underlying the images. Some beguilingly simple but
thoughtful truths do however spill out of their rhymed couplets and quatrains.
The refrain that varies slightly through repetition could be, I admit,
idiomatically re-phrased, but I'd rather not - in order to retain the unicity
of the sweeping rhythm. Enjoy the low-key tour de force. T Wignesan)
Il faudrait être des dieux, il faudrait être fort
(One ought to be like the gods, ought to be strong)
Comme si mouiller des yeux, c'est pour ceux qui ont tort
(As if tears in one's eyes were a sign of one's wrongs)
Il faudrait danser, et cacher sa douleur
(One ought to keep dancing for fear of disclosing one's pain)
Être le dernier à pleurer, jamais montrer sa peur
(Be the very last to cry, never to reveal the fear in within)
Il faudrait être des rois, il faudrait faire le fier
(One ought to be like kings, ought to display one's pride)
Comme si baisser les bras, c'est pour celui qui perd
(As if to cower and hide be the lot of those woe-betide)
Il faudrait cogner, et puis bomber le torse
(One should hit hard and then puff up one's chest)
Être le premier à crier plus fort
(And be the very first to cry out one's best)
Refrain:
Mais que Dieu me pardonne
(Beg I God for His pardon)
J'ai tout fait à l'instinct
(In everything I followed my instinct)
Moi je ne suis qu'un homme
(Me, I'm naught but human)
Peut-être un bon à rien
(Mayhaps a being good-for-nothing)
Mais que Dieu me pardonne
(Beg I God for His pardon)
J'ai le coeur sur la main
(I have never denied anyone a hand)
Si parfois j'abandonne c'est pour faire mieux demain
(If sometimes I withheld myself, it's only to make amends again)
Il faudrait être un génie, être une ode à la joie
(One should be a genius, be an ode to joy)
À chaque fois qu'on nous dit 'et toi comment tu vas? »
(Each time somebody queries: « and you, how goes it with you »)
Il faudrait pousser tous ceux autour de soi
(One should push aside all who crowd you out nigh)
Être le premier à crier 'regardez-moi! »
(Be the first to cry out: « look at me! » all eyes)
Refrain:
Mais que Dieu me pardonne
J'ai tout fait à l'instinct
Moi je ne suis qu'un homme
Peut-être un bon à rien
Mais que Dieu me pardonne
J'ai le coeur sur la main
Si parfois j'abandonne c'est pour faire mieux demain
dans mes yeux, dans mes yeux tout m'étonne
(as I see things, to my eyes everything astonishes me)
J'ai le coeur, j'ai le coeur qui rayonne
(In my heart, my very heart glitters free)
Ce que j'ai, ce que j'ai je le donne, oh
(Whatever I have, whatever I possess I give to all and sundry)
Dans mes yeux, dans mes yeux tout m'étonne
(Whatever my eyes espy, everything dazzles me)
J'ai le coeur, j'ai le coeur qui rayonne
(Within my heart, my very heart glitters free)
Ce que j'ai, ce que j'ai je le donne
(Whatever I have, whatever I possess I give to all and sundry)
Refrain:
Mais que Dieu me pardonne
J'ai tout fait à l'instinct
Moi je ne suis qu'un homme
Peut-être un bon à rien
Mais que Dieu me pardonne
J'ai le coeur sur la main
Si parfois j'abandonne c'est pour faire mieux demain
Mais que Dieu me pardonne
J'ai tout fait à l'instinct
Moi je ne suis qu'un homme
Peut-être un bon à rien
Mais que Dieu me pardonne
J'ai le coeur sur la main
Si parfois j'abandonne c'est pour faire mieux demain
Songwriters: Renaud Rebillaud / Kendji Girac
Que Dieu me pardonne lyrics © Peermusic Publishing
(c) Translation and commentary - T. Wignesan, Paris, May 27,2019
Translation with Commentary of ON EST LES OUBLIES by T
Wignesan
Translation of « On est les oubliés » (They/We are the neglected and forgotten
lot)
by the songster-poet Gauvin SERS
(For the last two years, this young unassuming Frenchman, full of verve and
disarming airs has been making his quiet ways around the provinces in Pas-de-
Calais and Bretagne/Brittany. Now, this song is making its own way up the
charts for his championing of a cause: the neglect of the far-flung regions
from the French capital. The tone of the song is not patently and virulently
demanding of reform; it merely resorts through an attitude of resignation to
upholding and exposing a truth that cannot be denied. Four backup videos root
the cause in Ponthoile village and the teacher Jean-Luc MASSALAN features in
them with his students. T. Wignesan)
Devant le portail vert de son école primaire
(Standing in front of the green gate of his primary school)
On l'reconnaît tout d'suite (It's easy to see at one glance)
Toujours la même dégaine avec son pull en laine
(Always looking oddly the same, clad in his woolen pullover)
On sait qu'il est instit
(Little the doubt he's the Teach')
Il pleure la fermeture à la rentrée future
(He laments the closing down when school resumes for the next year)
De ses deux dernières classes
(Of his two last/lowest classes)
Il paraît qu'le motif c'est le manque d'effectif
(It seems the reason's the lack of enough students)
Mais on sait bien c'qui s'passe
(But one knows in one's heart the real cause)
Refrain:
On est les oubliés
(We are the forgotten lot)
La campagne, les paumés
(The countryside, those in want)
Les trop loin de Paris
(Those who live far too far from Paris)
Le cadet d'leurs soucis
(The ones who they hardly bother about)
À vouloir regrouper les cantons d'à côté en 30 élèves par salle
(By wanting to re-group in the districts nearby classes crammed with thirty
children each)
Cette même philosophie qui transforme le pays en un centre commercial
(That same philosophy destined to convert the country into a grand shopping
mall)
Ça leur a pas suffit qu'on ait plus d'épicerie
(It didn't make them happy enough to watch the only grocery pull down its
shutters for good)
Que les médecins se fassent la malle
(Nor to see local doctors pack their bags to leave)
Y a plus personne en ville, y a que les banques qui brillent dans la rue
principale
(There's hardly a soul moving about the vicinity, short of the banks which
shine in the main road)
Refrain:
On est les oubliés
(We are the forgotten lot)
La campagne, les paumés
(The countryside, those in want)
Les trop loin de Paris
(Those who live far too far from Paris)
Le cadet d'leurs soucis
(The ones who they hardly bother about)
On est les oubliés
(We are the forgotten lot)
Qu'il est triste le patelin avec tous ces ronds-points
(How sad it is to live in the back of beyond with all these roundabouts)
Qui font tourner les têtes
(Which make one's head reel around)
Qu'il est triste le préau sans les cris des marmots
(How depressing to find the covered school yard devoid of the cries of kids)
Les ballons dans les fenêtres
(Balls dashing on window-panes)
Même la p'tite boulangère se demande c'qu'elle va faire
(Even the little baker-woman wonders what would become of her)
De ses bon-becs qui collent
(Her sweet mouthfuls remain stuck one to the other)
Même la voisine d'en face elle a peur, ça l'angoisse
(Even the neighbour woman opposite takes fright, seized by anguish uptight)
Ce silence dans l'école
(Due to the silence reigning in the school)
Refrain:
On est les oubliés
La campagne, les paumés
Les trop loin de Paris
Le cadet d'leurs soucis
Quand dans les plus hautes sphères couloirs du ministère
(When in the high echelons and corridors of ministerial power)
Les élèves sont des chiffres
(The students are but mere numbers)
Y a des gens sur l'terrain, de la craie plein les mains
(The people on the spot, their hands full of chalk dust)
Qu'on prend pour des sous-fifres
(Whom they consider mere underlings)
Ceux qui ferment les écoles, les cravatés du col
(Those who shut down schools, neck-ties around high-collars)
Sont bien souvent de ceux
(Oftentimes they are those)
Ceux qui n'verront jamais ni de loin ni de près
(Who'll never have whether close-up or from a distance)
Un enfant dans les yeux
(Ever looked a child in the eyes)
Refrain:
On est les oubliés
La campagne, les paumés
Les trop loin de Paris
Le cadet de leur soucis
On est troisième couteau
(One's an absolute nobody)
Dernière part du gâteau
(The last to be served)
La campagne, les paumés
On est les oubliés
Devant le portail vert de son école primaire
(Standing there in front of the green school gate)
Y a l'instit du village
(You can espy the village Teach')
Toute sa vie, des gamins
(All his life, devoted to children)
Leur construire un lendemain
(In order to prepare for them
a stolid future)
Il doit tourner la page
(Yet he has to turn the page)
On est les oubliés
(For his lot's too the forgotten lot)
(c) Translation and comments: T. Wignesan - Paris, May 25,2019
Songwriters: Gauvain Thibaut Sers
Les oubliés lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Translation with Commentary of a Wild West Classic: SUMMER WINE
by T Wignesan
Translation with commentary of an archetypal Wild West Classic: ' Summer Wine
'
(I'd wage my bottom diamond dime future generations will re-discover and
treasure this true American classic like only a few others of its kind taken
from the sixties. It may have only peaked at #49 in '67 when Nancy Sinatra's '
These boots are made for walking ' and ' Bang Bang My Baby shot me down '
topped the charts for understandably obvious reasons with its slick brillo
melody and bravado sentiments backed by the maestro father and introduced by
the King of Rock, yet Nancy comes of age on her own with some precious help
from Lee Hazlewood's lyric compositional talents.
One can never know if Lee consciously re-modeled Keat's ' La belle dame sans
merci ' (' The beautiful lady without pity ') myth to produce the duo with
himself in the role of the medieval ' Knight-at-Arms ', but the admixture of
the seductively conniving in-between contralto-soprano voice with the
masochistically victimized deadpan tone of the baritone leaves little doubt on
what tugs at the heartstrings - the ironic display of ' male ' innocence being
beguiled and betrayed by the enticing promise of ethereal ' nectar ' which,
here, is ' summer wine ', an euphemism for what intoxicates the senses beyond
one's control.
The metre's however too irregular to make Hazlewood's ' poem ' fall within the
common ballad measure, but the theme rests strictly transposed.
' I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a fairy child. '
………………………………………..
' She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four. '
………………………………………..
' I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; //
………………………………………..
' I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I woke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side. '
John Keats (1820)
Oddly eough, in real life Hazlewood got his own back on Nancy by sailing off
soon after - without a word - to make his own career in Sweden.
If only the two extant video clips could have been re-styled within an ambience
of libidinous non-chalance, say, in a one-horse one-saloon town with a haystacked
barn and a corrall with the two love-birds playing their ticklish
parts… perhaps the song could have topped the charts!
Translation of ' SUMMER WINE ' by Lee Hazlewood
(NANCY) : Des fraises des cerises et le baiser d'un ange au printemps
Mon vin d'été est fait de toutes ces choses-là
(LEE) : Je marchais dans la ville sur des éperons en argent dont le tintement
s'accordait
Avec une chanson que j'avais chanté uniquement à l'encontre de peu de gens
Elle regarda les éperons argentés et elle m'invita à passer du temps avec elle
Et elle m'a dit: ' Je te donnerai du vin de l'été
Ohh-oh-oh du vin de l'été '
(NANCY) : Des fraises des cerises et le baiser d'un ange au printemps
Mon vin d'été est fait de toutes ces choses-là
Enlève-toi tes éperons en argent et aide-moi passer le temps
Et elle m'a dit: ' Je te donnerai du vin de l'été
Ohh-oh-oh du vin de l'été '
(LEE) : Mes yeux s'étaient alourdis et mes lèvres ne pouvant plus formuler
point mot
J'ai essayé de me lever et je ne pouvais plus rester debout (je ne pouvais plus
trouver mes pieds)
Elle me rassurera en utilisant des mots peu familiers
Et puis elle me donna encore plus du vin de l'été
Ohh-oh-oh du vin de l'été
(NANCY) : Des fraises des cerises et le baiser d'un ange au printemps
Mon vin d'été est fait de toutes ces choses-là
Enlève-toi tes éperons en argent et aide-moi passer le temps
Et elle m'a dit: ' Je te donnerai du vin de l'été
Mmm-mm du vin de l'été '
(LEE) : Quand je me suis levé, le soleil brilla dans mes yeux
Mes éperons en argent n'y étaient plus-là, ma tête me semblait gonflée à deux
fois de sa taille
Elle avait volé mes éperons argentés (et) un dollar plus un centime
Et me laissa avec une envie pour consommer encore plus du vin de l'été
Ohh-oh-oh du vin de l'été
(NANCY) : Des fraises des cerises et le baiser d'un ange au printemps
Mon vin d'été est fait de toutes ces choses-là
Enlève-toi tes éperons en argent et aide-moi passer le temps
Et elle m'a dit: ' Je te donnerai du vin de l'été
Mmm-mm du vin de l'été '
© Translation and commentary - T. Wignesan, Paris, May 21,2019
NANCY SINATRA- 'SUMMER WINE' (LYRICS)
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'SUMMER WINE' peaked at #49 on 4-8-1967. LYRICS:
(NANCY) : Strawberries cherries and an angel's kiss in spring
My summer wine is really made from all these things
(LEE) : I walked in town on silver spurs that jingled to
A song that I had only sang to just a few
She saw my silver spurs and said let's pass some time
And I will give to you summer wine
Ohh-oh-oh summer wine
(NANCY) Strawberries cherries and an angel's kiss in spring
My summer wine is really made from all these things
Take off your silver spurs and help me pass the time
And I will give to you summer wine
Ohhh-oh summer wine
(LEE) : My eyes grew heavy and my lips they could not speak
I tried to get up but I couldn't find my feet
She reassured me with an unfamiliar line
And then she gave to me more summer wine
Ohh-oh-oh summer wine
(NANCY) : Strawberries cherries and an angel's kiss in spring
My summer wine is really made from all these things
Take off your silver spurs and help me pass the time
And I will give to you summer wine
Mmm-mm summer wine
(LEE) : When I woke up the sun was shining in my eyes
My silver spurs were gone, my head felt twice its size
She took my silver spurs a dollar and a dime
And left me cravin' for more summer wine
Ohh-oh-oh summer wine
(NANCY) : Strawberries cherries and an angel's kiss in spring
My summer wine is really made from all these things
Take off those silver spurs and help me pass the time
And I will give to you my summer wine
Mmm-mm summer wine
The Night Soil Man - Part One
The Night Soil Man
I
Nothing sticks to-get-her like turds
No border line nor skin to cross
Condescension's never a case for loss
High birth's distilled from fermenting curds
The day dawns where sleep reigns loud
Where the pitchblack venomous karunagam*
slithers out from its hideout in the ox-bow
touch-me-not underbrush
to make its hungry way into Vanar Kampung
Sandal-less the coarse makeshift sweat-soaked thalappa* fits
his disheveled scalp like some portrait halo yet to hang high
Thodti* strides majestic loping down the mired mud gravel pathway
(Who defers to whom: the ' cobra ' or the ' pariah '?)
One is out to catch rats romping in the rafters
zinc-roofed one-storeyed houses
nailed planks on cement stump stilts
The other to fetch slippery rubber pots
laced with diarrhoeac splashes phlegm menstrual blood
the day's un-read newsprint soaked with urine mixed
with spermatozoic squirts
The spent air breathes carbide dry on the back of the late-afternoon thunder
storm
the dense morass of foliage
the taste of mashed mango leaf
the scent of spermatozoa durian reek
Late night cinema-goers lie clutching the blind Lata Mangeshkar hits
piped-dreams
spreadeagled on stained yarrow or atap mats
The Sikh guard lays out his elaborate night-out
at the Chinese saw-mill gate
his un-used one-barrel rifle bedded down
on his string-bed
fast asleep while the hurricane lamp flickers
dying by dawn
Crackling frail cicada wings pizzicato symphonic
milling frog harmonics
organ jamming rapping bagpipes heaving
A lone sentinel owl keeps base time
stalked by panther pawed musang*
in one crook of the sprawling rain-tree's
over-arching ghostly lumber limbs
The moon's full pallid sick for the earth
Road lamps dim into their dull amber cocoons
time out of time
The jungle-green sanitary van throbs discreet
on the overgrown tarmac under-brush sidetable
the Malay driver eyes the quasi-un-clad nightsoil women
their paps prurient
in sack-coloured khadar* sari cloth
as they hover on their hinds for
the Night Souled Man to bring in the fresh-filled pots
the leprous bleach of his hands and feet glint and glower
as the whites of his never-opened eyes
strain in the half moonlit dimness
at every giant distracted step
a trail of human dung streaming down
his loin cloth
Resources
*karunagam (Tamil) : a variety of cobra;
*thalappa (Tamil) : a variety of headwear;
*Thodti (Tamil) : ' night soil man ' in common parlance;
*musang (Malay) : wild ' undomesticated ' cat;
*khadar (Tamil, from Hindi) : rough un-smoothed-out cloth.
© T. Wignesan - Paris, May 17,2019
Villanelle: If you haven't had that, what have you had
Villanelle: If you haven't had that, what have you had*
If you haven't had your life, what have you had
In fear of what lies beyond the locked safe-door
Live you now the moment, not for what's ahead
Fear of what others may think, nothing's more sad
Yet if you abandoned all care, who'll forbear
If you haven't had your life, what have you had
Since James*, Mottram*, Barrau* live not a day dead
Yet don't they live safe as Confucian State's heir
Live you now the moment, not for what's ahead
Or do they live safe to be thought Reason-bred
The best of all the Worlds where Time's a mere snare
If you haven't had your life, what have you had
Walk Eternity back to Big-Bang zero-bed
What has no Beginning cannot End-fruit bear
Live you now the moment, not for what's ahead
No Future's secret the Yi Jing* has not read
Don't ephemeral hordes breed the Jün Tzu* to bear
If you haven't had your life, what have you had
Live you now the moment, not for what's ahead
Resources/Notes
'Quotation from Henry James' Ambassadors: ' If you haven't had that (your
life) , what have you had '
'Henry James (American novelist) , Eric Mottram (British poet, professor,
critic) , Aurélien Barrau (French astro-physicist, philosopher, poet)
'Yi Jing: the ancient Chinese Classic of Change
'Jün Tzu: the Noble or Superior Man, the advice given in the Yi Jing is meant
primarily to distinguish the Superior Being, all the rest are mutatis mutandi '
ephemeral beings ' which makes one wonder if Life on Earth is not a mere
breeding-ground experiment to produce the ' Superior Being ', the rest - if you
believe in ' samsara ' or reincarnation - condemned to be born again and again
until they make the grade.
© T. Wignesan - Paris, May 14,2019
Translation of THE WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND by T Wignesan
Translation of Les Moulins de mon Coeur-THE WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND by T.
Wignesan
(For the orignal text in French by Eddy MARNAY: see here below. The English
version by Marilyn and Alan BERGMAN differs considerably from the French
original, but arguably it could lay claim to originality of versification in
its own right. The musical composition is by Michel LEGRAND, though his duet
renditions in French and solo in English are not by far the most delectable.
The always exquisite Barbra Streisand performance, which one intimately
associates the words with, uses the the English version only. For these
reasons, I felt it useful to translate the French original into English. I have
not tried to keep to the rhyme scheme - neither does the Bergman version - of
alternate rhymes mainly: ABCB/DCDC/EFE/FE(?) F// GHGH/IHIH/EFE/FEF//
JKJK/CLCL/FMFM/DFDF//, with a discernible refrain repeated in the three stanzas
of 14,14 and 16 lines respectively, followed by the refrain (Patricia Kass,
however, ends with the refrain in English) , making the first two somewhat
Petrarchan sonnets if they were iambic in tempo: that is, the octave formed of
two quatrains, followed by a sextet in EFE/FEF, but then this assertion is
quite un-called for here.
One might note en passim the spiraling cascading images of the external world
collapsing into the persona's vacant and desolate heart, the pathos brought
about dexterously by the ' absence ' (or disappearance of a loved one) : ' The
bird fell from its nest '// ' Like the songs which die/ As quickly as one
forgets them '//, the quintessential sentiment held together and underlined by
the image of how autumn leaves turn to the colour of the absent one's hair.
The entire ' poem ' (I prefer to call it so) constructs itself on a cascading
sequence of similies twirling in a maelstrom of natural objects and eddying
into the persona's lonely heart: ' stream ', ' rain ', ' snow ', ' ocean '
(water) , ' wind ' (air) , ' sand ', ' moon ', ' stars ' (made up of the same
constituent particles as earth) , ' leaves ', ' flowers ', ' sea-gulls ',
(living ' creatures ') , ' heart ' (self or soul) , ' summer ', ' autumn ',
'hours ' (time: yes, both time and space in cosmological terms are ' objects '
like us in the uni-or-multi-verse) , etc.
Enjoy the music. T. Wignesan)
Like a stone one throws
In the running waters of a stream
And which provokes in its trail
Thousands of swirling circles
Like a carousel round the moon
With the manes of horses as stars
Like a ring of particles around Saturn
A carnival baloon
Like the concentric movement of circles
Which define the course of the hours
The voyage around the earth
(Like) the sunflower worshipping the sun
You succeed in turning with your breath
All the windmills of my heart
Like the tangle of wool
Inextricably confounding a child's hands
(Like) the words of a corny tune
Caught within the harpstrings of the wind
Like a swirling avalanche of snow
Like the startling flight of sea-gulls
Over the forests of Norway
Over oceans of woolly lambs
Like the concentric movement of circles
Which define the course of the hours
The voyage around the earth
(Like) the sunflower worshipping the sun
You succeed in turning with your breath
All the windmills of my heart
Remember that day close by the summit
Only God knows what you said
But the summer by then nearly at an end
The bird fell from its nest
And, like it or not, on the beach
Our footprints already leave no trace
And I'm left alone at table
Which resounds unde my fingers
Like a tambourine in a lament
Under raindrops which pound
Like the songs which simply extinguish
As quickly as they are forgotten
And the leaves of trees in autumn
Find themselves under skies less blue
And your absence taints them
The aging colour of your hair
© Translation and comments: T. Wignesan - Paris, May 12,2019
Les Moulins De Mon Coeur (The Windmills Of Your Mind)
This song is by Patricia Kaas and appears on the album Piano Bar (2002) .
Comme une pierre que l'on jette
Dans l'eau vive d'un ruisseau
Et qui laisse derrière elle
Des milliers de ronds dans l'eau
Comme un manège de lune
Avec ses chevaux d'étoiles
Comme un anneau de Saturne
Un ballon de carnaval
Comme le chemin de ronde
Que font sans cesse les heures
Le voyage autour du monde
D'un tournesol dans sa fleur
Tu fais tourner de ton nom
Tous les moulins de mon coeur
Comme un écheveau de laine
Entre les mains d'un enfant
Ou les mots d'une rengaine
Pris dans les harpes du vent
Comme un tourbillon de neige
Comme un vol de goélands
Sur des forêts de Norvège
Sur des moutons d'océan
Comme le chemin de ronde
Que font sans cesse les heures
Le voyage autour du monde
D'un tournesol dans sa fleur
Tu fais tourner de ton nom
Tous les moulins de mon coeur
Ce jour là près de la source
Dieu sait ce que tu m'as dit
Mais l'été finit sa course
L'oiseau tomba de son nid
Et voilà que sur le sable
Nos pas s'effacent déjà
Et je suis seul à la table
Qui résonne sous mes doigts
Comme un tambourin qui pleure
Sous les gouttes de la pluie
Comme les chansons qui meurent
Aussitôt qu'on les oublie
Et les feuilles de l'automne
Rencontrent des ciels moins bleus
Et ton absence leur donne
La couleur de tes cheveux
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever spinning reel
As the images on wind
Like the circles that you find
In the remainds of your mind
Credits
Music by: Michel Legrand
Lyrics by: Eddy Marnay (original French text) , Marilyn Bergman & Alan Bergman
(English text)
Lyrics licensed by LyricFind
ARE YE GOIN' TO MARRY THAT WITCH OF A DAME - Counterfeiting
the CANTICLE by T Wignesan
ARE YE GOING TO MARRY THAT WITCH OF A DAME - Counterfeiting the CANTICLE by T.
Wignesan
(With self-lacerating apologies and scathing penance to that great troubador
medieval English poet who longed for his lovely lass during expunging
pilgrimages to Scarborough Fair. T. Wignesan)
Are ye going to marry that b**ch of a dame
Peanuts quail venison on lime
Remember what she did to make you so lame
For she's bound to ditch ye if you hardly rhyme
Tell her to stop painting her leathery face
Peanuts quail venison on lime
Without no mud nor slime on lewd grimace
She's bound to ditch ye if you're stumped for a rhyme
Have her stripped in yon dark desert lithium mine
Peanuts quail venison on lime
Remember how good she's at the roller-coaster grind
She's bound to ditch ye if you feminine rhyme
Have her read to ye Gulliver's Travels in bed
Peanuts quail venison on lime
And ride all Yahoos till their butt-ends turn red
Then she's bound to stitch vowels in your rhyme
Have her show ye all her unkempt drawers
Peanuts quail venison on lime
In between her sonorous sighs and rough coughs in tatters
Then she'll witch her wiles for the guile of a dime
© T. Wignesan - Paris, May 8,2019
YESTERDAY WHEN I WAS DUMB - A Benign Parody by T Wignesan
YESTERDAY WHEN I WAS DUMB - A Benign Parody
(with sincere enough apologies and more to those who made the original
composition an all-time great. T. Wignesan)
Refrain:
Yesterday when I was dumb
I couldn't tell a song from any sore thumb
All the tunes I hummed with my silent tongue
Were but tinnitus on my ear-drums sweet songs I sung
All the pretty frisky girls passed me quickly by
Yet I don't know why I couldn't even cry
I couldn't remember the sounds made by warbling birds
Nor the thunderous laughter I heard bursting from the clouds
All the songs I learnt line by line by heart
Kept mocking me in the stillness of my thoughts
(Refrain)
The wintry winds I weathered in my feathered bed
Warmed by lilting melodies in my love-sick head
All the words of songs lame casualties on my tongue
I could not sleep nights heaving on one lone lung
In my dreams I tussled with girls sticking out their tongues
I lisped some sounds like grunts to appease their wrongs
But I'd as lief be made a clown sans papier-mâché crown
Than be mocked by childhood girls I rolled atop meadow down
(Refrain)
Each full day I prayed for the right word to come to mind
Nothing doing! I always mixed and twisted words on the line
Then I always drop shut the shutters, drew the curtains tight
Shut myself up in the shower to croon some line just right
' No bloody use ' the misted mirror said: ' You cannot win a Grammy '
' Oh! What use is a tongue if it cannot taste the kiss of melody! '
I've lived so long to know there's only one way to say: ' Goodbye! '
No words on lines nor tunes, just a look, a wave of a hand and a sigh!
(Refrain)
Yesterday I was dumb but today I have my own pounding tom-tom
With signs and signals to speak the language of the drum
And the orchestra sweeps over strings and the smiling moon
And I no longer seek to put words on line to croon
Oooh! Yesterday! I felt the stings in the cockles of my heart
Yet today I sing blood red the sounds surging through the chart
Oooooh Oooooh…. Yesterdaaay….
© T. Wignesan - Paris, May 3,2019
Translation of YESTERDAY WHEN I WAS YOUNG by T Wignesan
Translation of YESTERDAY WHEN I WAS YOUNG
By T. Wignesan
(Written by: Herbert Kretzmer)
(Variously sung in a host of styles, moods and orchestration by
exquisite soul-movers like Roberta Flack, Shirley Bassey, Charles Aznavour,
Glen Campbell, Andy Williams, Roy Clark and others (?) , but shouldn't one not
raise a glass to the DUSTY SPRINGFIELD version even if the orchestration
somewhat bullies and drowns her pathetic intimate tones somewhat ' maladroitly
'?)
Yesterday when I was young
the taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue.
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game,
the way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame.
The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned
I always built alas on weak and shifting sand.
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of the day
and only now I see how the years ran away.
(Hier quand je ne fus qu'un jeune homme
La joie de vivre n'était que comme la pluie douce sur ma langue.
Je me moquais de la vie comme s'il ne fut qu'un jeu
Comme la brise du soir taquinait la flamme de chandelle nue.
Des milliers de rêves que je songeais, les choses merveilleuses que je
réaliserais,
Mais hélas j'ai fondé sur des sables poreux et mouvementées.
Je me fus cloîtré dans la nuit fuyant la lumière du jour
Et juste aujourd'hui que je me rends compte comment les années passaient sans
retour.)
Yesterday when I was young
so many drinking songs were waiting to be sung,
so many wayward pleasures lay in store for me
and so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see.
I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out,
I never stopped to think what life was all about
and every conversation I can now recall
concerned itself with me and nothing else at all.
(Hier quand je ne fus qu'un jeune homme
Encore à chanter tant des chansons de la taverne,
Tant de plaisirs inespérés m'attendaient pour jouir
Et tant de peine encore mes yeux glacés refusaient à voir venir.
Je courrais si vite que je ne voyais comment le temps et la jeunesse se
vidaient au pire
Je n'arrêtais jamais pour réfléchir sur le but de la vie,
Et toutes les conversations que je puisse m'en souvenir
Ne fussent que sur mon propre personne et rien d'autre de la vie.)
Yesterday the moon was blue
and every crazy day brought something new to do.
I used my magic age as if it were a wand
and never saw the waste and emptiness beyond.
The game of love I played with arrogance and pride
and every flame I lit too quickly quickly died.
The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away
and only I am left on stage to end the play.
There are so many songs in me that won't be sung;
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue.
The time has come for me to pay for yesterday when I was young.
(Hier encore la lune brillait bleu
Et tous les jours promettaient quelques choses folles de nouveau.
J'utilisais mon âge magique comme s'il fut une baguette
Et je ne me prévoyais jamais le gâchis et le néant qui me guettent.
Le jeu d'amour dont je pratiquais avec arrogance et fierté
Et chaque flamme j'allumais n'avait éteint qu'avec trop d'alacrité.
Les amitiés que j'avais nouées toutes semblaient avec l'aise à dissiper
Et je me trouve tout seul sur la scène la pièce à achever.
Il y reste tant des chansons en mon soi sans qu'on prête de voix de personne;
Je ressens le goût amer des larmes sur ma langue.
Le temps est déjà arrivé pour que je paie pour l'hier quand je fus jeune.)
© Translation: T. Wignesan - Paris, April 29,2019
Translation of Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly with his Song by T
Wignesan
Translation of Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly with his Song by T Wignesan
https: //www.youtube.com/watch? v=kgl-VRdXr7I
Refrain:
Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
(Ses doigts piquaient les nerfs de ma douleur comme sur un guitare les cordes
En chantant ma vie avec ses paroles
En m'assassinant doucement avec sa chanson
En m'assassinant doucement avec sa chanson
En racontant ma vie avec ses paroles
En m'assassinant doucement avec sa chanson)
I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style
And so I came to see him to listen for a while
And there he was this young boy, a stranger to my eyes
(J'ai entendu parler qu'il chantait bien et qu'il était doté d'un style
particulier
Ainsi je me suis allé lui voir un peu pour lui écouter
Et là ce jeune gars me semblait à mes yeux une étrange vision)
Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd
I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud
I prayed that he would finish but he just kept right on
(Je me suis senti sur le coup d'une fièvre accablante devant la foule dans
l'embarras
Je pensais qu'il ait trouvé mes lettres et les lisait chacune à voix haute-là
Je priais que la lecture soit achevée mais il continuait sa récitation)
Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
He sang as if he knew me in all my dark despair
And then he looked right through me as if I wasn't there
But he just carried on singing, singing clear and strong
(Il chantait comme s'il ait eu connaissance de l'abîme de mon désespoir
Et puis son regarde posa sur moi comme si je n'y fusse pas là
Mais il n'arrêta pas à chanter, chantant à voix haute avec détermination)
Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Songwriters: Norman GImbel / Charles Fox
Killing Me Softly lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell
Music, Inc
Artist: Roberta Flack
Album: Killing Me Softly
Released: 1973
Genre: Classic Soul
Awards: Grammy Award for Record of the Year, Grammy Hall of Fame, Grammy Award
for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
© Translation: T. Wignesan - Paris, April 23,2019
Translation of Those were the Days, My Friend by T Wignesan
Translation of ' Those were the Days, My Friend ' by T. Wignesan
Ces jours éloignés que nous avions partagés, Mon Ami
(A re-make of an earlier Russian song, produced by Paul McCartenay and sung by
Mary HOPKIN in 1968. I have not tried to stick to the original rhyme scheme for
obvious reasons, preferring to compensate by adhering to internal rhyme:
ABCB/Refrain: DDEFFE/Refrain/GEHE/Refrain/Refrain/AIAI/Refrain/JKJK/Refrain.
Slight variations occur in the refrain, though, together with the substitution
of the refrain by onomatopoetic repetition of the refrain's rhythm with ' La
la…dai…dai..)
Il fut un temps il existait une taverne
Où nous trinquions un à l'autre avec un verre ou deux
Souviens-tu nos rires aux éclats pour faire passer le temps
Et les grandes choses nous songeons pouvoir accomplir plus tard
Refrain
Ces jours éloignés que nous avions partagés, Mon Ami
Lesquels nous pensions alors ne prendraient jamais fin
Nous chantions et dansions pour toujours et encore un jour
Nous vivions notre vie à notre guise
Nous ferions face aux difficultés sans s'y perdre nos vises
Puisque nous étions jeunes et sûrs de pouvoir mener à bien notre vie
La la…dai…dai….
Puis les années chargées de souci coulaient si vites
Nous perdions nos précieux idéals pendant ce temps-là
Et si par hasard je te rencontrerais à la taverne
Ne sourions-nous pas un comme l'autre et ne dirions pas:
Refrain
Justement ce soir-ci je me suis trouvé devant la taverne
Ni une chose semblait d'habitude d'être comme auparavant
Dans les vitres je voyais une étrange réflexion
D'une vieille femme délaissée - fut-elle vraiment moi
Refrain
A travers la cloison des rires aux éclats familiers
J'aperçu ton visage et entendu ta voix prononçant mon nom
Hélas! Mon Ami! Nous sommes plus âgés mais à peine plus sages
Car dans nos coeurs les idéals rêvés restent toujours les mêmes
Refrain
Those were the days, My Friend
Once upon a time there was a tavern
Where we used to raise a glass or two
Remember how we laughed away the hours
And dreamed of all the great things we would do
Refrain:
Those were the days, My Friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way
Refrain
Then the busy years rushing by us
We lost our starry notions on the way
If by chance I'd see you in the tavern
We'd smile at one another and we'd say:
Refrain
Just tonight I stood before the tavern
Nothing seemed the way it used to be
In the glass I saw a strange reflection
Was that lonely woman really me
Refrain
Through the door there came familier laughter
I saw your face and heard you call my name
Oh, My Friend! We're older but no wiser
For in our hearts the dreams are still the same
© Translation: T. Wignesan - Paris, April 19,2019
Villanelle: Who dares to doubt must he questions address Fate
Villanelle: Who dares to doubt must he questions address Fate
Who dares to doubt must he questions address Fate
Let tears on High Holy Mass spill down the Seine
Would one propose to the Lord what's not innate
Is the Lord's mise en scène an act desperate
A dire call to fill Church benches lone vain
Who dares to doubt must he questions address Fate
Who'd wish the Crown of Thorns be crushed under weight
Aging oak high rafter timbers tumble rain
Would one propose to the Lord what's not innate
Witness the Lord's will red-hot Spire irate
Whose felo de se the Flèche pierced heart in pain
Who dares to doubt must he questions address Fate
Montmartre's severed head Saint Denis lugged Frankish hate
Who'll don Louis IX Tunic to rule Louvre brain
Would one propose to the Lord what's not innate
Could Man his collapsing structure rebuild to date
Lord's Agent be or manage the mise en scène
Who dares to doubt must he questions address Fate
Would one propose to the Lord what's not innate
© T. Wignesan - Paris, April 17,2019
Translation of the COMPLETE VERSION of Scarborough Fair by T
Wignesan
La Fête foraine de Scarborough (La Version complète)
For the medieval English poet and Simon and Garfunkel
-In admiration -
Allez-vous à Scarborough fête foraine?
(Sur la côte d'une colline dans le vert intense d'une forêt)
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Parlez de moi à une fille d'antan
(Suivant un passereau sur la terre comblée de la neige)
Elle fut jadis mon amie intime
Dites-lui de me coudre un Cambric chemise
(Couvertures et linge du lit l'enfant de la montagne)
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Sans bordure ni de la finesse
(Dormait-il ne rendant pas compte de l'appel du clarion)
Et sûr elle restera mon amie intime
Dites: faites-le dans une ruelle de sycomore/recoltez-le dans une faucille en
cuir*
(Sur la côte d'une colline, les feuilles des arbres éparpillées)
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Et le recueillir dans un panier des fleurs/dans un bouquet de bruyère**
(En lavant la tombe avec des larmes en argent)
Ainsi elle restera mon amie intime
Dites: lavez-le dans ce puit sec
(Un soldat nettoie et fait briller son fusil)
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Où l'eau ne monte pas ni pluie tombe raide
(La guerre résonne, éclatant parmi des bataillons sanglantes)
Ainsi elle restera mon amie intime
Dites: trouvez-lui un acre de terre
(Les généraux requirent leurs soldats de tuer)
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Entre les flots et sur le rivage sableux
(Et de batailler pour une cause dont ils avaient depuis longtemps bien oublié)
Ainsi soit-elle mon amie intime
NOTES
*Variant version of the line: ' Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather '
** Variant version: ' And gather it all in a bunch of heather '
Persil/Parsley stands for ' comfort '; sauge/sage for ' strength ';
romarin/rosemary for ' love ' and thym/thyme for ' courage '
Scarborough Fair
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
(On the side of a hill in the deep forest green)
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
(Tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground)
For once she was a true love of mine
Have her make me a cambric shirt
(Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain)
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Without no seam nor fine needle work
(Sleeps unaware of the clarion call)
And then she'll be a true love of mine
Tell her to weave it in a sycamore wood lane
(On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves)
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
And gather it all with a basket of flowers
(Washes the grave with silvery tears)
And then she'll be a true love of mine
Have her wash it in yonder dry well
(A soldier cleans and polishes a gun)
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Where water ne'er sprung nor drop of rain fell
(War bellows, blazing in scarlet battalions)
And then she'll be a true love of mine
Have her find me an acre of land
(Generals order their soldiers to kill)
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Between the sea foam and over the sand
(And fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten)
And then she'll be a true love of mine
© Translation: T. Wignesan - Paris, April 12,2019

Translation of the Canticle: Scarborough Fair by T Wignesan
La Fête foraine de Scarborough
For the anonymous medieval poet
and Simon & Garfunkel - in admiration
************
Allez-vous à Scarborough fête foraine?
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Parlez de moi à une fille d'antan
Elle fut jadis mon amie intime
Dites-lui de me coudre un Cambric chemise
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Sans bordure ni de la finesse
Et sûr elle restera mon amie intime
Dites: faites-le dans une ruelle de sycomore
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Et le recueillir dans un panier des fleurs
Ainsi elle restera mon amie intime
Dites: lavez-le dans ce puit sec
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Où l'eau ne monte pas ni pluie tombe raide
Ainsi elle restera mon amie intime
Dites: trouvez-lui un acre de terre
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Entre les flots et sur le rivage sableux
Ainsi soit-elle mon amie intime
Scarborough Fair
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
For once she was a true love of mine
Have her make me a cambric shirt
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Without no seam nor fine needle work
And then she'll be a true love of mine
Tell her to weave it in a sycamore wood lane
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
And gather it all with a basket of flowers
And then she'll be a true love of mine
Have her wash it in yonder dry well
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
where water ne'er sprung nor drop of rain fell
And then she'll be a true love of mine
Have her find me an acre of land
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Between the sea foam and over the sand
And then she'll be a true love of mine
© Translation: T. Wignesan - Paris, April 12,2019
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXVI
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXVI
IF ever I had a Country with or without any ' Wood ' in the aching aping Film
Industry
And if ever (you know the refrain by now) I were NOMINATED - not hoodwinked
into
assuming the role of the Chief FILM CENSOR by every paid-up (most likely not)
member of
the millions of ciné-clubs, cinémathèques, Actors' Studios, Film-Workers'
Unions, Cinema-
Makers and Cinema peddlers' and Distributors' sororities and fraternities
The first thing you bet I'll do is to issue an Irrefutable Command to burn
every spool or reel
of film (excepting one of each as evidence in case of litigation) made after
the Year Elia
Kazan stopped filming ' America! America! ' and ' Viva Zapata! ' - not to
mention
documentaries
And then proceed forthwith and/or thenceforth without any hesitation whatsoever
to ban all
films based on the undeviating formula of extended excruciating display of
VIOLENCE for
the sake of relishing VIOLENCE in the name of our children watching with us
into the latenight
on the sofa including the repeated RAPE against the wall on the kitchentable
astride
the toilet-seat of poor but heavily-snorting apparently DEFENCELESS but
willingly-ripped
actresses on scene leading to the apochryphal MURDER of the hero or heroin with
electric-saws
and choppers à la ' Massacre à la Tronçonneuse ' butcheries
Then shut out of my chaste and highly-principled patrie ALL box-office breaking
films especially
those crowned with Oscars and Ceasars Grammies and Bears which encourage and
advocate the
use of pernicious drugs and hard liquor while the cameras O! so casually!
pick up the eternal
' bar ' scene of the Western giving us what they really want to: the lewd
swaying of nakedlyclad
lithesome nubile dames in the distance - the lazy loose car-screen wipers
- the ' porno ' of
nunneries
You bet also invite ALL ME-TOO gals and Orphaned-Boy Cubs victims of
Paedophilic Preachers and
Priests and Professors posing as Critics to rip up cinema seats and leave
behind just enough
methane gas to blow up theatre halls after being subject against their will to
watch copy-cat
Hollywood Bollywood Chollywood Nollywood versions of Michael Jackson's beyondthe-
grave
calesthenics even while being attired in ' Prince in New York ' Eddy Murphy
fineries
And this, if ever I were appointed the Chief Film Censor of my highlyprincipled
moral Philistinic
Country spurning aping Bolly-Cholly-Nolly antics of Miss Holly in the pantry
And even if I never ever had no country worth acting out in the wild woods of
the Imaginary
© T. Wignesan - Paris, April 10,2019
Translation of Pablo Neruda's IN YOU THE EARTH by T Wignesan
Si de pronto no existes, (If of a sudden you were no more,)
si de pronto no vives, (if of a sudden you live no more,)
yo seguiré viviendo. (I'll continue to live.)
No me atrevo, (I do not dare,)
no me atrevo a escribirlo, (hardly will I find the courage to write this)
si te mueres.(if you were to die.)
Yo seguiré viviendo. (I'll go on living.)
Porque donde no tiene voz un hombre(Since there where a man be not invested
with a voice)
allí, mi voz. (there, my voice will be heard.)
Donde los negros sean apaleados, (There where Negros be skinned,)
yo no puedo estar muerto.(I cannot be counted among the dead.)
Cuando entren en la cárcel mis hermanos(When my brothers are put in prison)
entraré yo con ellos.(I'll be in their ranks.)
Cuando la victoria, (When victory,)
no mi victoria, (not my triumph,)
sino la gran Victoria llegue, (when the great Victory is attained,)
aunque esté mudo debo hablar: (even if I were dumb, I'll open my mouth to speak
:)
yo la veré llegar aunque esté ciego.(yes, I'll see it arrive even if I were
blind.)
No, perdóname. (No, do pardon me.)
Si tú no vives, (If you are no longer of this earth,)
si tú, querida, amor mío, si tú(if you, sweetheart, My Love, if you)
te has muerto, (were dead,)
todas las hojas caerán en mi pecho, (all the leaves will fall on my chest,)
lloverá sobre mi alma noche y día, (they will rain on my soul day and night,)
la nieve quemará mi corazón, (snow will consume my heart,)
andaré con frío y fuego(through the cold and fire, I'll continue to walk)
y muerte y nieve, (and through death and snow,)
mis pies querrán marchar hacia donde tú duermes, pero(my feet will want to walk
on towards the place where you sleep, but)
seguiré vivo, (I'll go on living,)
porque tú me quisiste sobre(because you wished that I were)
todas las cosas indomable, (over all things not to be trampled upon,)
y, amor, porque tú sabes que soy no sólo un hombre (and, My Love, because you
know that I am not just a/one man)
sino todos los hombres(but he who stands with/for/among all men)
Pablo Neruda
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, April 10,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part IXL
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: IXL
IF you pull a long dopey face
E'en if it were in your own bloody way
Stick two sore thumbs in your own nose
To spite your snubbed mug and blast bray
If you pulled a long resigned face
'Who put me here' you're not allowed to say
Now 'I don't want to go yet' there's the choice
You can neither at will come nor go or e'en stay
If you pull a long recalcitrant face
Whether you feel down and out or e'en gay
In the confines of your own private place
That won't do take you must part in global play
If you pull a long stumped face
There's little to be happy about much as you lay
Whichever way you face damned be the case
Think you then you can make your own pay
If you then must pull a long damned face
Take the final curtain call and bow out of play
None'll let you keep your own face in this human race
Vow to suck up to man-made gods dent not their sway
© T. Wignesan - Paris, March 31,2019
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXV
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXV
IF ever I had a country with flaming flags flying on every lamp-post weathercock
and tree
And if ever I were by my highest degree qualification appointed the Director-
General of Museums Zoos Botanico-Ornithological Gardens Parks and Cemetries
I would make it a point of the Most Urgent Order that every bird gaily chirping
warbling shrieking or even grumbling in its own particular brand of cursing for
free
Either lone or in chorus or in competition with its own kind or in contempt of
other feathered outlandish melodies
Together with every howling hound bellowing beast croaking crocodile cursing
cat or mocking monkey
That they be taught and made to learn by rote under pain of plunder and pillage
of their property to belt out the National anthem every dawn and at the crowing
down of the Sun in its reverie
Or else be banished tarred and feathered forthwith from My Dearly-Beloved
Country after forfeiting their tongues never to sing again and this after
coughing up an astronomical fine of a fee for the capital crime of Lèse Majesté
That is, if ever I were appointed the Most Distinguished Protector of the
Patrimony as the Director-General of Museums Zoos Botanico-Ornithological
Gardens Parks and Cemetries
Even if I never ever had no country where no birds trill tongues or beasts
bellow
bestialities and mockeries
© T. Wignesan - Paris, March 26,2019
A Self-Tutoring Translation of Rimbaud's Final Version VOWELS in
Contemporary Terms
A Self-Tutoring Translation of RIMBAUD's Final Version ' Vowels ' in
Contemporary Terms
(' Vowels ' (final version, without the definite article, with the poet's
corrections) in RIMBAUD OEuvres complètes. Ed. by Pierre Brunel. Paris: Livres
de Poche/La Pochethèque,1999, pp.279-280. Please see notes following the
translation. T. Wignesan)
A, black; E, white; I, red; U, green; O, blue; vowels,
I'll invoke true to day how your latent forms take shape
A, velvety black corset shiny bluebottles armour-plate ape
Pullule hovering over putrefying carrion stench gruels
By leeway gulfs. E, glaring white sheets(1) of vapours and tents,
Icy surges prideful, Oriental Potentates (2) , fluttering parasols umbellate,
I, attires purple(3) , spat-out blood, laughter from Synchrotron(4) lips
ondulate
Through anger or from inebriate benumbing of penitents.
U, cycles, the divine vibrations of emerald-green seas
Peaceful grazing grounds teeming with animals, reposeful furrowed pleats
Some alchemically concocted hand imprints on great foreheads studious;
O! stentorian Bugle! the laden strident shriek deranges,
The calmness pierced by disrupting Worlds and Angels…
--- O! the ultimate Omega, the violet tincture of Her Eyes(5) !
Notes
(1) ' frissons ' (word effaced by Rimbaud, according to Brunel's footnotes, to
avoid repetitious recall of the same word in the next line and substitured by '
candeurs ' signifying ' ingenuousness ' though in its etymological sense: '
blancheur ', i.e; , ' whiteness or innocence ';
(2) ' rois blancs ' (' White Kings ', according to Brunel's footnotes: '
souverains orientaux ', i.e., ' Oriental Monarchs ') ;
(3) ' pourpres ' (now in the plural referring to ' accoutrements ' and hence I
have used ' attires ' not to give it its pejorative sense in English;
(4) ' belles ' (' beautiful ' is a hackneyed and meaningless epithet; by
contrast, the CERN Synchrotron is the most daring, infinitesimally elegant and
awe-inspiring human creation) ;
(5) ' Ses Yeux ' (first letters capitalised by Rimbaud - from what I can gather
from the notes and biographical information - refers to a ' violet-eyed damsel
' with whom Rimbaud turned up in Paris one fine day) . The colour ' violet '
also according to the notes is the last of the colours of the spectrum or '
prisme ' just as ' Omega ' is the last letter of the Greek alphabet.
© T. Wignesan - Paris, March 23,2019
A Self-Tutoring Translation of Rimbaud's THE VOWELS in
Contemporary Terms
A Self-Tutoring Translation of RIMBAUD's ' The Vowels ' in Contemporary Terms
(' The Vowels ' in the Paul Verlaine (first version) copy in RIMBAUD OEuvres
complètes. Ed. by Pierre Brunel. Paris: Livres de Poche/La Pochethèque,1999,
pp.279-280. Please see notes following the translation. T. Wignesan)
A, black; E, white; I, red; U, green; O, blue; vowels,
I'll invoke true to day how your latent forms take shape
A, velvety black corset shiny bluebottles armour-plate ape
Pullule hovering over putrefying carrion stench gruels
By leeway gulfs. E, shimmering of vapours and tents,
Icy surges prideful, white grapes*, fluttering parasols umbellate,
I, purple, spat-out blood, laughter from Synchrotron** lips ondulate
Through anger or from inebriate benumbing of penitents.
U, cycles, the divine vibrations of emerald-green seas
Peaceful grazing grounds teeming with animals, reposeful furrowed pleats
Some alchemically concocted hand imprints on great foreheads studious;
O! stentorian Bugle! the laden strident shriek deranges,
The calmness pierced by disrupting Worlds and Angels…
--- O! the ultimate Omega, the violet tincture of her eyes!
Notes
* ' rais blanc ' (' raisin blanc '? , hence: ' raisiné ': blood, claret) ;
** ' belles ' (' beautiful ' is hackneyed and meaningless; by contrast, the
CERN Synchrotron is the most daring, infinitesimally elegant and awe-inspiring
human creation) ;
© T. Wignesan - Paris, March 21,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XL
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: XL
IF you pull a long Quixotic face
At your own mirror image en face at play
Your Right from Left your Anti-Self confuse
Myriad selves your chained Parallel Lives portray
If you pull a long ironic face
Your Right eye looks into your Left in dismay
Who looks at whom to cock-eye whose gaze
Who called out to whom to glimpse past Milky Way
If you pull a long dispised face
At each glance preen looks made of clay
The more you look the more your face you raze
How many torture your face like you do, pray
If you pull a long insidious face
Connive at ruses to make you the Other's prey
Pretend you pass glass wall some Other face efface
The insecure Twit calls out to the Other gay Jay
If you pull a long auto-da-fé face
E'en Hollywood Quasars collapse into Black-Holes some day
The face is mirror of the heart not just the brain's
Suffice it not to smile to win the heart of any Dame, nay, Gay
© T. Wignesan - Paris, March 18,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXXIX
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: XXXIX
For Aurélien BARRAU, the consummate millenial teacher
IF you pull a long perplexed face
At the way this World has come to stay
Bad Guys always running the human race
Good Guys have no recourse but to pray
If you pull a long victimized face
Hoping somehow the Meek will win out some day
That all it takes is to lose meantime some face
Now and then to those who make you unwilling pay
If you pull a long anxious face
Fretting every morn the issue of the day
Which Frost road to take to avoid the pitfall place
Bad Guys will revel to see you fritter energy away
If you pull a long downcast face
At the way Justice fails to pave the way
For Truth to triumph while mediocre mettle prevails
Does not Yang need the Yin to keep both at bay
If you must then pull all kinds of face
At, say, Pullitzers Bookers Goncourts all mainstay Nobels pariah
Will the whored beggar Welles or the squealing Kazans they replace
Be the Dantes erecting on quicksand grounds the Divina Comedia
© T. Wignesan - Paris, March 16,2019
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXIV
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXIV
IF ever I had a country proud of its sacred Soul Patrie
And if ever by a long shot I was nominated - not spuriously elected - Chef
Ministre d'Etat
Plenipotentiary
The first thing I'd do is to give the Minister of Justice the sack in a hurry
I'll then take over his post and issue a long awaited (you'll agree) and needed
decree
That henceforth any razor-sharp lawyer and his erudite team appointed by a
client for a
very very high fee
To defend protect and facilitate the ' escape ' of any known criminal whose
ill-gotten
gains burst bank-vaults to a brain-numbing degree
That the lawyer and his team be given the DOUBLE of the sentence meted out to
the
criminal and be put away minus their licences to practise LAW in an Alcatrazlike
penitentiary
And this even if I never ever had no country to call my own with or without any
patrimony
(The late eminent Vietnamese-French lawyer, Maître JACQUES VERGES, renowned for
among other feats the defence of KLAUS BARBIE, the NAZI ' chief ' under the
French Vichy regime, was also the Secrétaire de la Conférence des
Avocats/Examiner for those wishing to practise law in France. And yet, in a
case where I was concerned with revolting Master's and Doctoral students at the
Sorbonne-Nouvelle University, he subtly had my case scuttled to prop up mainly
Muslim and African-origin students - openly backed by JAMES BALDWIN - who
objected vehemently to being taught, besides numerous other Commonwealth
authors, V. S. NAIPAUL's The Guerillas, together with Eva Peron and The
Killings in Trinidad, students who also took exception to any comparison, by
way of structural influence, of WOLE SOYINKA's The Road, with Greek tragedies.)
© T. Wignesan - Paris, March 8,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXXVIII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: PART XXXVIII
IF you pull a long vacant face
Might be you just have nothing to say
Which is not a crying disgrace
Empty drums need be beaten to bellow away
If you pull a long puzzled face
Just read what poets have to say
On their ilk and how they pretend to liaise
Both thoughts and feelings rare they portray
If you pull a long insensed face
At the affronts you have to put up with all day
Pull the shutters close round face
Read - not repeat - those long inhumed ages away
If you pull a long proud face
Your evanescent words others must attention pay
Have your ephemeral self bolstered through praise
You deserve to inhabit Xanadu Laureat of all you survey
If you must pull a long misunderstood face
Little the use reading faces e'en the Chinese way
A long unread face unveils e'en the masked ignoramus ace
Don't Gecian myths enrich the Iliad and Odyssey
© T. Wignesan - Paris, March 5,2019
Translation of Marcel Moreau's A L'Amour by T Wignesan
Translation of the Elegy: On Marceline Desbordes-Valmore - À L'amour - Poem by
Marcel Moreau Translated by T. Wignesan
Reprends de ce bouquet les trompeuses couleurs, (Take back the dubious colours
of this bouquet)
Ces lettres qui font mon supplice, (These letters the cause of my calvaire)
Ce portrait qui fut ton complice; (This portrait which once was your peer)
Il te ressemble, il rit, tout baigné de mes pleurs. (It looks like you, it
laughs, my tears full it bathe)
Je te rends ce trésor funeste, (I let you take back this damnable treasure)
Ce froid témoin de mon affreux ennui. (This cold reminder of my painful
boredom.)
Ton souvenir brûlant, que je déteste, (Your scorching memory which I cannot
endure)
Sera bientôt froid comme lui. (Will like the portrait turn cold soon)
Oh! Reprends tout. Si ma main tremble encore, (Oh! Take all back. If my hand
still trembles)
C'est que j'ai cru te voir sous ces traits que j'abhorre. (It's probably due to
the abhorrent underlying features)
Oui, j'ai cru rencontrer le regard d'un trompeur; (Yes, I thought I perceived
his looks treacherous)
Ce fantôme a troublé mon courage timide. (This phantom has rendered my courage
timid.)
Ciel! On peut donc mourir à l'aspect d'un perfide, (Heavens! One can even die
from a perfidious spectre)
Si son ombre fait tant de peer (If his shadow does indeed cause much fear)
Comme ces feux errants dont le reflet égare, (Like errant fires whose
reflections disappear)
La flamme de ses yeux a passé devant moi; (The flame of your eyes dance past me
after)
Je rougis d'oublier qu'enfin tout nous sépare; (I blush forgetting that in fact
we have nothing in common)
Mais je n'en rougis que pour toi. (But I only do so for your sake)
Que mes froids sentiments s'expriment avec peine! (May my frozen sentiments be
laboriously expressed!)
Amour... que je te hais de m'apprendre la haine! (Love… I'm damned hating you
teaching me how to hate!)
Eloigne-toi, reprends ces trompeuses couleurs, (Take back the dubious colours
of this bouquet)
Ces lettres, qui font mon supplice, (These letters the cause of my calvaire)
Ce portrait, qui fut ton complice; (This portrait which once was your peer)
Il te ressemble, il rit, tout baigné de mes pleurs! (It looks like you, it
laughs, my tears full it bathe)
Cache au moins ma colère au cruel qui t'envoie, (Conceal at least my anger to
the hard-hearted who this sends)
Dis que j'ai tout brisé, sans larmes, sans efforts; (Say that I have destroyed
all, without effort, without tears)
En lui peignant mes douloureux transports, (By relating to him the anguish of
my insufferable feelings)
Tu lui donnerais trop de joie. (You will confer on him joy that never ends)
Reprends aussi, reprends les écrits dangereux, (Take also back, take back your
dangerous writings)
Où, cachant sous des fleurs son premier artifice, (Where hiding beneath flowers
his first artifice)
Il voulut essayer sa cruauté novice (He had wanted to foist his cruelty as a
novice)
Sur un coeur simple et malheureux. (Over a simple heart doomed through pinings)
Quand tu voudras encore égarer l'innocence, (When you might want to lose your
innocence)
Quand tu voudras voir brûler et languir, (When you might want to see it all
burn and languish)
Quand tu voudras faire aimer et mourir, (When you might wish to be loved and
perish)
N'emprunte pas d'autre éloquence. (Do not seek to use other forms of eloquence
)
L'art de séduire est là, comme il est dans son coeur! (The art of seduction is
there as it is in your heart!)
Va! Tu n'as plus besoin d'étude. (Go! You have no need for advice.)
Sois léger par penchant, ingrat par habitude, (Be frivolous by nature,
ungrateful by practice)
Donne la fièvre, amour, et garde ta froideur. (Proffer fever, love, but
maintain the coldness of heart)
Ne change rien aux aveux pleins de charmes. (Change nothing of the professions
of love full of charm)
Dont la magie entraîne au désespoir: (Since such magic leads one to despair :)
Tu peux de chaque mot calculer le pouvoir, (You can with each word calculate
its power)
Et choisir ceux encore imprégnés de mes larmes... (And choose yet those words
which with my tears swarm)
Il n'ose me répondre, il s'envole... il est loin. (He dares to respond, he
takes flight… he's far gone.)
Puisse-t-il d'un ingrat éterniser l'absence! (Could he but such an ungrateful
one forever feel the absence!)
Il faudrait par fierté sourire en sa présence: (One should, emboldened with
pride, smile in his presence :)
J'aime mieux souffrir sans témoin. (I'd rather suffer all alone.)
Il ne reviendra plus, il sait que je l'abhorre; (He will no more return, he
knows how I abhor him)
Je l'ai dit à l'amour, qui déjà s'est enfui. (I have with loving words told
him, he has already gone away.)
S'il osait revenir, je le dirais encore: (If he dares return, I'd tell him the
same again :)
Mais on approche, on parle... hélas! Ce n'est pas lui! (But one comes close,
one talks… alas! It's not him!)
Recueil: Élégies (1830) .
Marceline Desbordes-Valmore From the collection: Élégies (1830) .
Marceline Desbordes-Valmore
© T. Wignesan - Paris, March 4,2019
Translation of Marcel Moreau's: A Paris by T Wignesan
Translation of Marcel Moreau's ' A Paris ' by T. Wignesan
IN PARIS
Paris bores me no end without you
My heart weighted down with melancholia
The spleen given over to asthenia
Empties its own sense of loss on to me, too.
Sometimes I revisit this bistro
Over a coffee I remain speechless
Sweetened yet acerbic and joyless
I recall the charm in your words true
Then I amble through the boulevards
The streets and alleys spoking out from thence
Foraging for some spoor of your presence
Some trace of you I find not hereabouts
Those monuments I remember were so elegant
Today I reject them as monstrous abominable
Enveloped in dark coal shades below gables
Robed in hideous scaffoldings repugnant
Lyon Station pounded under a thousand feet
The crowd surging in a hurry, most fearful
Like ants storming plundering plentiful
Beneath the clock tower no chiming bells treat
Austerlitz Station, an insalubrious grinding battle
Austere, wildly noisy and of a temperament savage
Swallows and regurgitates a refluxing sludge
Of people, its unending food-chain to trundle
The Pyramid looms stripped of attention
There before the Louvre now of faded stature
In no way willing to own up to the exposure
Of taking in the Joconde in fleeting succession
Like Her, I too have become a fossil in every way
So I set about moving up along the Champs Elysées
To hang about the great museums of the avenue
Like an unsung mortal of the Grand Palais
Paris still bores me deprived of your presence
From the Champs de Mars to the Notre Dame
Everything looks morbid, I feel by all condemned
During this month's lack of effervescence:
' November exudes a sentiment that's cruel
You do wish to see me drown in the Seine!
On which bridge might one picture the scene?
Sully, Saint-Louis or Carrousel? '
© T. Wignesan - Paris, March 1st.,2019
The original in French re-produced with the written permission of the poet:
À Paris - Poem by Marcel Moreau
À Paris, je m'ennuie sans toi…
Mon coeur tagué mélancolie,
Ce spleen, sensible à l'asthénie,
Vidant l'incertitude en moi…
Je reviens parfois à ce bistro,
Devant un café sans éloquence
Sucré d'âcreté déplaisante
Rêvant au charme de tes mots.
Puis j'erre sur les boulevards,
Rues et les voies adjacentes
À l'enquête de l'évidence
Que je ne trouve nulle part.
Ces monuments étaient si beaux,
Aujourd'hui je les abomine
Dans la noirceur qui les domine
Et les hideurs de l'échafaud.
Gare de Lyon, mille piétons,
Foule pressée et alarmante
Comme des fourmis déroutantes,
Sous l'horloge sans carillon.
Gare Austerlitz, l'infect combat
Austère, bruyante et sauvage
Avale et vomit un breuvage
De monde, son continuel repas.
La pyramide sans attrait
Devant ce Louvre humeur flétrie
Ne partage guère l'envie
De voir Joconde aux tirets tirés.
Comme elle, j'ai les traits tirés
À remonter les champs Élysées,
Je me cramponne aux grands musées
Comme un mortel du Grand Palais.
A Paris, je m'ennuie sans toi
Du Champ de Mars à Notre Dame,
Tout est morne, tout me condamne
Et ce mois qui s'attache au choix:
' Novembre au sentiment cruel,
Tu veux me plonger dans le Seine!
Sur quel pont conserver la scène?
Sully, Saint-Louis ou Carrousel? '
(c) Marcel Moreau - Paris
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXXVII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXXVII
IF you pull a long repentant face
It avails you to pull it where no one sees you pray
For forgiveness though not after being caught outright losing face
A stricken conscience e'en coached by counsel may not pardon parley
If you pull a fresh Wu Wang face
Better pawn it to those who would the right price pay
Such as a plea-bargain reduction in sentence
Which could pave the way to a bestseller screen play
But if you pull a long mea culpa earnest face
Just when the Eldest Son Zhen spring awakens the Lunar Year
The noble Fa-Ling lined Ganesha ' A Daniel come to Judgment ' may take offence
And thunder quake: ' I'll nail you to the Cross ' if you lie this cleansing
day
If you yet could pull a long masked vengeful face
For slights or stings being overlooked by the Master riding high in clover
Then all exceptions undeleted none may plan to profit from this case
Might not things right themselves before the year runs out and make villains
pay
If you must then pull a long Sacrificial Lamb face
Note how even the Mid-East Patriarch's foundations tremble on the very same day
No Saviour may lead his flock thrice out of the Walled Wilderness e'en into
Outer Space
For he ' who comes to Equity must come with clean hands ' or else the ultimate
price pay
© T. Wignesan - Paris, February 28,2019
Translation of Marcel Moreau's Je t'ecris by T Wignesan
Translation of Marcel Moreau's ' Je t'écris ' by T. Wignesan
I WRITE TO YOU
I choose green ink to write to you
For Love does not prescribe any one hue
In the hope you might take shape
When desire seizes me agape
You, the enigma of my dreams
Come, meet me when the day dawns
To share but one solitary pillow
Where we may entwine Love herebelow
I pen these words in green ink
For pleasure makes one think
Of the patient sweetness of kisses
Of the exalting ardour of passions
I write to you in green ink taint
For passion at dawn heralds no end
To diverse phantasies that lie in wait
At the edge of a bed left quite unmade
I write one lone evening in autumn
The green ink has lost its vibrant tone
Sick my soul for the want of you
The world split apart in more than two
I write no more to you, dear Angel
All colours of ink I have let spill
Into the sea where currents collide
Waiting hardly makes you come with the tide
I shall write you no more my Sweetheart
No more the flame lights up in my heart
That flame I lit up when winds coursed through
Like a tearing apart of emotions true
Should I write to you again
Of star-studded heavens you to win
Even the body to embrace you now pales
I have only my spirit left your Love inhales
© T. Wignesan - Paris, February 25,2019
Je T'écris... - Poem by Marcel Moreau
Je t'écris à l'encre verte,
Car l'amour est une porte ouverte
À l'espérance de te découvrir
Dans des moments de désir.
Toi, l'inconnue de mes rêves,
Rencontre-moi au jour qui se lève
Pour partager mon seul oreiller
Sur lequel on peut s'aimer.
Je t'écris à l'encre verte
Car le plaisir est une pensée
À la patience des doux baisers,
À l'ardeur de s'exalter.
Je t'écris à l'encre verte
Car la passion est une aube ouverte
À l'attente des fantasmes divers
Au bord d'un lit découvert.
Je t'écris un soir d'automne,
L'encre verte devient monotone;
Le mal de vivre, le manque de toi,
Un monde de désarroi.
Je ne t'écris plus mon ange,
J'ai jeté toutes les couleurs d'encre
Dans la mer aux flots récalcitrants,
L'attente n'a plus de sens.
Je ne t'écris plus mon âme,
Mon coeur n'a plus cette jolie flamme
Que j'attisais à l'heure des vents
Comme un long déchirement.
Dois-je encore t'écrire
Du monde étoilé pour te séduire?
Je n'ai plus de corps pour t'embrasser,
Je n'ai que mon esprit pour t'aimer.
(c) Marcel Moreau- Paris
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXXVI
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXXVI
IF you pull a long-famished face
Chances are you'd pull derisive looks your way
Some might relent Others spite your face
For not pulling your weight in every way
If you pull a long symbolic face
Your words no meaning profound convey
Mallarmé's ill-armed ideas make poems fall on face
Try E = mc2: Poem = idea + words2 to force poiea
If you pull a long straight face
The contradiction might show through the gap in the veil
Sure as Rita Hayworth ' put the blame ' on Orson Welles
If you're not sure of the signs in poems you use in braille
If you yet pull a long-forsaken face
Stymied by photons neutrinos criss-crossed by Cosmic Ray
Stop wondering what happened to meaning words efface
Just listen to rhythmic rhymes in the musical phrase at play
So if you must pull that long-mutated face
With time won't ideas coalesce words into Shakespearean play
At will stream out of computer softwares at mind-boggling pace
Leave neither poet nor poetaster critic nor customer with pay
© T. Wignesan - Paris, February 25,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXXV
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXXV
IF you pull a long croquet face
While picking your teeth index and thumb over molar
Canines will drip corrosive acids on knuckles and nails
E'en if you lose anonymous self in a crowded alley
If you pull a long twisted itching face
All through childhood while making hay
You risk being stung by bluebottles and fleas
Right where you may not much like 'em to stay
If you pull a long self-conscious face
Guilt straining your under-your-wear during play
Tell-tale signs beyond control those stains on lace
Parents by Law only keep teens so long as they obey
If you pull a long pre-maturé face
E'en a Mahatma Gandhi married at puberté
At 36 assumes Brahmacharya celibate sacrifice
To libido's extra-marital experience falls prey
If you must pull a long pedo-de-filed priestly face
Pull it not on homeless orphan or pious nun gone astray
Tussle all alone the Devil in you from pantry to pillow-case
Or else the Man in Hu-Man would drive the Wo-Man gay
© T. Wignesan - Paris, February 21,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXXIV
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXXIV
For Mickey COTO and his PTS-ed cohorts
IF you pull a long patriotic face
' My Country My God boundup in one alloyed essay
The blood I spill for either in one compounded commonplace
For Mother and Father begot me Soul and Body I let slay '
If you pull a long cramped face
In galactic worlds speeding pell-mell trillion light years away
The Glory of the Nation ancient History pure Superior conquering Race
Will Voyager II blot out from the Carter message the stain in our DNA
If you pull a long arrogant face
Vying with one another your Party's Will to impose in mellée
Loud yet dumb those who'll vain political power embrace
Won't names on plaques and stiff statues with time decay
If you pull a long populist face
Confound callow youths' psychés through geo-political play
The Enemy's the one with the ethnic-God's alien grimace
Won't ' Demo-Cracy ' make ' People-Crazy ' Passionarias pray
If you must pull a long pro-patria-mori face
Then breed the orphaned cloned-robot grandes armées
Mediativize the great onslaughts from Sun Tzu & Cong strategies
Won't the Populace then exult betting on their revered contrées
© T. Wignesan, Paris, February 16,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXXIII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXXIII
IF you pull a long non-plussed face
Astrophysicists declare Science no Absolute Truths underlay
Big-Crunch might on Big-Bang back bounce about face
Who'll say All-This's but mere hearsay
If you pull a long heretical face
Opt for accidentally ordered Life as did Hawking portray
Almighty be a Barrau's ' tout comme ' Lord of Multiverse
Who'll say All-This's but mere hearsay
If you pull a long Question-Marked face
Two brothers in '43 jumped into the Future to aver
Great Lakes all make for one big sea surface
Who'll say All-This's but mere hearsay
If you pull a long besotted face
Long walls of Black Holes tugging pulling us in disarray
Andromeda throttle surge through our Milky Way interlace
Who'll say All-This's but mere hearsay
So if you must pull a long-lost inane face
Light-propelled ET-ships visit us NASA-men say
If you can the future tell e'en of one of the human race
Then nothing anyone can ever do the FUTURE gainsay
© T. Wignesan - Paris, February 14,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXXII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXXII
IF you pull a long ME-TOO victimised face
' Look Mom! Dirty-Ol'-Sod oggles me carriage sway! '
' Dear Girl! Of what use curves under pretty face?
Be like Mona Lisa, look neither Louvre either way! '
If you pull a long ME-TOO martyred face
' Oh, Mom, look! He looks through under wear! '
' Dear Child! Eyes are made for hills and dales
On desert sands, looks stretch mirage bare! '
If you pull a long ME-TOO bothered face
' Oh, Mom, look! Light's changed we've right of way
My Zebra thighs cross at every stride his lurid gaze! '
' Oh! Ne'er you mind, for all you know he's gay! '
If you pull a long ME-TOO frenzied face
' Oh, Mom, look! The cad swims under my belly! '
' Pretty Mome! Wish not he breaststrokes to spoil grace!
The flip and the flop of diving: Not on my nelly! '
If you must pull a long ME-TOO sacrificed face
' Oh, Mom! That pedophile's looks drip lecherous leer! '
' Sure, Baby! That's the look perpetuates the human race
Yearn not for a YAHOO's horse to mate and rule us here! '
© T. Wignesan - Paris, February 9,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXXI
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXXI
IF you pull a long lagging-behind face
You deserve your copycat status in more than one way
Marco Polo brought back cracker-power not to powder face
Noble Savage Injuns and Indians shuddered and gave way
Now if you pull a long WOG face
Aping the Colonial Master in every bourgeois way
No use straddling neck feet dangling front of face
Giant still supports the Dwarf while striding away
If you still will pull that long sullen ' heathen ' face
Thinking how easy the tidal wave you'd turn back anyway
Vasco's galleons rained broadside thunder balls on village place
While your loin-clothed turbaned ancestors scurried in fear
If you then pull your long self-satisfied face
At your hosts' Midas touch riding main fleets of Raleigh
To stud Crown lapis lazuli rubies opal spice and maize
Needs he as much now you to beg fawn and yeah-say
If you must then pull your long infra-dig face
Hankering after titles prizes rubbing shoulders in hallowed hallway
Colonial caste of mind gives exacting the Shylock pound of flesh
Smites your integrity dignity breaks spirit robs merits if ' I YOU DARE! ' say
© T. Wignesan - Paris, February 8,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXX
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXX
IF you pull a long querulous face
At the way Life makes you dire pay
For doubts and questions slaps your face
Fear keeps you from getting out-of-here
If you pull a long-damned face
Why woes and wails end not today
At your meek efforts scoffs the face
E'en Man-made-Laws prolong delay
If you keep pulling that angst-long face
Your duties to dear-ones holds you prey
Hereunder parcours written on tortured face
Corridor of Fortune mid Mother-Father ear
If you then can pull this long-stretched face
Cheek-bone nose shape Fa-ling lines down ear
Snub-nosed Socrates quaffed hemlock in disgrace
Contours of Fate circulate face year by lunar year
So if you must pull a long DNA mirror-face
Hide plastic surgery face under mask or clay
How long Bushmen took to Chinese their race
Yet let the few alter Nature through fore-play
© T. Wignesan - Paris, February 6,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXIX
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXIX
IF you pull a long pained face
The kind poets affect and gladly display
Throughout the ages with their lonely-heart feelings in lyrical grace
You might end up Precious Pearl in harem of some Arabo-Turkish Bey
If you then pull that longingly pained long face
In verses thin and sweetened long to Your Lord and Master Bey
All night long pulling at the tassels of your silken robes pyjama lace
Your turn might never come to whisper rosy verses under moonlit ear
Yet if you keep pulling that long lone-heart face
Know that Eunuchs too might not averse be to your corvée
And might listen close to every lilting line behind burka lace
Unless in Looney Bin the Bey thinks fit to let you long stay
Now if you pulled that long left-alone pale face
During long-stricken nights while silken moon-shafts through casements stray
Your face wan the tang of your pulled flesh less and less sinuous in bed-wise
ways
With luck you might at his table serve as a taster of macoronic verse play
So if you must go on pulling that long Parson's face
Pull it while chopping up pork ribs for crispy crunchy helpings à la Canard
Lacqué
None will miss appreciating the tango twists and twirls in your hurt-feelings
vice-verse
Everything's grist to the salmagundi soup the pot-pourri pulsed poem à la Chop
Suey
© T. Wignesan - Paris, February 5,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXVIII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXVIII
IF you pull a long perplexed face
You could be watching SUMO in Tokyo Bay
Or reading this without a NIHONG-GUO dictionary in front of face
Rather I'd say you were the victim of WATENAGE
If you gasp at me pulling - pardon me - long dude face
Most probably you landed on your head due to ****ANAGE
Little use then pulling that long RISHIKISHI enigmatic poker face
Even if you were a 400-pound local HEBI-KYU god YOKOZUNA
Yet if you insist on pulling your long-slapped face
It's your own funeral living stabled in a SUMOBEYA
When all around GEISHA fans dream behind rice-paint face
Of what use then 30,000 YEN KENSHOKIN PRIZE nets you each day
If you can't help pulling that long-repressed face
Think you can gouge eyes out kick grab groin pull hair
Think again you had better throw salt to purify SHINTO DOHYO ring space
Or else find your MAWASHI loincloth ripped-off your shame hair rare
So if you must pull that 1500-year long SUMO face
Make certain you perform KAMI salt-throwing ceremony
First of all at TOKYO MEIJI SHRINE like all RISHIKISHIS
Before you digest 5000 to 7000 calories of fried diabetic chow each thumping
day
© T. Wignesan - Paris, February 3,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXVII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXVII
IF you pull a long poet's face
All things you write go awry
E'en fans who cuddle up offer no solace
Remember Kipling's ' IF ' the price to pay
If you pull a long deserted face
E'en friends plot with club members to assail
You lose will e'en to tie loose line shoe-lace
Damn could e'en petty sins cause such travail
If you go on pulling that long worsted face
Lines you lilt and rhyme sound airy-fairy
You push pen you powder verse till tears race
Creative college rhetoric plunder words weary
Yet if you pull this long-lined sick face
Grinding teeth biting lips till red ink spray
Ask who cut off Van Gogh's ear to spite his coal-mine face
Will a Gauguin mock a Brando's South-Seas belles-ballet
If you pull a long Art-for-Artifice sake face
Ask whose Kafkayesque trials plagued a Welles's Moro-Jacobean play
Holy-Wood chef-d'oeuvres dictate classic post-modern pace
Kaleidoscopic formulae: rape batter murder on Tolstoyian vertebrae
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 31,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXVI
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXVI
IF you pull that long-besieged face
Back and forth to Brussels in Brexit bob-sleigh
Deal or No-Deal backstop Customs excise nor phase
EU patience and make jingle-bells rein deer neigh
If you pull that plucky long face
You risk boxing the Left's adamant Brexit-Deal ear
' EYES ' to the Right ' NOSE ' to the Left ' have it ' put Westminster grace
out-of-place
No argument on amendments ' PROSIT ' with Franco-German beer
Then if you pull that long disfigured face
The Celts will with Scots not in English parley
To invite reigning Norman to fly in the face into Brexit space
Not mind you on skis past Omaha Beach and Isle Guernsey
Yet if you continue to pull that long-merited face
Even Roman legions will over-run the Charlemagne Gaul face rightaway
To watch Nero blitz-krieg London while May souffle sur les braises
Won't even a Nobel Peace Prize entice a ditch-Brexit May
If you must then pull a long-stymied face
Carve Britain out add a STAR to the Star-Spangled pot-pourrée
Let the Scots the Irish and the Welsh in gaelic discourse
While gentlemanly Six Nations Cup supplant Super Bowl rough play
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 29,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXV
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXV
IF you pull a long face
Neither side in tug-of-war giving way
Pull in the name of the Populace
Neither side will lose face e'ven if they bray
But if you pull a long surly face
In fear your own clan might fall prey
To the Squinting-Lady with the tilted balance
Beware of saving face at the expense of the Lay
If then you would pull a long-assured face
Founding Fathers pull with me on my side today
Tomorrow might usher in a benumbing sense of daze
If you flout in the face the Law's mainstay: Egalité
If you insist on pulling a long smug face
House soul-White clean the House on the Hill guilt-grey
Might Chosen Few bow to Ol' troubled Abe's wizened gaze
Or scowl at the Capital Dome the Bill of Rights to flay
So if you must the long face pull with grace
Turn a deaf ear to those who at Wall Street pray
The streets crawl with people losing ev'ryday a bit of face
Futile efforts at making ends meet for their progeny at bay
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 26,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXIV
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXIV
IF you pull that long martyred face
While brake-disks hiss howl metal-doors click-clutch-cluck on railway
No Tokyo masks nor hand darts to protect the homefront populace
Breeding grounds Underground cooking love-cold soup bacteriae
If you pull that damnit I've-caught-it again long distressed face
Between fleeing Metro stations unable to turn your face away
Holding breath in terror fumigating in deadly solipsistic silence
Which year's vaccination failed to mutate and antidotes convey
If you pull that long contorted villified face
Sandwiched between leaking semen sweat coughing sonorous spray
Bacteria exploding tout azimut in jolting standing wool-crammed space
Smiles stuck in smart-phones fingers deftly messaging con-art display
If you then pull that fully-drenched long face
Face to face with guys who repress no more pent-up phlegm volley
Adding to that splash short staccato sharp poop-stench promise
Who nurses not nor lodges the germinating common denominator heir
Yet if you must pull that long innoculated face
Remember the doctor the nurse the pharmacist all give willing way
To the vast multi-national over/under the counter panacea commerce
To keep the influenza germ indoors at soaring fever pitch - Hurray!
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 25,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXIII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXIII
IF you pull a long-pained face
After tumbling down the Stairway
Do not the blame put on loose shoe-lace
The fault, pained-poet, may lie in gut-loose kidney
Now if you still pull that pained-look victim face
Watching others trip down whistling care-free gay
Turn back the pages and ill-fraught lines replace
With clippety-cloppy trained strides in horse-shoe gait
Yet if you insist on parading your long-pulled face
Draw not attention to the Maker of the Stairway
Nor sit on High Horse of thorough-bred DNA race
Most if not ALL will slip down the slippery Stairway
If you go on pulling that long-dethroned face
Know that ev'ry race-winner aloft long does not stay
Be it White Brown Black Yellow or of mixed-race
No use then claiming favoured-place with Potter of clay
So if you must pull that long Pale Face
Do it where you don't step on toes in any way
Sunscreen melotinine paves not way to pride of place
If you believe in One Maker why d'you to One Son pray
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 23,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXII
IF you pull a long lonely face
Standing all alone near or on a busy airport flyway
Sans kith ni kin nor traffic police or friends en surplus
Hell you'll be mowed down by plane's landing gear out-lay
Now if you pull that lone long face
Since with none you can co-habit you say
Too true as that might be do as penance purchase
A man-sized mouse-trap stick neck in and pray
But if you pull long neck out to save long face
Don't blame me if by chance the spring gives way
Mouse-traps are made only for rats running in rat-race
If you want out post (on this site) your sworn statement apostasié
Yet if you pull your changed-mind long face
Take vows of celibacy eat nor enjoy flesh either way
Even as anthropophage Andromède chew on Ethiopian rock face
None'll make a shrine out of bones buried under compost pourrée
So if you must pull a lone long face
Seek not other lone long faces who pray and flay
Their backs and with cat-o'-nine-tails their face
Lacerate till Antonioni films Sophia L. with St. Francois d'Assis in Mandalay
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 22,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XXI
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XXI
IF you pull a long Moon face
Watching our Earth clad in sparse swirling white sarée
Her aqua-marine waters cuddling her reddish brown body-surface
The dazzlingly rare Pearl now throttled by deadly débris
If you then pull a long Other-Moon face
Rolling weightless in a space-ship bathed in thermo-dynamic ray
You turn your thoughts on the marvels of the man-made science race
And then give the credit to Our-Nation GOD Is this really okay
Then if you pull a long bright Sunny face
And forget the reasons why this World of ours has gone astray
Man's inhumanity to Man how warring nations destroy Nature's grace
Pollute the depths of oceans cancer in the bowels flora and fauna sans say
If you continue to pull a long self-satisfied face
In the name of the Lord for every national achievement His blessings pray
Then repeat non-sensical myths and rituals in His Honour according to race
Reduce the United Nations to hypocritical inner politicking yeah-say
Thus if you must pull a long-travestied face
All through the Ages on the dictates of your incontrovertible DNA
Seek by every economic ruse power of class and caste on skins of race
Sing not of the beauty of this rare Pearl decorating space Put the blame
squarely on Divine Lila play
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 20,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XX
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XX
IF you pull a long-haughty face
Some would not your game play
What irks you most is not their voice
But runs they chalk up during volley
If you then pull this long face
With those in the same métier
Beware some might your castle raze
Out of a need to debunk the phoney
Yet if you pull that self-same long face
Know it's your own face you sadistic flay
Whoever for whatever reason takes offence
Stretches his face beyond the Milky Way
Now if you keep pulling that long-ridiculed face
Despite what others do to keep us down I'd say
Go on keep pulling that by now long irate face
There's no better lesson you could give or take Olé
So if you must pull your long-inured face
For ages whipping on slave-ship galley
Go on live in bliss with Moon-mirror face
The Sun darkens skin with un-ending ray
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 19,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XIX
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XIX
IF you pull a long plucky face
Even when I-Ee-You let you have your way
Placed no impediment for the divorce
Let you keep key to backstop exit doorway
You yet keep pulling that long stubborn face
Yes you want out when I want you to stay
House in utter disorder your comeuppance
Mary Queen of Scots no tough Liz will obey
If you keep pulling that long war-weary face
What must I do or say your fears to allay
The fault lies squarely on Henry the VIII's mace
Even Papal Borgias did male heirs coolly lay
Yet you keep pulling that long staunch face
Again and again for you Excommunication I delay
You want both: eat cake while pulling a long face
Even Luther would think twice such customs waylay
So if you must pull a long navel face
Build yourself a Wall right round: call it Isles of May
Expel your Blacks and Asians born with jus soli grace
Turn Old Vic plays into Tower Terror bloody display
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 17,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XVIII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XVIII
IF you pull a long dopey face
The least one can in this case say
You don't belong to the eskimo race
Who lament the sun sunk in iced bay
Now if you pull that long limp face
Hoping someone will notice your dismay
Best not to peek through burka-nikah lace
Take the next flight out of tent on any airway
Yet if you keep pulling that long hangdog face
Ev'ry chance you'd be called upon to act in a play
For who knows how to imitate Droopy's face
Who has heard of a cartoon dog star on Broadway
If you pulled hard at that long hangdog face
Through wearisome rehearsals day after day
Fat chance you'll be nominated to play Scarface
No long-faced dogs allowed on stage in Broadway
So if you must pull that long hangdog face
Make certain the collar the leash does not betray
The long-buried wolf in the dog might surface
And actors feast on wolf sans ShutDown back pay
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 9,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XVII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XVII
IF you pull a long bored face
Oh What's the use no way to be gay
Ev'ry effort gets bogged in rigged rat-race
Some covert service blocks my way
Yet you pull that long out-of-shape face
Bored by the way things turn out every day
No use turning out the lights in bed to efface
Lessons learned during the day you must weigh
If you go on pulling that long elongated face
You risk also pulling your hair out I dare say
Your eyes and ears too without using pliers
End up as Moon pulling tides on Earth all day
Then if you pull a long-pulled face
Forced you say to grunt low bleat and neigh
LIFE's not for sure a pleasure cruise in space
Measure of grains aroma ensures in cup of café
So if you must pull a long out-of-shape face
Depressed by the way the skies turn gray
Look straight ahead not downcast askance
The END's believe it or not but a sly moment away
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 15,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XVI
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XVI
IF you pull a long limp face
Long as a mile of lies made of clay
Little the wonder no kind of praise
Can pull you out of utter dismay
Then if you pulled that long clay face
Right round the block up your driveway
Complain not how your face you deface
Your driveway's not a public pathway
Now if you pull that long haughty face
No matter how hard you worked to stay
On top of the world's profit-trade chase
Stache not losses onto the company's outlay
For if you pull that long uppity face
Walk you must the plank on Judgement Day
Blindfolded waist and wrists bound in disgrace
Ev'ry dog has its day since yes crime does pay
So if you must pull that panicky long face
No chauffered limousine to pave your way
Corporate tax cuts do political parties brace
High tit for tat makes for democratic sway
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 12,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XV
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XV
IF you pull a long long aching face
Thinking this's it the end of my heyday
STOP think again stretch not an oval face
To look rhomboid rubarb in triangular tray
If you pulled a long winding road face
And looped it round a rail-road cross-way
And pulled it through its empty space
You'd likely see many holes in your driveway
If you pulled a long battered face
Some might say that's in no way okay
A battered look looks not long in the face
Others that's alright who cares anyway
Yet if you pulled a long soft lean face
It could tear open some part of the way
Leaving strands of matted hair in its place
Stuff the skull to stop what it might say
So if you must pull your worn-out long face
Thinking what good there be beyond Milky Way
Slam not the door on our teeny-weeny space
Around which star must we ride in chained galley
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 11,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XIV
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XIV
IF you pull a long stiff face
Week after week while you parley
You risk stoking the furnace
Ill-chosen words all ending in nay
If you keep pulling the long red face
The Picador will puncture your vertebrae
Blood-splashed mane from banderillas
Beware you'll be the only felled prey
If you keep pulling that long mane face
The blood-thirsty chorus crowd cry Olé
Eyes mist over ears dim to the populace
Beware Beware the Torrero about to slay
If you insist on pulling the long bull-face
Horns flayed by muleta-faena coup d'épée
The Torrero bucked up with rude applause
Take heed the estocade's only an inch away
Now if you must pull that long lost face
Neither party willing to give some leeway
No Wall can stop the People ALL debase
Hell to pay in havoc-wreaked 2020's back pay
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 10,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XIII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: XIII
If you pull a lean long face
Each day in fear of the next Saturday
Time to tone down High C voice in Elysée Palace
Yellow Jackets are closing in on the Champs Elysées
Then if you insist on pulling that lone long face
Just think on what could happen on Bastille Day
Guest of Honour Outre Atlantique might pull your face
If sacré Fourteenth of July fell on a Yellow Saturday
Now if you cannot prevent pulling that lone long face
On the pretext your corporate tax cuts benefit the lay
You should've first laid out your plans to the populace
And obtained their consent by referendum if you may
No use pulling a lone long lean face
When Yellow Jackets choke the roads and railway
Time to move house to the Versailles Palace
And there reign as Monarch of all you survey
But if you must keep pulling that lone long face
Best to follow in footsteps of itchy-foot Corsican's Grande Armée
Take to the Chunnel set up House in Buckingham Palace
Before Brexit gets pulled off by plucky Santa Theresa May
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 8,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XII
IF you pull a mighty long face
Such as even Bollywood can't display
Put not the blame on the mixed human race
The fault most likely comes from animal DNA
Now if you go on pulling that long long face
People'll rightly think you're going out of your way
To attract attention to your you-think handsome face
And some might wish you'd look in the mirror right away
Yet if you insist on pulling that long-gone face
The kind Penelope pulled with suitors in Odyssey
While Odysseus loped with sirens on Scylla & Charibdis
You risk adorning some niche at museums in decay
If you can't resist pulling that long-tired face
Whenever your siblings marry and are whisked away
Remember Sita pining for Rama in Ravana's Palace
Even if some still wonder at Hanuman's role in epic play
So if you must still keep pulling that long face
Favourite sport with chicks watching films from Bombay
Just keep watching Beau-Boy Khan in tear-jerking DEVDAS
The all-time record at pulling faces in every love-sick way
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 7,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part XI
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part XI
If you pull a long face
Not knowing whether it's Night or Day
That may simply mean you lost your face
You have gone past your very Last Day
No use then pulling a long lost face
For all the days you failed to pray
High Up or Deep Down where you surface
Angels or Devils note down crimes to pay
Now if you keep pulling that wraith-long face
Thinking WHO's to know whether your taxes you pay
Remember Arch-Angel Collector of Taxes His Grace
Reads every twitch on faces the mirror-image of DNA
Yet if you still keep pulling that long face
Hoping you can put off Tax Declaration Day
Dictatorship out there needs no majority in Congress
To impeach even Ultime Unction pardon on dying day
So if you must pull a long long face
Pull it wherever no one dares say
Ill-gotten gains make for national disgrace
Tho' trillions in debt pile up in You-Yes-Yeah
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 6,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part X
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: PART X
IF you pull a long face
For ten straight nights starting today
You bet you'd look like Canada Bernache
Though fat chance like swan in Norway
But if you pull a very very long face
Your rivals might not like it in the Sea-Ay-Yeah
And might seek to shorten the nautical-mile face
To a right and proper mile-long face all in a day
Yet if you keep pulling that mile-long face
The wilds of the Siberian Goulag would you slay
After long lone nights the firing-squad to face
Notes from the Underground your mind mainstay
Then if you pull the lone long face
In Algerian quarries Who will your ransom pay
Thirty-thousand ducats El Manchot to brace
Battling windmills in Castillian Quixotic disarray
So if you must pull the longingly long face
Your chef-d'oeuvre will-o'-the-wisp bright stay
Your day of glory on the Internet mere pittance
Think of all the great works slush piles overlay
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 5,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part IX
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: IX
IF you pull a long face
Being born with a long face bytheway
Then you have at worst a problem face
None will know if you're sad or gay
Now if you keep pulling this long face
Mostly at the dinner table, say
Most would think it a commonplace
To pull the leg off the mint sauce tray
Yet if you keep pulling the same face
Some mugs who thrive on mere hearsay
Might try to pull your long aching face
To pave the way for a new long Broadway
And if you keep pulling that long face
Long as Sphinxes' smirks look from far away
Remember how Ol' Ceasar fell for Cleo's grace
And Antony dragged half-sister to Rome as prey
So if you must pull a long face
Seeing who pulls spiteful faces in disarray
At those faces being belittled for their race
Put on balance long face and Sphinx to weigh
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 2nd,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part VIII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part VIII
IF you pull a long face
On 2019 New Year's Day
While at 2018 stick tongue out of face
You bade Her badbyes, everybody'd say
But if you pulled a long face
On the Eve of New Year's Day
Your Belle at Ball slapped your face
Leave her high and dry on Wedding Day
Now if you pulled along face
Thinking how 2018 made you pay
Wait to see how the 2019 Mephisto chase
Will mock cock eye and good ol' Faust slay
If you yet pulled a long face
All Eve-night with no-one to lay
Stay condemned by contumace
While plea-bargain culprits bray
So if you must pull a long face
Year in and year out up Calvary way
Don't buy taser to ease disgrace
Yama follows Atman just as June May
(2+1+9=12=3 follows 2+1+8=11=2)
© T. Wignesan, Paris, January 1st.,2019
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part VII
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: VII
(Thoughts on a fast-receding fearful Me-Too Year)
IF you pull a long face
And you can't make it go away try as you may
No use putting on a pretty smile on the face
The smile will likely turn leer in a day
If you pull a long face
And it keeps coming back every other day
Then it's an illness at the serious phase
No doctor can tell you to call it a day
Yet if you only pull a long face
On certain days in the week like Sunday
It might mean you're allergic to Holy Mary grace
Not much Good will it do you to choose, say, Friday
If you still keep pulling a long face
No matter which church-going week day you pray
No doctor can save you from losing face
Best to wear a Monte Cristo mask all your livelong day
So if you must pull a long face
The sledge kind Santa Claus pulls on Xmas Day
Make sure no Me-Too Gals your drinks lace
You might live to regret it some far-off day
© T. Wignesan - Paris, December 29,2018
Translation of Catherine Lara's Awesome Night by T Wignesan
Nuit magique (Awesome Night)
Catherine Lara
(A lilting catchy French tune with a ' barbed ' message addressed to oneself or
to any damsel in distress. Free translation by T. Wignesan)
Okay
Il n'y avait rien à faire (One felt free with nothing to do)
Okay
Dans cette ville étrangère (In that foreign outpost)
Okay
Tu étais solitaire (You were all alone)
Okay
J'avais l'coeur à l'envers (I was feeling quite out-of-sorts)
Okay
Tout ça n'était qu'un jeu (I felt there was nothing to lose)
Okay
On jouait avec le feu (Though one sensed danger approach)
Okay
On s'est pris au sérieux (Yet one couldn't help being in earnest)
Okay
Le rire au fond des yeux (Deep down though one kept feeling light-hearted)
Nuit magique (Imagine)
Une histoire d'humour qui tourne à l'amour (An humourous episode that gave way
to romance)
Quand vient le jour (When light thrust open the night)
Nuit magique (Imagine)
On perd la mémoire au fond d'un regard (One's thoughts grow blank in the depths
of an absorbing glance)
Histoire d'un soir (As the evening drifts by and takes its toll)
Nuit magique (Imagine)
Si loin de tout sans garde-fou (Way away from home with your defences down)
Autour de nous (To keep us from harm)
Nuit magique (Imagine)
Nuit de hasard on se sépare (On an hazardous night one takes off)
Sans trop y croire (Not quite convinced)
Okay
C'est une histoire de peau (It's a question of skin colour)
Okay
On repart à zéro (One tries to start all over again)
Okay
On oublie aussitôt (Yet one forgets it happened just as quickly)
Okay
Qu'on s'est tourné le dos (Turning one's back on it all)
Nuit… (the Night…)
(The song continues with these lines repeated thrice:
Une histoire d'humour qui tourne à l'amour (An humourous episode that gave way
to to romance)
Quand vient le jour (When light thrust open the night)
Nuit magique (Imagine)
On perd la mémoire au fond d'un regard (One's thoughts grow blank in the depths
of an absorbing glance)
Histoire d'un soir (As the evening drifts by taking its toll)
© T. Wignesan - Paris, December 28,2018
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part VI
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE: Part VI
If you pull a long face
On great Government Shut-Down Day
Just think who'll replace
The Walls of Jéricho on Shout-Down Day
Yet if you pull a long face
While Dow Jones on downward swing stay
Just you wait to see how whose face
Wails to pull Wall down Méjico Way
If you then keep pulling a long face
Captain pulls selfie-face in Mid-East mélée
Never you mind the hotting-up furnace
Ice-cubes in high-balls melt during any fray
Yet if you pulled a long face
All year long to New Year's Day
You'd have pulled your pretty Rahab face
Only from deaf ear to another Joshua'd say
So if you must pull a long face
While all around you the damned World boils away
Just you keep on pulling that long face
Never you mind what lies in store past Doomsday
© T. Wignesan - Paris, December 28,2018
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part V
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part V
IF you pull a long face
Especially on Christmas Day
You might put out-of-place
Your face on every other day
If you keep pulling a long face
No matter what anyone might say
Some faces might wear a grimace
By contracting a long face each day
Yet if you must pull a long face
Just when darkness dims day by day
Winter Solstice might lift the burka lace
To show more of wanton autumn play
Now if you go on pulling a long face
On the Gran Via while Reyes Magos lead the way
By comets and shooting cars in criss-crossing race
Pontius Pilatus Police could you in gulgülta dismay
So if you still must pull a long face
On holy church-going psalm-rhyming day
Make sure you confess all dirty-linen disgrace
' Eli Eli lama: Please don't lead me astray! '
© T. Wignesan - Paris, December 25,2018
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part IV
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part IV
IF you pull a long face
Just because no one will you lay
Never you mind the disgrace
Every body's bound day by day to decay
But if you pull a long face
At your own mirror image night or day
Then you have to blame only your face
For pulling a long face for no pay
If you pull a long face
While with your darling you sway
Remember another would her embrace
And likely put her in the family way
Yet if you keep pulling a long face
Your father mindless your mother did lay
Through no fault of your own or race
Put the blame on stars of your birthday
So if you must pull a long face
Every time a girl you want slips away
Don't go chasing legs under loose lace
Turn transvestite change sex or just go gay
© T. Wignesan - Paris, December 21,2018
Villanelle: Paint no colours on plain words lest the poet stops writing
Villanelle: Paint no colours on plain words lest the poet stop(s) writing
Paint no colours on plain words lest the poet stop(s) writing
Out of fear for what he writes makes no sense to the wise reader
Can words of encouragement be best meted out unreviling
Tell no white lies under the guise of covert praise inviting
Better still no swill wallows under poems by suitor
Paint no colours on plain words lest the poet stop(s) writing
If you tell a poet what's wrong with his poetising
You'll do him a greater service than any imposter
Can words of encouragement be best meted out unreviling
The kind of heedless praise gushing will longrun prove crippling
That which soothes bolsters the ego comes from flatterer
Paint no coiours on plain words lest the poet stop(s) writing
Watch what the flatterer says it's self-compromising
See how he lures you back to his page as cunning visitor
Can words of encouragement be best meted out unreviling
If you learn to write with conviction not by ruse conniving
Two hoots will you give to thumbs up or down on what you proffer
Paint no colours on plain words lest the poet stop(s) writing
Can words of encouragement be best meted out unreviling
© T. Wignesan - Paris, December 19,2018
Limerick crochetes: Once Bull-Frog of a French Syndic - Part One
Limerick crochetes: Once a Bull-Frog of a French Syndic
Part One
Once a Bull-Frog of a French Syndic
Croaked Janitress Porc-U-Pine music
She found much in common
With Janitress-Husband
They sucked Co-Proprietors' Council sick
Now Janitress had much lard to spare
Front back cheeks belly thighs but spare hair
So Bull-Frog humped her back
To keep her hair intact
Bull-Frog ate Porc-U-Pine falling hair
Now Co-Proprietors' presidents
Saved lots of hair-wilting rodents
Pipes stuffed with hairs pubic
Made proprietors sick
Porc-U-Pine made pubic wig from rodents
Yet Porc-U-Pine wailed all day and night
' How am I to keep flying my kite?
Flying saucers see nought
On my scalp lives no thought! '
Appealed to Town Hall Caïd for more might
' Porc-U-Pine, Dear, your sting I like best!
Can you this Injun now put to rest? '
' Yes, Sir! You know how well
Your words make my lard swell!
I'll put this Ol' Bum on acid test! '
' I'll ask Syndic Bull-Frog to puff hard
Through his WC pipe under board
I'll stuff hoards of pubic hair
Plus more from rodents' lair
To force Ol' Bum to swim in building's turd! '
' Now, My Darling Porc-U-Pine! How nice
To know you and I share the same vice
Ask Mason Brother Police
To salute you, as-you-please
Kiss your cheeks up or under likewise! '
Bull-Frog croaked: ' She's under my orders!
No way I'll be made to suckle udders!
Tell the Lord President
I'm thick as she's cement
Nothing less than top Republic's honours! '
© T. Wignesan - Paris, December 18,2018
Villanelle: Should one reorder genuine vers libre entire
Villanelle: Should one reorder genuine vers libre entire
Should one reorder genuine vers libre entire
Pull Pound down tear veil off event horizon holes
All to make for one's own sacre the pur sang lyre
Invent a machine feed it Homeric fire
No enjambement perfect rhyme rhythm metre folds
Should one reorder genuine vers libre entire
Whoever tops the charts which poem's ire
Shines through Apollo's defiant mien Zeus scolds
All to make for one's own sacre the pur sang lyre
Ne'er short the naive champion of the ephemère
Paid up club member the mutual backscratcher roles
Should one reorder genuine vers libre entire
Machine that thinks can it rasa taste inspire
Mete out criteria merit sound sense enfolds
All to make for one's own sacre the pur sang lyre
Art of artifice best profits business liar
Poets at the stakes burn to free the poems' souls
Should one reorder genuine vers libre entire
All to make for one's own sacre the pur sang lyre
© T. Wignesan - Paris, December 15,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXIII - Continued
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY - LXXIII
IF ever I had a country re-made by the Revolutionary
And if ever I were that Corsican Napoleon who appropriated the Apollonian
sanctuary ' gymnase ' and the ' lycée '
I'd let no fifteen-to-eighteen year old lycéen or lycéenne barricade the
portals of their holier than holy Athenian lycée to camp on rubbish bins en
grasse matinée
Luscious objects of voyeurism for the highly titillated TV-public and the
uniformed police and grande armée
But, believe me, I'd stuff these nubile kids in the plastic garbage cans and
seal them all air-tight with searing burners, yes, Sirée
And then let their cohorts yellow-jacket teachers all products of the Sexual
Revolution generation torch the bins and choke in the resulting chemical fumée
Yes, Sirée, that's what the present Philosopher-King ought to do before he too
joins or already joined the ranks of the revolutionary sexually-emancipated
lycée
And even if I never ever were tutored in no lycée blessed by Apollo of Lykeios
in gaie migrant-purée Paris
© T. Wignesan - Paris, December 8,2018
Villanelle: Who lies to defend his kind tells he no White Lies
Villanelle: Who lies to defend his kind tells he no White Lies
Who lies to defend his kind tells he no white lies
Encircled by scheming vile wicked harmful people
White lie harms no one not e'en those it underlies
Tell me not authorities may at will spew lies
For the higher purpose preserve State, not people
Who lies to defend his kind tells he no white lies
Can White lies be not lies without being Black lies
Unless lies change colour from mouth to mouth at will
White lie harms no one not e'en those it underlies
Now he who embodies State on whose bed he lies
Do bodies that stewed in his bed most lies sprinkle
Who lies to defend his kind tells he no white lies
If liars all came together to stop White lies
Would Black lies undermine Truth to make lying simple
White lie harms no one not e'en those it underlies
Next time you tell a White lie make certain it dies
The death of a Black lie in the mouth you stifle
Who lies to defend his kind tells he no white lies
White lie harms no one not e'en those it underlies
© T. Wignesan, Paris, December 5,2018
My Recurrent Dream, Translation of Paul Verlaine's Sonnet: Mon Reve
Familier
My Recurrent Dream, Translation of Paul Verlaine's Sonnet: Mon Rêve Familier
I'm often subject to a strange and invasive dream
Of an elusive woman whom I love, and who loves me
And who at every encounter might not the same be
Nor altogether another be, yet forbearing in her love seem.
For knowing how my open heart laid bare will confirm
How for her alone it beats, helas! I can breathe free
Yes, for her alone, the paleness of my brow dewy
She alone knows how to relieve, her tears stream.
Is she a brunette, blond or russet? - I ignore.
Her name? I recall it sounds sweet, echoes in the ear
Like those of lovers Life puts apart.
Likewise her looks, the gaze of statues,
And, as for her voice, distant and calm, and the art
Of the gravity of cherished voices long since mutes.
© T. Wignesan - Paris, December 1,2018
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part Three - Continued
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part III
IF you pull a long face
As long as two thousand years, you say
Think someone looked after your place
Now is he the one who must the price pay
Now that you pull a long face
Just because you lost your way
Why shouldn't someone take your place
For you're bound to lose face anyway
Now if you pull a long face
Forced, as you say, to go away
Come not back to a land to say grace
Turn not Allah away from Yahweh
So if you must always pull a long face
Pull not a gun to make him do as you say
Pay him the rent you owe, ne'er him displace
Share and share alike none will you slay
Yet if you must pull a long face
At some kin on whom you prey
You should really fear losing face
For, from you, the World'll turn away
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 28,2018
Villanelle: Those whom the Muses love die Martyrs' deaths at lone
stockade
Villanelle: Those whom the Muses love die Martyrs' deaths at lone Stockade
Those whom the Muses love die martyrs' deaths at lone stockade
Not yearning for success excuses each seek to elude
Fame stops at no stranger's door the loafer to persuade
Yet legions make it to the top in their time and period
They pass their lives in adoration midst the multitude
Those whom the Muses love die martyrs' deaths at lone stockade
Yet rare the martyr who in his lifetime has it made
Most die in misery and bear their lives in rectitude
Fame stops at no stranger's door the loafer to persuade
Can Art be some pursuit that brings joy to any renegade
Rather the squeezed out sweat which makes much of Life's attitude
Those whom the Muses love die martyrs' deaths at lone stockade
At every turn of the spit their lives roast marinade
The ephemeral breed contrive to block them through feud
Fame stops at no stranger's door the loafer to persuade
Perennial works all prove to us Life's lasting brocade
Shines brighter down the ages as craftsmen toil in solitude
Those whom the Muses love die martyrs' deaths at lone stockade
Fame stops at no stranger's door the loafer to persuade
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 26,2018
Translation of Bury Me in a Free Land by Frances E W HARPER 1825
- 1911
Translation of ' Bury Me in a Free Land ' by Frances E. W. Harper
(Homage to Frances Ellen Watkins HARPER, the First Black Lady of America,1825
- 1911, Orphan, Poet, Novelist, Civil Rights Activist, Public Speaker,
Suffragette, whose memorable lines of subdued indignation arise from controlled
passions of the never-daunted Soul.)
Enterrez-moi dans un pays libre
Enterrez-moi où que soit vous voulez
Dans une plaine basse ou sur une colline élevée
Faites en sorte que le tombeau soit parmi les plus simples
Mais pas dans un pays où il y a d'esclaves
Je ne pourrais pas m'endormir si autour de ma tombe
J'entendais les pas d'un esclave tremblant
Son ombre couvrant ma tombe silencieuse
La fera un endroit où règnera une ambiance désastreuse
Je ne pourrais pas me calmer si j'entendais les pas
D'un coffle en train d'être conduit vers les corvées sans repas
Et la crie d'une mère désespéramment sans espoir
Montant comme une malédiction tremblant dans l'aire
Je ne pourrais pas m'endormir si j'apercevais le fouet
Buvant son sang dans chaque entaille qu'il faisait
Et je voyais ses bébés arrachés de sa poitrine
Comme des frémissantes colombes de leur nid d'origine
Je me réveillerai secouée tout d'un coup si j'entendais le hurlement
Des limiers en train de capturer leur proie humaine
Et si j'entendais ensuite leurs cris de supplice en vaine
Tandis qu'on rattachait de nouveau leurs pénibles chaines
Si je voyais des jeunes filles arrachées des bras de leurs mères
Et marchandaient et vendues pour leur jeunesse et beauté rare
Mes yeux seront illuminés d'une flamme de tristesse
Mes joues d'une pâleur de mort deviendront rouge sang de la détresse honteuse
Je dormirais, chers amis, où le pouvoir arrogant
Ne pouvait pas dérober aucun homme de son plus précieux droit existant
Mon séjour dans n'importe quelle tombe serai en paix
Là où personne peut dénommer ses frères des esclaves inégaux
Je n'ai aucune envie pour qu'on se souvient de moi par un monument, fier et
imposant,
Pour attirer l'attention admirative des passants
Tout ce que mon âme réclame avec soif
Est qu'on ne m'enterre dans un pays d'esclaves
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 22,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXII - Continued-
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXII
IF ever I had a country with or without nationality
And if ever I were elected or nominated Chief Patriot of this God-forsaken miscarriaged
country
And if ever my country - minus the nation - were to be on the verge of being
invaded by other countries which religiously subscribe to the notion of ' Godbless-
us-first ' in all exclusivity
I would make it the point of utmost urgence to challenge such insolent uppity
countries on their concept of nationality by tabling a motion on the definition
of patriotism as opposed to that of nationalism in the United Nations General
Assembly
All at the risk of being expelled from that august self-effacing ineffective
body and my own blasted country in utter ignominy
And I'd command all patriots to take up arms against and shoot at sight the
back-thumping nationalists within my country for fear they may join hands with
the invading xenophobic nationalists to enslave and throttle all patriots - y
compris the Chief Patriot - in my dear old patrie
And this, even if I were to be unconstitutionally nominated Chief Patriot by
all die-hard nationalists in within my own country
Even if I never ever had no country not legitimately sworn in at the United
Nations General Assembly
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 20,2018
Villanelle: In what way has the Sexual Revolution freed Man
Villanelle: In what way has the Sexual Revolution freed Man
In what way has the Sexual Revolution freed Man
One man's still at the helm where one woman pulls the purse strings
Political structures still rest authoritarian
Is Reich's Function of the O.ga.m lame duck also ran
Do power struggles at all levels bounce bums on bed springs
In what way has the Sexual Revolution freed Man
Strikes protests manifestations mere excuses we ban
Face-saving measures populist fire-brand broken wings
Political structures still rest authoritarian
Does kiss-tail orgasmic reflex replace sublime élan
The chimère of suppressed masses condemned to strum heart strings
In what way has the Sexual Revolution freed Man
Who hoists family father-figure as revered top sultan
No authority at home spells chaos at source well-springs
Political structures still rest authoritarian
Sans moral consciousness the substratum cracks in ev'ry man
Abuse an innocent child he'll in turn abuse all beings
In what way has the Sexual Revolution freed Man
Political structures still rest authoritarian
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 17,2018
Villanelle: Nothing Human Insect Bird Animal is not Woman
Villanelle: Nothing human insect bird animal is not woman
Nothing human insect bird animal is not woman
E'en animals lock horns to deserve right to propagate
She's Man child daughter mother sister all that is human
Kun the Earth brings forth Life when sired by Jian Lord Heaven
Who toils the seed to succour cosette push forth cultivate
Nothing human insect bird animal is not woman
Men spurned them with half their pay yet none risked talk-back dungeon
While men drank down beer in smoke-filled dens their women to mate
She's Man child daughter mother sister all that is human
Watch media wise women wonder how their lives they govern
They do all that men do as much at home to pull their weight
Nothing human insect bird animal is not woman
From unpaid kitchen slave to nursemaid and bed to husband
She bore ev'ry lewd abuse to rise now to manage State
She's Man child daughter mother sister all that is human
Who wants to be woman and bake Man's fun cake in oven
Not until Jian the Creator turns transvestite mate
Nothing human insect bird animal is not woman
She's Man child daughter mother sister all that is human
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 17,2018
Villanelle: The Smell of Woman the Whiff of Chaste Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Villanelle: The Smell of Woman the Whiff of Chaste Nutmeg Cinnamon
The smell of woman the whiff of chaste nutmeg cinnamon
The lone mythic bird gone to sing in other dulcet climes
She bathes in cloistered mountain streams tingling pearls diamond
Her lips velvet unbuzzed petals dewy beds chrysanthemum
Deep lost hidden chasms the taste of feminine rhymes
The smell of woman the whiff of chaste nutmeg cinnamon
Her looks demure proud eyes shy shades distant firmament
Meadow cheeks where swath of lily and lilac swaying chimes
She bathes in cloistered mountain streams tingling pearls diamond
Her crown of caressing curls churning deep musk-scented ocean
Virgin forests semi-quaver ragas titillate mimes
The smell of woman the whiff of chaste nutmeg cinnamon
Her tapering fingers arching rainbows fun gifts from sun
The mother's milk embrace that never curdles trust with crimes
She bathes in cloistered mountain streams tingling pearls diamond
No wind breeds from sewers nor loose limbs to quell chaste woman
Nor nasty tongues lash the holy citadel in grimes
The smell of woman the whiff of chaste nutmeg cinnamon
She bathes in cloistered mountain streams tingling pearls diamond
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 14,2018
Villanelle: Doubt not who is Master of your conditioned Fate
Villanelle: Doubt not who is Master of your conditioned Fate
Doubt not who is Master of your conditioned Fate
Ask only why your actions lead down the wrong path
All else makes for doubt doubt only if Fate's innate
Neither Past nor Future time exist inchoate
All and everything's rolled in ever Present birth
Doubt not who is Master of your conditioned Fate
Are alll lives exemplary and of equal rate
Or only those fated to be humoured by Death
All else makes for doubt doubt only if Fate's innate
Is Life just a gift of the gods or Man's mandate
The Buddha's metaphor of bleeding arrow worth
Doubt not who is Master of your conditioned Fate
Those who preach living Life to the full suffocate
Carpe Diem is fine if you can afford mirth
All else makes for doubt doubt only if Fate's innate
No trace of passage on earth makes one contemplate
If lives we leave behind acts of blind psychopath
Doubt not who is Master of your conditioned Fate
All else makes for doubt doubt only if Fate's innate
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 13,2018
Variations on the Malay Pantun: The Old Man and the Short Story -
X-XII
Variations on the Malay Pantun: The Old Man and the Short Story - X -XII -
Continued
for Georges VOISSET, the 'Master Keeper-Nurturer' of the Malay Pantun
(The pantun line varies between 8 and 12 syllables and is most commonly found
in the anonymous quatrain form. Cf ' Poietics of the Pantun ', pp.49-67 in T.
Wignesan. Sporadic Striving amid Echoed Voices, Mirrored Images and Stereotypic
Posturing in Malaysian-Singaporean Literatures. Allahabad: Cyberwit,2008,
xix-244p.)
X
Go West on horseback and fire pistols point blank
Union Pacific galloped at City Lights
The Wench prefers red-hot fire not bullets blank
Old Men let horses ride bareback on Wench sans tights
XI
Go West on quick-shunting trains and let fall frontiers
Go East on horseback and churn Post-Colonial craze
East or West the Wench licks the Master's rears and tears
Not so the Youngster his Beat poems Old Men praise
XII
Shunt not trains which Kipling coupled lest they break wind
Old Men returned from the East rest traumatic
The Wench can take any Beat grind save the hind kind
Not so the Youngster e'en pistol-packing mama flic
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 12,2018
Variations on the Malay Pantun: The Old Man and the Short Story -
VII-IX
Variations on the Malay Pantun: The Old Man and the Short Story - VII-IX
Continued
for Georges VOISSET, the 'Master Keeper-Nurturer' of the Malay Pantun
Check out: www.stateless.mysite.com/Pantouns-20-Aout-2017.pdf
(The pantun line varies between 8 and 12 syllables and is most commonly found
in the anonymous quatrain form. Cf ' Poietics of the Pantun ', pp.49-67 in T.
Wignesan. Sporadic Striving amid Echoed Voices, Mirrored Images and Stereotypic
Posturing in Malaysian-Singaporean Literatures. Allahabad: Cyberwit,2008,
xix-244p.)
VII
The One-Act Play's the favourite Old Men's roman fleuve
Experience shows Old Men how to keep the Wench in hell
They know how to stoke the Imagination with love
They need no how-to softwares to write a novel
VIII
The One-Act Play they say is still Old Men's mainstay
Though on Freytag's Triangle they slip down climax
The Wench cannot make Old Men still come up their way
Not so the Youngster his horns gore Wench's false syntax
IX
The Wench always seeks to milk Old Men in side-burns
Old Men know One-Act Plays don't box-office burgeon
Nor drips invested in banks ensure big returns
Not so the Youngster who banks his bit in oven
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 11,2018
Variations on the Malay Pantun: The Old Man and the Short Story -
IV-VI
Variations on the Malay Pantun: The Old Man and the Short Story (Continued)
for Georges VOISSET, the 'Master Keeper-Nurturer' of the Malay Pantun
Check out: www.stateless.mysite.com/Pantouns-20-Aout-2017.pdf
(The pantun line varies between 8 and 12 syllables and is most commonly found
in the anonymous quatrain form. Cf ' Poietics of the Pantun ', pp.49-67 in T.
Wignesan. Sporadic Striving amid Echoed Voices, Mirrored Images and Stereotypic
Posturing in Malaysian-Singaporean Literatures. Allahabad: Cyberwit,2008,
xix-244p.)
IV
During the intervals of the play the actors
Spy on older folk queueing outside the lone loo
The Wench in the hall twists and turns on spectators
Not so the Youngster his pen stiff in the igloo
V
Middle-aged couples in the audience flick through
The programme not reading even the title page
Long years since they thumbed dog-ear-ed novels stuck in glue
Not so the Youngster who jumps high from page to page
VI
Old Men trundle back to their seats trailing wet patches
Not regretting over-coat flirts with hat-check Wench
Old people read novels in bed but in snatches
Not so the Youngster who throws into works his wrench
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 10,2018
Variations on the Malay Pantun: The Old Man and the Short Story
Variations on the Malay Pantun: The Old Man and the Short Story
for Georges VOISSET, the 'Master Keeper-Nurturer' of the Malay Pantun
Check out: www.stateless.mysite.com/Pantouns-20-Aout-2017.pdf
(The pantun line varies between 8 and 12 syllables and is most commonly found
in the anonymous quatrain form. Cf ' Poietics of the Pantun ', pp.49-67 in T.
Wignesan. Sporadic Striving amid Echoed Voices, Mirrored Images and Stereotypic
Posturing in Malaysian-Singaporean Literatures. Allahabad: Cyberwit,2008,
xix-244p.)
I
The Old Man often stops by the hedge or dark bush
His back to the World, the Youngster can hold his own
The short story is written through spurts in a rush
Not so the novel which calls for much breath word blown
II
The poem most write confines itself to the page
Cousin brother to the short story told in a day
Old Men take less time to leave the Wench in a rage
Not so the Youngster whose novels always end gay
III
Plays are staged with intervals peer to the novel
Essays take longer to read than the short story
The Wench smokes cigarettes waiting to stoke yell
Not so the Youngster whose next essay's more gory
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 9,2018
Villanelle: Five Yin lines on November 6th overcome the top Yang
line
Villanelle: Five Yin lines on November 6th overcome the top Yang line
(Bo, Hexagram 23 (November 6 to December 6) : The mountain falls down on the
earth and crushes it.
Result: neither side wins completely, only broken bones, bruises, bumps and
bleeds in evidence all around.
Guai, Hexagram 43 (May 6 to June 6) : The situation is reversed. Total victory
for those who emulate the Superior Man of the Yi Jing.
Solution: Re-do the electoral calendar - May 6 instead of November 6.)
Five Yin lines on November 6th overcome the top Yang line
Yet the Yang and Yin toil and tussle and leave their feathers shorn
On May 6th five Yang lines reign supreme and oust the lone Yin line
Thunder in autumn rolls down plains hushed in grumbles feline
Zhen the Eldest Son will wake strong in spring resounding new born
Five Yin lines on November 6th overcome the top Yang line
In temperate climes in the northern hemisphere the Laws confine
Both the Yang and the Yin within the Year of Seasons foregone
On May 6th five Yang lines reign supreme and oust the lone Yin line
The electoral calendar then makes both parties anodine
Destined always to quarrel and plunder each other's platform
Five Yin lines on November 6th overcome the top Yang line
Heaven and Earth toil to produce conflict no matter which the line
Hexagrams depict the family constellation all forlorn
On May 6th five Yang lines reign supreme and oust the lone Yin line
Reign of Darkness recedes as winter solstice Light begins to shine
Then the Good in Man if cultivated will thunder and storm
Five Yin lines on November 6th overcome the top Yang line
On May 6th five Yang lines reign supreme and oust the lone Yin line
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 7,2018
Villanelle: What DESIGN made the emerald EARTH defile its lone
joy
Villanelle: What DESIGN made this emerald EARTH defile its lone joy
What DESIGN made this emerald EARTH defile its lone joy
No washer-woman nor City Hall replace Nature's cares
Blow wind blow comb the beaches clean drain the ravines dry
So easy to put the blame on Mars for its first meteor fly
Churn our oceans into crawling Primal Soup unawares
What DESIGN made this emerald EARTH defile its lone joy
H2O is all the planet needs the Monster Man to buy
While in between reptiles birds animals small change scares
Blow wind blow comb the beaches clean drain the ravines dry
Both Man and Beast must replicate much as cells multiply
As eat they must to produce more and more from their rears
What DESIGN made this emerald EARTH defile its lone joy
Till mighty men rise from urns to share power on the sly
With clever men who prey on masses with their must-buy wares
Blow wind blow comb the beaches clean drain the ravines dry
Yet mighty men must let clever men this world with banks buy
Would winds lash the Earth to make ZHEN thunder our world fears
What DESIGN made this emerald EARTH defile its lone joy
Blow wind blow comb the beaches clean drain the ravines dry
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 6th.,2018
Villanelle: If only it were as easy as to turn the clock back
Villanelle: If only it were as easy as to turn the clock back
If only it were as easy as to turn the clock back
Seize the best missed chances men let drop through self-righteous pique
Make learning processes Life's axiom out of lack
Naïve unheeding men bear treacherous women on back
Women who trick playing on heartstrings sympathetique
If only it were as easy as to turn the clock back
Make Alexander believe Zeus his father, alack!
Exiled jealous usurp Philip's throne through palace intrigue
Make learning processes Life's axiom out of lack
Whisper in proud Macbeth's ear words megalomaniac
Sink the Highland Kingdom down black witches' brew in guts sick
If only it were as easy as to turn the clock back
Men who out of pity for the fairer sex their minds wreck
Their mothers' milk still uncurdled in their mouths saveur unique
Make learning processes Life's axiom out of lack
How many the missed opportunities lie crushed on tarmac
Roads traversed in parallel lives might not they criss-cross psychic
If only it were as easy as to turn the clock back
Make learning processes Life's axiom out of lack
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 5th.,2018
Villanelle: How many the men gone had something yet to say
Villanelle: How many the men gone had something yet to say
How many the men gone had something yet to say
Had they not thought found they the answer to Riddle
Who had not wished how often to tell them, yes, ' Nay! '
Had they not come to some end each in his own way
Camus with ' suicide ' the Riddle he would unravel
How many the men gone had something yet to say
Think of the millions whose lives they did waylay
Seize Life with gusto make every moment sizzle
Who had not wished how often to tell them, yes, ' Nay! '
The disciple Mottram would lasting values slay
Others with less heed to creed their lives in a muddle
How many the men gone had something yet to say
Can Husserl's Abstract God replace the Yi Jing's sway
Do Golden Flower Secrets make men of mettle
Who had not wished how often to tell them, yes, ' Nay! '
Yang-Yin interplay ephemeral men dismay
Find his way he must out of the Maze's puzzle
How many the men gone had something yet to say
Who had not wished how often to tell them, yes, ' Nay! '
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 5th.,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXI - Continued-
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY - LXXI
LXXI
IF ever I had a country targeted by no refugee
And if ever I were appointed by the Inter-Planetary Committee KING of this
territory by Inter-Galactic Royal Decree
I'd build wide-gauge rail-roads cushy chopper-pads air-strips twice the size of
Kennedy-cum- Singapore airports spacecraft landing coiffured vistas fairweather
lulled-water harbours boulevards ten-times the girth of Champs Elysée
And there at migrant reception processing posts construct mammoth manufacturing
plants rolling out rocks the size Sisyphus repeatedly rolled up Mount Olympus
then down into the Aegean Sea
And proclaim by sovereign edict that any of my subjects caught FEEDING any
rock-throwing migrant-refugee - though out of my great big charitable heart I'd
authorise every refugee child left-over Halloween candy
I'd have him or her scorched by steel plate-melting torch and dipped into
sizzling hot cauldrons of oil linseed and gingerly
That is, if ever I were enthroned by the Inter-Planeto-Galactic Consortium KING
by royal decree over my territory
And this, even if I never ever had no country bed-rock to no refugee
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 2nd.,2018
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part Two - Continued
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE - Part Two (continued)
(for sweet-teeth kiddies)
IF you pull a long face
And that too on Halloween Day
Mascara and rouge will drip on lace
And Mom will take your candies away
If you pull a long face
Not caring it's All Saints' Day
You're bound to continue losing face
If it falls on a hapless holy Sunday
Yet if you pull a long face
All-Hallows-Tide to All-Souls' Day
It matters little which way you face
West or East you'll rue the day
If you pull a long face
While for the Departed you pray
Under your masks to win them grace
Candies chocs will rain down your way
Yet if you pull a long face
Loads of paint the leer overlay
When the date with Fate unmasks your face
None here might remember you and pray
© T. Wignesan - Paris, November 1st.,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXX - Continued
IF ever I had a country - LXX
LXX
IF ever I had a country a constant prey to another marauding Bully
And if ever by some impardonable mistake I were the intrepid Defence Secretary
I'd not scratch my bald pate devising peaceful ways of turning the cheek with
love brotherhood and humanity to appease the Enemy
I'd simply round up the true villains every secret agent every police chief
politician all their colleagues - what d'ya think - the President y compris
manu militari
Every media baron newspaper and tv editor-in-chief these that kept quiet about
the activities of the secret services every Lodge Master of Free-Masonry
And have them lined-up on the frontiers as canon-fodder while force-marching
them barefoot without ID papers into the jaws of the Bully's iniquity
That is, if ever I were even by error the intrepid Defence Secretary with no
notion of poetry
And even if I never ever had no country prey to a Bully in reality
© T. Wignesan - Paris, Octobre 9,2018
Villanelle: Don't tell me you wouldn't your back-aching life now
forsake
Villanelle: Don't tell me you wouldn't your back-aching life now forsake
Don't tell me you wouldn't your back-aching life now forsake
Not knowing the interminable pleasures of the dark Unknown
When just then Life will beckon you back with a hopeful break
How many can say his life he wouldn't want to once again re-make
To cast it all over again with others retrieve lost chances be alone
Don't tell me you wouldn't your back-aching life now forsake
The more you try the more you mire yourself unable to wake
Till old you get and yet older stay alone your children want you gone
When just then Life will beckon you back with a hopeful break
No baby sucks at the nipple if not out of habit or for boredom's sake
The role of the dividing cell not out of ennui goes on till full-blown
Don't tell me you wouldn't your back-aching life now forsake
Some men know why the Whole Thing-in-Itself must not us wake
To the point where we can see the design behind the curtain sewn
When just then Life will beckon you back with a hopeful break
Aren't we all so damned occupied with a measely wage to make
None will hardly stop to think why the rat-race turns us care-worn
Don't tell me you wouldn't your burdensome life now forsake
When just then Life will beckon you back with a hopeful break
© T. Wignesan - Paris, October 23,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXIX - Continued
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXIX (continued)
LXIX
IF ever I had a country in the shape of a sprawling banyan or rain Tree
And if ever I were the almost human Lord Chimp of the Kingdom of Chimpanzee
I'd secure all the branches plungeing roots leaf-clusters egg-nests and hives
with or without a bee
All only for those with undiluted blue-black blood directly descended from our
Uhr-Father Adam's Dark Continent royal pedigree
And ensure that any vagrant migrant gorilla orang-utan macacque long-tailed
monkey or other heathen rot come to take the heat off his neck or her butt
under the shelter of my bushy tree for free
Be subject to Hail Horror torrents of turds accompanied with hot hissing curses
to make them stink for at least a century
That is, if ever I were the almost human Lord Chimp of the Kingdom of the
Chimpanzee
And even if I never ever had no country shaped like a Wounded Knee
© T. Wignesan - Paris, October 23,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXVII - LXVIII
If Ever I Had A Country...(Continued) : LXVII - LXVIII
LXVII
IF ever I had a country what even Guatemalans would avoid in their hurry
And if ever I were the unfortunate illiterate Mnister of Culture
I'd make it point of telling every marching migrant what awaits them at
destination: ' spooktacular '
Where goblins witches alchemists with Gorgon dreadlocks veritable Dvarapalas
would enslave them in Konzentrazions-lager
Would make them eat their own tongues for want of soup-kitchen swill or horse
fodder
Would drive them up greasy poles and down barbed tanks full of pirana in mad
rage hunger
That is, if ever I were the inculte Minister of Culture
And even if I never ever had no country worth a penny
LXVIII
IF ever I had a free-for-all take-it or leave-it country
And if ever I were condemned to accept as a penalty the post of Culture
Secretary
I'd publish a never-ending list of all the banned Holy-Days in the calender
Easter St. Patrick's Day X-mas Epiphany July the 4th and the 14th Ascension
Diwali Ramadan-Eid-il-fitr Universal Day of Labour
And in their place make Halloween every other day holier
In order NASDAQ break all records through sale of sweets cakes ice-cream
snickers toffees and karambar
That is, if ever I were forced to serve as Culture Secretary
And even if I never ever had no country so silly
© T. Wignesan - Paris, October 21,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXVI
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXVI
LXVI
IF ever I had even a third-rate useless country
And if ever I were say by wishful thinking put in-charge of the Propaganda
Ministry
I would campaign to enthrone a Law as an inalienable right of every citizen or
migrant
To publicly proclaim and denounce by any means at his disposal if he had
incontrovertible
……..evidence on any culprit
Who was the author of some tort or crime - without having to pay some lawyer -
against ……..himself or some other knitwit
And have this Law enshrined into the Constitution large and loud writ
That is, if ever through even wishful thinking I were the Propaganda Secretary
And even if I never ever had no third-rate useless country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, October 5,2018
DIARY NOTES: Another Day sets in Paris
DIARY NOTES: Mad-House Maths
March 30th.,2018 - Another day sets in Paris
The home-bound Octogenarian trundles from the Mall's town centre
Back laden with the day's shopping
His hands numb from clutching load-packed plastic bags during the two Kms and
more
The sore reddish-smudge of a sun cocks an eye over the jagged rim of the
horizon's darkening clouds at early dusk
Some chick warbler tries its strength hopping on grim bold knobbly dark
outstretched arms as cherry blossoms drop pink and violet on the scuffed grass
instead of sprinkling snow fluffs
Massive stone or glittering glass official buildings: ' palaces ' or ' hotels
' in catering country
hardly impress the growing migrant force in the open shrub-lined plaza
puffing hookah-groups form around barbecue grills
while foot and basket-balls sting town-hall annexe walls
to the tune of revving engines on lone stunt-back wheels
the long night vigil commences anew
All in view of the Zen-Pagoda High Court
looming over the sprawling UPEC faculty complex right across the local ' Palais
' shopping centre
The Octo thought he heard a cuckoo call
Or was it the turtle dove moaning its mate from last Fall
Weary of repairing his second-hand twenty-year old Laguna
Sabotaged at every turn
He settles for the cheapest car on the market: the basic Spandero
No catalogue spells out its dashboard or engine layout
He slumps into the brand-new humpless driver's seat
To see how he might adapt the old radio for some Miles Davis mind-soul rap
A sleek black limousine pulls up behind
Out jump three men
two old plumpy Andaluzian-looking dressed in rags
the third metizo-Black tall and athletic tough in civil light pull-over
They adjust police arm-bands and block both the passenger and driver's seats
They command the Octo out of his own car
The Black shoves him to the back
' You are in possession of arms ', he says
' Empty your pockets, here, on the roof '
The Octo has hardly the time to react
As the Black frisks him and shuffs his hands in the Octo's pockets
and roughs him up
The other short squat gentleman grabs his official Research Fellow ID card
and checks it out in the limousine's tele-speaker electronic wares
Meantime the tall wide-girthed senior gentleman has edged his way to the open
driver door and beckons with outstretched arm: ' The car keys! '
The Octogenarian protests mildly: ' Why do you want my keys? '
' We are the Judiciary Police, ' he retorts. ' If you don't handover the keys,
We'll put you under garde à vue! '
That's 48 hours in a police cell, with no way probably of taking daily cardiac
condition pills. The Octo relents. The keys contain the security lock key as
well.
The gentleman with the ID returns and rails at the Octogenarian.
' What are you researching? Are you looking for ways to becoming a fauteur des
troubles? '
That's a trouble-maker.
The gentleman in the car has obviously trouble finding machine-guns and
bazookas hidden under the car seats.
He hands over the car keys. Before they pull out, the Black warns:
'We know you. We'll be watching out for you when you move about the vicinity! '
The very next day, the Octogenarian pens a letter relating exactly what
happened and mails it under registered cover with acknowledgement of receipt to
the Chief Public Prosecutor (the Procureur de la République) of the region. The
Octogenarian has just received a letter, dated August 20,2018, from the
latter's office stating that 'no criminal proceedings will be engaged as the
facts revealed in this suit are not punishable according to the dispositions of
any penal text.'
Some ten days after his letter to the Chief Public Prosecutor, the Octogenarian
found all the doors of his car left open and the contents of the glove
compartment spilled on the floor.
He then receives an official document, a month or so later, signed by the
Public Prosecutor's Office stating that his car had been clocked for speeding
at 124 km on a highway where the speed-limit was 110 in the North-Western
region of Paris at 9.42 a.m., and a fine was imposed which if paid without
contestation would amount to 68 euros.
Since the Octogenarian has never ever been in that area in his life, he follows
the procedure laid out and pays the fine, but asks for the PHOTO/Cliché taken
by the traffic-control authorities, for the Public Prosecutor's office also
required him to undertake criminal proceedings against ' the culprit ' who may
or may not have stolen his car on that fateful day in order to effect the
change in the number plates and the car papers all over again.
The fine was refunded, but the PIC recording the offence has yet to arrive.
Strictly speaking, the Octogenarian cannot undertake criminal proceedings
without proof of the offence.
In any case, who should he sue? The Judicial Police? the Traffic Police? or
the Public Prosecutor? Or some mythical Car-Thief with an axe to grind?
Sol de France franchi
Terre d'asile psychiatrique
© T. Wignesan - Paris, September 11,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXIV and LXV
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXIV - LXV
NOTE (facts to bear in mind while reading) : Under the French Penal Code, harm
done to the infirm, minors and seniors (i.e. over 65) is punishable up to
fifteen years in prison, coupled with commensurable fines. In the case of the
octogenarian in question, even his ' Family and Accident ' insurance policy to
which he subscribed for decades didn't net him, in all, more than 150 euros so
far over the near-fatal accident.
According to dated statistics one can come upon, ONE in every four Commissaires
de Police (police post chief) and Judge or Magistrate is a free-mason in
France. Free-Masons are generally referred to as ' les frères ', that is, '
brothers '; yet, there is one Obedience or Lodge reserved only for the fairer
sex, and another, ' Le Droit Commun ', meant for both sexes.
It is a well-known fact that tourists composing nearly one and a half times the
French population come to or traverse the French territory every year.
LXIV
If ever I had a Country within a country
And if ever I were O! Forbid! the Grand Orient Grand Master of French Free-
Masonry*
I'd put in a straight-jacket the O! So! toasted-Caïd Son of a Mediterrannean
Migrant-Refugee
Who provided a secure eagle-perch in his migrant over-run township for the
octogenarian's ex-spouse of the same ethnic minority
The latter police gang-raped infant-abandoning heroïne later a highly-placed
Police-cum-S.S. Judiciary-licking dignitary
And put them in the same lunatic cell for life to share their belly-bursting
experiences in subjecting the octogenarian to Tunisio-Maghrebian and Semitic
scull-duggery
That is, if ever O! Forbid! I were the Grand Orient Grand Master of French
Free-Masonry
And even if I never ever had no Country under no Free-Masonic country
*Note: Reputedly more powerful than the Chief Executive. Check in this
sequence LXII-LXIII.
LXV
IF ever I had a Country within a country
And if ever I were O! Forbid! the Grand Orient Grand Master of French Free-
Masonry
I'd put behind bars without trial every hospital-assistant nurse medical
technician clinical-year student doctor dentist hospital personnel who probably
under orders or not or out of mental insalubrity
Injures infects inflicts iniquities on the infirm and undertakes subtly-masked
attempts on their lives or falsifies documents with impugnity
Since the elected celebrities of the country only use-up their limited time in
office to attack the opposition parties to justify their vaunted image via the
media in any democracy
And are obliged to rely on polls and employment statistics to shine with ghostwritten
speeches on the World Stage while priding themselves on the domestic
tourist-based make or break economy
That is, if ever O! Forbid! I were the Grand Orient Grand Master of French
Free-Masonry
And even if I never ever had no Country under no Free-Masonic country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, September 9,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXII and LXIII
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXII - LXIII
LXII
If ever I had a country with streets under graffiti
And if ever I were the Minister of Transport who travels about for free
I'd give a free ride to the Minister of Justice Home Secretary and the Chief
Executice - yes, all three
To this township run by the waxworks looked-up to Caïd son of a refugee
To watch how I paint every allée rue boulevard and avenue with zebra-crossings
down on my knee
To remind the Police the Pompiers de Paris politicos and motorists that the
speed limit on the stripes is under thirty
That is, if ever I were the Minister of Transport who travels about doing
nothing for free
And even if I nerver ever had no country with no streets under graffiti
LXIII
IF ever I had a country with streets under graffiti
And if ever I were put in-charge of the traffic by the Transport Secretary
I'd tell the World that no-where else in the Universe(s) a migrant Tunisian
speeding motorist can toss up and knock down an octogenarian pedestrian and get
off scot-free
That is on a zebra-crossing at the entrance to a primary school right under a
speed-limit signpost marked in red ' 30 ' thirty
Where the victim's heart shocked into arhythmic beat coped with cranial trauma
multiple head-to-toe wounds fracture writhed in pain in the thick of winter in
over an hour and a half's agony
First denied and later delayed for years Police and Fire-Brigade reports
minimise the octogenarian's condition as a mere inconsequential injury
That is, if ever I were put in-charge of the traffic in this lawless overmigrant-
run township territory
And even if I never ever had no country with no streets under graffiti
© T. Wignesan - Paris, September 7,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LX and LXI
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LX - LXI
The Yijing says: ' If the common folk commit crimes, the fault for them shall
reside with this one person (i.e., the Sovereign) himself… ' Transl. R. J. Lynn
The common taken-for-granted French adage proclaims:
' Sol de France franchi
Terre d'asile '
which simply means: ' Set foot on French soil
(And) you're on (political) asylum territory '
Forty-six years ago, I was traveling on a two-week ' visit permit ', with my 4-
year old son and his mother, from Madrid to London and almost overnight got
stuck in Paris as a single parent (yes, laugh out loud) , and for me the above
adage reads as follows:
' Sol de France franchi
Terre d'asile psychiatrique '
That is: 'Set foot on French soil
(And) you're in lunatic asylum country'
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LX -LXI
LX
If ever I had not just a country
And if ever I were wedged in between the TWO States of this country
To free myself I'd first ask myself which State embodies real authority
The shady lasting ONE run by the Free-Masonic Grand Master
Or the elected ONE managed somehow by the President and the Prime Minister*
Who knows the truth knows who goes to whom to pass muster
That is, if ever I were wedged in between two colliding States in within one
Country
And even if I never ever had no State in no Country
'Note: In France, the CEOs who exert influence in some areas of governmental
authority are ' traditionally '
appointed by the Grand Master of some Masonic Obedience or Lodge like the Grand
Orient (and they are five in number) .
The Prime Minister Monsieur Jean-Pierre RAFFARIN (May 6,2002 to May 31,2005
under Jacques Chirac's presidency) wanted to
retain his choice, François Roussely, as the head of the Electricity Board
(EDF, one of the major mainstays of the French economy which
peddled lucrative favours to its self-chosen fancied counsellors.) Try as he
may even legally, the project failed to hold since the Conseil Constitutionnel
ruled it foul as the candidate had just then attained retirement age at 65, and
he was replaced by Pierre Gadonneix, who
then headed the Gas de France, the candidate over-whelmingly supported by the
former Grand Master of the Grand Orient, Alain Bauer.
Humiliated and cowed, Raffarin tended his resignation as PM to President
Jacques Chirac.
Cf. Sophie Coignard's book: Un Etat dans l'Etat, Le contre-pouvoir maçonnique.
Paris: Albin Michel,2009.
LXI
If ever I had not just a country
And if ever Tunisian turds streamed down my Stateless Country*
I'd bore a tiny hole in the right place to sink the Ship of State
Rather than let the ceiling cave in through Migrant hate
Or let the stinking rotting floor boards give under my bed weight
All this in a country over-run by lawless migrants upheld by either State
That is, if ever Tunisian turds streamed down my Stateless Territory
And even if I never ever had no State in no Country
'See PIC at authorsden.com/twignesan3
© T. Wignesan - Paris, September 5,2018
Letter to Ronald Hull on his comment on Diary Notes: Lament at
Dawn
LETTER to RON' Diary Notes: Lament at Dawn - A Year Ago Yet Now No Change '
Reviewed by Ronald Hull
8/19/2018
'Quite a lament! The state of Paris at dawn. Just the thought of sewage seeping
down through the walls gives me the willies. Yes, Paris is not the same. But
has it ever been? Always being overrun by the disenfranchised from the world
over. Making their mark in art and artistry. Creating the trends.'
At www.authorsden.com/visit/cat_poetry.asp
Bonjour Ron!
True, Paris was a trend-setter in the Arts
A magnet not only for the disenfranchised
Hemingway Fitzgerald Henry Miller Durrell Anaïs Nin
Burroughs Joyce Picasso
Baldwin Wright Sekoto
Later expatriate hordes imitated their life-styles
And fell far short of their weight in words
And you must agree Paris has since given way
To other renegade catalysing milieux
NY London Berlin Amsterdam LA
To name en passim just a few
What has changed in between
Is that the français de souche
Justly proud but
Drunk arrogant with their Napoleonic past
Let the last Mohican
De Gaulle
bear the brunt of decadent glory
Such that even the well-entrenched
Well internationally-knit
Jewish community
Victims of Petain Vichy
Collaboraters of the NAZI
Are beating a retreat
In the face of Maghrebian dual-nationality
Being substituted in power positions professions
and in the art of enticing the mademoiselle
though the Jewess preferred the eminent French
Asians not to be un-done
Have poured through in chain-gang droves
To colonise arrondissements
Not to mention 93rd and 94th départements
Cambodians Formosans Vietnamese Laotians Chinese
Indians Pakistanis Bangladeshis Sri-Lankanese
Iranians Turks Egyptians Syrians Iraqis
Yugoslavians Poles Spaniards Russians Italians Portuguese
All crowd out the local menial work market
And the lucrative spicy import-export racket
Though only one Nobel Gao Xin-jian
Left to wonder in expatriate limbo alone
The French love their leisure and pleasure
Love to dine out disappear on an August trot-about
Lose themselves in the heights of February ski vacations
Slumber through Christmas confessions
Find less and less workdays in May
There's nothing wrong in that
Who would not say
But can they count more than two establishments
In the first hundred top university list of accomplishments
But migrants hard on their heels
Quick to take offence at Sarkozy's
Sarcastic ' Riff-Raff ' compliments
Rail rage burn and sack the capital
To fray a disrupting brêche
Into the higher echelons around Elysée Palace
Everyone knows the custom here is
Hoodwink the Law if you can with ease
And no one's more adept at this game
Than the migrant still to make a name
© T. Wignesan - Paris, August 19,2018
Diary Notes: Lament at Dawn - A Year Ago Yet Now No Change
Diary Notes: Lament at Dawn A Year Ago and yet now No Change
………………………………………..…at the heart of the chef lieu township
ten-ton buses throb empty
…………………………………….their drivers slumped in the heat
….behind their steering wheels listening to their favourite stations
………hot full of drowsy hissed talk on the pregnancy of pop stars
at junctions…overhead drives…bridges…roundabouts….crossroads
…..you see mothers with shopping bags dragging woeful tearful
………………..toddlers waiting at traffic lights where no traffic waits
the air disgorges itself of fumes
………………….and no birds would sing to a deserted plain
……..at the academy building where garden warblers vied with larks
aspiring choruses at street operas
…………..only the abandoned rickety scaffolding drip with stale paint
(since the staid Academy preens itself with fresh paint face-lift)
the Great Tit so insistent in her quest
…….driven away with late June cracker blasts at midnight
…………has joined some vagrant migrant lot to the Mediterranean mists
only stray magpies quarrel in undertones swearing cursing scraping the mind
……..pigeons and turtle doves forage along pathways mocking foot-falling steps
…the route round the back of the Prefecture for a year now is closed to the
public
……..(there at the mall end this year a fountain spouts from under the beatendown
rushes and showers on itself into the lake: the Canada geese and swan no
longer dry themselves on the bank along the cemented gated walk)
………..a reminder to the Charlie Hebdo ISIS fiasco
and the joggers take to the thoroughfare in their tell-tale whallop-y shorts
…….at the kinder-gartens lone working mothers hang out with texting iPhones for
the evening bell
the beggars…..all……gone to sun themselves (yes…this's cruel) on the Riviera
…….leaving four wizened figures (now there's only the dazed recalcitrant Pole)
long un-paying residents by the law faculty mounds
seated next to next on the sidewalk stone bridge barrier in their unwashed
best……………exchanging unkempt bearded memories
……….like the kids they may have been at tenement blocks on an abandoned
culvert…………..without bikes nor toys
…………the skies cloud over and dissipate without complaint
now and then Atlantic winds bring news of thunder
…………………………………………………and have us short-changed
……the last we heard was the early morning 5.20 metro pull out of its shed
at the drug-and-grocery stores….supermarkets…..only the migrant lot meet to
chat
…………..the Mall stays chockfull of lush-green girls dressed in their mothers'
best
…………………..looking for a fix
…..the queues thin at the chemist's
…………………………………………………security guards tire of looking into bags
……..their migrant conniving smiles tell-tale some privately-stached thought
perhaps at some chance encounter or at some pungent lascivious repartee
……the Maghreb-ian neighbours still won't give up their heedless tapage
……….you can even hear their gasping breath on creaking boards and floors while
their adeptly trained children drop at all hours of the day or night bags of
marbles to keep time with their high Tutsi booted hops
(only this year again they deliberately let their toilet spill and seep under
the parquet boards to flood your cramped book-lined quarters and the basement
caves
all for the irrepressible merriment of the local authorities bent on evicting
you at last)
those who come and go at the entrance still spy on the locks and keyholes of
your battered door……..theirs to pick and click at will
………..waiting to tell the gardienne or some official still on vacation
the usual figures flit through the early light to dig into the rubbish bins
with bare hands
…………..lepers of our remains
………………………………………………….where do they bunk
………………in what mountain hold or time
silently busy…….not-caring
…………………………………………………what the world might think
© T. Wignesan - Paris, August 24,2017, updated August 18,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LVIII and LIX
IF ever I had a country: LVIII - LIX
LVIII
IF ever I had a fantasy country
And if ever I were left to choose a country existing in reality
I'd certainly opt for a country not run by one who studied philosophy
For the simple reason you can blame any other kind of dope for sheer hypocrisy
For not having studied philosophy and pretending to be very democracy savvy
Especially when the victims* of the country's secret services can hit back at
the ruling party
That is, if ever I were left to choose a non-hypocritical country existing in
reality
And even if I never ever had no country (not) up to my fancy
Note: * It's a published fact that a French writer and literary anchor on
French TV (whom I once met, in 1974, selling his self-published book in the
streets of the Latin Quarter) never slept in the same bed for fourteen months
for the late President François Mitterrand had ordered the secret services to
snuff this son of an Admiral out. His ' crime d'Etat ' happened to be a
manuscript he authored on the President's daughter whose mother was his
mistress while in office. The ' crime ' however was expunged when the author in
the presence of TV cameras burnt the manuscript at the portals of the Elysée
Presidential Palace.
LIX
IF ever I had a phantasmagorical country
And if ever I were left to choose a country existing in reality
I'd certainly not opt for a country where the S.S. and the Police drug gangrape
and press-gang the mother of your infant son with impugnity
Nor opt for a so-called champion human rights country which hinders your every
step and plunges you into solipsistic ignominy
Keeps you embroiled in litigation instituted managed and obstructed by nearsighted
authority
While it siphons and floods your tiny ground-floor apartment with the precious
toilet refuse of fourteen storeys of family
That is, if ever I were left to choose a country existing in reality
And even if I never ever had no country to fancy
© T. Wignesan - Paris, August 17,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LVI and LVII
IF ever I had a country: LVI - LVII
LVI
IF ever I had a Stateless country
And if ever I were a Stateless Person citizen patriot ready to lay my life down
for the statelessness of my country
I'd ask myself first who rules in this Country without a State to make it a
country
Whether this Stateless State is in a State without a country and/or without
membership in the international community
Or a country without legitimate citizens to elect those who represent the State
with or without democracy
Or whether the One-Party State is better for the Stateless Person citizen than
the divided-state of the system of the non-Nicomachean Two-Party dog-eat-dog
bi-cameral idiocy
That is, if ever I were a Stateless Person citizen with Stateless Nationality
in my country
And even if I never ever had no citizenship in no Stateless country
LVII
IF ever I had a Stateless country
And if ever I were a Stateless Person citizen patriot upholding with my life
the Statelessness of my country
Would I exist in a state of Statelessness along with other Stateless Persons in
a State without a country
In a State without a State University to award certificates of statelessnesses
as a statutory degree
A State without the usual ecstatic state of political inadequacies iniquities
and other abnormal psychological incompatibility
In other words a State over which all normal countries would be eager to wage
heroic war in order to exercise their authority
That is, if ever I were a Stateless Person citizen patriot upholding with my
life the Statelessness of my country
And even if I never ever had to call my own no Stateless country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, August 15,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LIV and LV
IF ever I had a country: LIV - LV
LIV
IF ever I had even at an Event Horizon a country
And if ever I were by self-arrogated Divine Right His or Her Imperial Majesty
I'd clamp in pig-irons every one of the Courtiers y compris Sir Walter Raleigh
For any offence thought not to be higher or lower than lèse majesté
And have them all dumped in the cramped Black Hole of Calcutta without pity
For plotting and planning some centuries hence the Art of Conning the People
through Democratic Demon-o-kratie
That is, if ever I were by self-arrogated Divine Right His or Her Imperial
Majesty
And even if I never ever had at any Event Horizon no country
LV
IF ever I had even at an Event Horizon a country
And if ever I were by self-arrogated Divine Right the Heir Apparent future
Imperial Majesty
I'd sit on His Majesty's Crown of stolen diamonds opels moonstones and gilded
finery
To warn all my Princes Princesses Lords Ladies Dukes and Marquis on bended knee
That I'd send them forthwith down pitch-black Black Hole for standing uppity on
their assumed Noble Ancestry
And remind them all every one of us are descended sans exception from the Black
African humanity Tree
That is, if ever I were by self-arrogated Divine Right the Heir Apparent future
Imperial Majesty
And even if I never ever had at no Event Horizon a country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, August 13,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LII and LIII
IF ever I had a country: LII - LIII
' How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game '
Extracted from Bob Dylan's ' Hurricane '
LII
IF ever I had by error stumbled upon a country
And if ever I were a resident in an area run by the son of a Mediterranean
refugee
I'd say to this powder-puff Madame Tussaud clay-face sooner rather than later
(t) his realm I'll flee to be free
For all the migrant force he currys favour with gratuitous doles from the
common coffers fee
To turn them into replica models of his own wax-works jamboree
Will melt under the sun of his own exposure into insipid putrid curry
That is, if ever I were tortured to my dying day by this mis-leading son of a
refugee
And even if I never ever had stumbled by error into no such country
LIII
If ever I had by error stumbled upon a country
And if ever I were subject to the Third Degree by the Maudit Son of a refugee
Who commands his grass-mowing corps to funnel exhaust fumes into my hovel
square metres under thirty
Who provokes other Mediterranean mugs mitoyen-masons to stuff my abode with
merde and pee
Who protects and pushes the Co-Proprietors' Council Administrator and Janitorcouple
confrérerie
To keep me from getting even a night's sleep in twenty years from the migrant
crowd cacaphonic battery
That is, even if I were about to die I'd say find yourself another wax-work
victim who cannot repartee
And even if I never ever stumbled by error into no such country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, August 10,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: L and LI
IF ever I had a country: L - LI
L
IF ever I had even in my dreams a country
And if ever I dreamt I were the Minister of Defence
I'd order every single soldier airman sailor or M.P. not to take offence
At the guns cannons missiles rockets depth-charges torpedoes or crackers across
the fence
Aimed at US by other soldiers airmen sailors and M.P.s unaware of comeuppance
Lest the word get around in our background I was talking nonsense
That is, if ever I dreamt I were the Minister of Defence
And even if I never ever had in my dreams no imaginary country
LI
IF ever I had even in my dreams a country
And if ever I dreamt I were the Defence Secretary
I'd make it an impardonable offence for every soldier airman sailor or M.P. I
embody
To think that right across the fence every soldier airman sailor or M.P. was
not my enemy
And I'd fire every last soldier airman sailor or M.P. on or off-duty
Who did not fire his machine-gun cannon missile rocket torpedo at every Tom
Dick or Harry
That is, if ever I dreamt I were the Defence Secretary
And even if I never ever had even in my dreams no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, August 9,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XLVIII and XLIX
IF ever I had a country: XLVIII - XLIX
XLVIII
If ever I had even on a rocky wayward moon of a gaseous planet a country
And if ever through successive assassinations of previous party cronies I were
the Minister of Labour
I'd instantly expose those in government who fiddle employment statistics in
their favour
Such as fictive employments of high class ladies fairies cousins camp-followers
or paramours
Especially of those who get elected by courting the few hundred new migrant
citizens of colour
In their tiny village hamlet or township constituencies of no particular worth
or valour
That is, if ever through successive assassinations of previous party cronies I
were the Minister of Labour
And even if I never ever had no rocky wayward moon of a gaseous planet country
XLIX
If ever I had a country even in a parallel universe galaxy
And if ever through successive mis-counts in previous elections I became the
Labour Secretary
I'd overnight put an end to the farce of allowing charitable organizations play
Robin Hood with hard-earned money
Prohibit under threat of castration the printing of thick unread colourful
magazines with starving children charitable beggars subject to sodomy
And save the over 60% tax-deduction amounts to balance the budget in every poor
country
While giving to thrifty research and caring aid bodies who contribute to the
quality of life one $ or € deducted from every salary
That is, if ever through successive mis-counts in previous elections I became
the Labour Secretary
And even if I never ever in any parallel universe had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, August 7,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XLVI and XLVII
IF ever I had a country: XLVI - XLVII
XLVI
IF ever I had in Andromeda a country
And if ever by rights I were the Chief Collision-Conglomerate Six-Star
Plenipotentiary
I'd moot and execute a permanent plan for the establishment of a concentration
camp penitentiary
For all the Milky Way terrestrial chieftain priests and leaders of the twentytwenty-
first century
During the aeons-long Andromeda Purification-Invasion of our choked and soured
Milky Way of uniting humanity
And set up the Sixty-Four Wise Yijing Learned Men and Women Councils to rule
each and every confounded in-human country
That is, if ever by rights I were the Chief Collision-Conglomerate Six-Star
Plenipotentiary
And even if I never ever had in Andromeda no blasted country
XLVII
IF ever I had in Andromeda a country
And if ever by rights I were the Six-Star Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief of
the Milky Way invasion
I'd warn all Inter-Stellar Fleet admirals and generals to guard against sharp
human practices ruses and gifts of pretension
Marked by the human mania for masking their faces crown of heads bellies but
not bums and their servile submission
To lying cheating imitating stealing back-biting fornicating bum-licking
maiming killing and splitting the Almighty for selfish possession
All for the sake of amassing more money more pleasure more fame more pride more
hatred more envy more of everything as their only ethnic life-mission
That is, if ever by rights I were the Six-Star Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief
of the Milky Way invasion
And even if I never ever had in Andromeda no green patch or parcel of a country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, August 3,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XLIV and XLV
IF ever I had a country: XLIV - XLV
XLIV
IF ever I had a country even beyond this galaxy
And if ever I were by no stretch of the mind the very first - ever - educated
Minister of Education
I'd install television cameras in every class-room and lecture hall so that the
entire population
Whether always asleep born dead drugged or driven out of its mind by the '
quality ' of television
Can get an idea of the kind of authoritarian drilling to which our poor
innocent children are subject to manipulation
And leave it to each dutiful parent to lynch or waylay the culprits to
administer the appropriate correction
And this, if ever I were by no stretch of the mind the very first ever educated
Minister of Education
And even if I never ever had even beyond this galaxy no country
XLV
If ever I had a country even beyond this galaxy
And if ever by no stretch of the mind I were the first ever educated Education
Secretary
I'd make it a capital crime - the act of plundering student minds - of the
first degree
Any teacher thesis director who steals the candidate's research y compris
member of the viva jury
Who then publishes the same under his or her name en toute impunity
I'll have their plagiarised erudite works put on the Index Librorum
Prohibitorum and ban them from the profession for lacking pedigree
That is, if ever I were by no stretch of the mind the first ever educated
Education Secretary
And even if I never ever had even beyond this galaxy no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, August 1st,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XLII and XLIII
IF ever I had a country in this galaxy: XLII - XLIII
XLII
IF ever I had a country in this galaxy
And if ever by no stretch of the imagination I were the Minister of Information
I'd make it my sworn duty to pin up on every door long lists of the crimes of
hypocrisy
Like which nations carried out nuclear tests to pollute the air and seas far
from their country
Like which nation talks tough about maintaining the peace with nuclear thunder
war after war in history
Like which nation actually used the fission bomb over civilian cities and the
never-ending lists of casualty
That is, if ever by no stretch of the imagination I were the Minister of
Information
And even if I never ever had no country in this galaxy
XLIII
If ever I had a country in this galaxy
And if ever by no stretch of the imagination I were the no double-speak Press
Secretary
On the top of the lists of the crimes of hypocrisy I'd pinpoint my first query
How is it a tiny nuclear power country in the Mid-East is not party to the
Disarmament Treaty
Who made it possible after the demise of Colonialism now nearly half a century
That this same country shackles an entire people under the guise of preserving
its inalienability
That is, if ever by no stretch of the imagination I were the no double-speak
Press Secretary
And even if I never ever had in this galaxy no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 31,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XXXIX and XLI
If ever I had a country: XXXIX - XLI
XXXIX
If ever I had a country
And if ever by some fluke I were the Minister of Trade and Commerce
I'd round up these Protected Species of vicious witches who live off the fat of
the tenement purse
In cohorts with the ' assured ' companies and the conniving hoard of expert '
kick-back ' curse
I'd line them all up and get the duped flat owners to kick boot holes in their
puffy sagging backs
Have them stewed in pig-fat cauldrons tarred feathered and pilloried on
stinking rubbish stacks
That is, if ever I were by fluke the Minister of Trade and Commerce
And even if I never ever had in Gaie Paree no country
XLI
If ever I had a country
And if ever by fluke I were the Trade and Commerce Secretary
I'd bundle them all up and send them home to their menopaused Mediterranean Sea
Seek ferret out and topple those who protect them ensconced in the coulisses of
local authority
And oblige the Natives to do the easy ' dirty ' work instead of just that of
hard adultery
Such that even the Poles who la-di-da with exotic Migrants will return to their
Catholicity
That is, if ever I were by fluke the Trade and Commerce Secretary
And even if I never ever had in Gaie Paree no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 27,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XXXVII and XXXVIII
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XXXVII - XXXVIII
XXXVII
If ever I had a country
And if ever by some magic I were the Minister of Housing Development
I'd make it my life-long mission by swearing upon it as a Holy Sacrement
To rush to the rescue of every poor defenceless and distraught old tenant
At the mercy of villainous old women pests who run or administer housing
tenements
With beaks claws sharp canines of vultures hyenas who suck vampirically
emoluments
That is, if ever I were by some magic the Minister of Housing Development
And even if I never ever had in Gaie Paree no country
XXXVIII
If ever I had a country
And if ever by some magic I were the Housing Development Secretary
I'd ordain ripped from every thesaurus encyclopaedia and dictionary
Words which denote or connote that special breed of vilely hissing spying
bodies
Concierge Housekeeper Portero Janitor and all such idiotic parasitic
discrepancies
And free the sleepless care-worn tenement city populations from these harpies
That is, if ever by some magic I were the Housing Development Secretary
And even if in Gaie Paree I never ever had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 26,2018
The Select Poetry Class
The Select Poetry Class
………………………………. the idea is to aver the overt statement
appear somewhere ……… even if it stultifies…
in rarefied realms sophisticate
………………… tuck the image in wayward
by all means deride the rhymer
………………. as the pen buckles under the eye's
squint-eyed callousness
some cribbed unfinished line
……….. a well-named bird say thrush
leaving its claw-prints
…………………………………… clear
……… perspicacious
…………………… on early-sprinkled snow
It matters little
…………………………. in fact
………………………………… not at all
where the thought laid off
nor which the word
………………………………… betrayed the thought
…… matters only ………… the elegant sway of the
print
…………. the spare rustle rice paper feel
then dress the thought the way the club ordains and practises
pressed with care
………………………….. the demure pleats of the skirt
all in assumed array
…………………………………. for no rhymed reason
still the hopping bird about to take flight
the impression must give the feel
……………………………………………………. something must not seem
to be said
………………..'tis enough to let the words
slide along the secluded path
…. rare
……………. bold
………………………… used in its obsolescent sense
No way the Select
……………………………. must condescend to court
the Internet
they only write within behind closed-club sessions
……………………….. the idea is not to have
les foies…
' sa hautaine foi apparaissait en filigrane
……………………………………………………………… dans ses paroles '
NOTES
'avoir les foies' means 'to be scared to death' and the rest in French means:
his words hardly veiled his haughty creed or (as in this piece) manner of
writing.
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 19,2018
The art of saying what cannot be for Harriet Monroe
The art of saying what cannot be
………………………………………..for Harriet Monroe
… said
………………or need not be
What's the difference if you call tinnitus or l'acouphène a 'tintement, a
'buzzing', a 'chuintement', a 'whistling', or pure sounds of music: it is
still not stilled in him who lies still.
……………………… he left his spectacles on a narrow ledge
and pulled the lever
………….to let the trough down
slopping mélange of cement paint and the sneeze of bird droppings carried by
swirling winds
… did he fear his glasses would come
off
……… or was it just the fear of mélange slurp on his glasses
… a near-full trough wobbled with the first jerk of the pulley
… a treacle of a drop streaked thick
chased by a heart-shaped losange
…………… long before the splash hit the ground
he thought of whom he might excise
………………. from his last will and testament
with a vengeful codicil
……………………….. the greediest
………………………........... the laziest
or the great spenders
he might not have thought it important
but was it the moment his foot caught
the snake coils of a rope high
on the scaffolding
…………… did he think he heard a saffron-robed monk
knock the tool-box down in haste
a faux pas he felt was not to his taste
……………….. at least at that very moment
still he let himself be led
…………………………. half-blind into
realms not so bizarre
………………………… after all
with only the colliding tinnitus
…………… reverbrating in his ears
What would anyone think
if he or she would come upon his eyeless specs:
' … best to leave said or unheard things alone… '
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 23,2018
Translation of David Broza's Ay Amor Que seria de mi, Lyrics by E
N Glass
Translation of David Broza's '! Ay Amor! Que seria de mi! ' by T. Wignesan
(I'm not certain if this' s the original title of the lyrics composed by Eitan
Nahmias GLASS. My translation is made from the translation into Spanish by
Javier RUIBAL, I presume, from the original Hebrew. I cannot help feeling that
Consuelo's ' Bésamé Mucho ' lyrics are at the root of much similar compositions
ever since the early radio versions. The music and the virtuoso vocal
performance, of course, belongs to David BROZA, himself, and is included in the
TODO O NADA 2002 album of extremely catchy memorable and remarkable lyrical
ballads in the folk or ' unrequited love ' Romantic vein, such as, the
dramatically nostalgic and elegiac title song: ' Todo o Nada ', itself. His
intimate voice and the haunting melodies reach deep into one's psyche and
appropriate one's awareness of even one's self: the identification of one's
sensibilities with the tragic themes becomes instantaneous and wholesome, such
is the magic of his voice, their rich aptly controlled musical modulations and
compassionate confessional tones. The Andalusian or Gypsy evocations in the
music add to the urgency of the intense feelings expressed through highly
dramatic and elegiac strains in Lorcan Canto Jondo fashion. I give the Spanish
translation here with the appropriate acknowledgements unless this may be
construed as a breach of rights, in which case I'll delete the addition should
I be required to do so. - T. Wignesan)
O! Love! What would become of me!
If my lips forget the taste of yours
And some dark presage of pain
Lights my way on to the wreck
Of seeing you desert me
O! Love! What would become of me!
If in the realm of water I have need of your sea
And at the balcony of your bodily casing I cannot lean over
If the road that leads to you should lose its way
O! Love! What would be my fate!
Even before the heart might throb
At the juncture where we bid farewell
Even before the century of bullets
Undermines reason
Even before it could turn poisonous
The blood of the roses of Eden
Trap me in your mouth for my own good
If tomorrow the summer dries up the jasmin flowers
And in vain my eyes water your garden
And lets fall into my hands a lethal thorn
O! My Darling! What do you think could happen to me?
If the thrust of the wound traverses the threshold
Where Life and the Void were to get severed by chance
If you're not there to receive me in your bosom when I arrive
O! My Heart! What would become of me!
Even before the heart might throb…
……………………………………..
Even before a single sigh escapes
You know well
Who will keep safe this love of ours
Hoping I'll not fall the moment I'm hurt
May the rivers of the soul
Flow in tranquillity
Who will then recall my song
OOooooo….
Even before the heart might throb…
……………………………………..
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 20,2018
Lyrics in Spanish:
Si olvidaran mis labios tu sabor
Y un oscurro presagio de dolor
Me llevara al naufragio
De verte partir
Iay, amor! Que seria de mi
Si en el reino del agua me falta tu mar
Y al balcon de tu piel no me puedo asomar
Si perdiera el camino que me lleva a ti
Iay, amor! Que seria de mi
Antes que doble el Corazon
La esquina del adios
Antes que el siglo de las balas
Me robe la razon
Antes que sea venenosa
La sangre de las rosas del eden
Atrapame en tu boca por mi bien
Si manana el verano secara el jazmin
Y mis ojos en vano riegan tu jardin
Si es la suerte en mi mano una espina mortal
Iay, amor! Que me puede pasar
Si tocado y herido cruzara el umbral
Que la vida y la nada separa al azar
Si no encuentro tu pecho al llegar alli
Iay, amor! Que seria de mi
antes que doble el Corazon
la esquina del adios
antes que el siglo de las balas
me robe la razon
antes que sea venenosa
la sangre de las rosas del eden
antrapame en tu boca por mi bien
antes que un suspiro
tu lo sabes
quien me guarda este amor
que en la herida no me cae
que navegara en calma
los rios del alma
quien recordara mi cancion
antes que doble el Corazon…
crédits
de l'album? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? -? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? // David Broza - Todo O Nada (All Or
Nothing) , paru le 1 janvier 2002
Lyrics By: Eitan Nahmias Glass
Spanish Translation: Javier Ruibal
Music: David Broza
? ? ? ? ? : ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? : ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? : ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
licence
tous droits réservés
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XXXV and XXXVI
IF ever I had a country: XXXV - XXXVI
XXXV
IF ever I had a country
And if ever by any stretch of the imagination I were the duely-elected
President of the Republic
I'd tell each and every oath-taking Grand Master of Free-Masonry: No question
of sharing power in a democracy
I'd purge the Courts first then the Police and Secret Service of every trace of
their hierarchichal papacy
Then seek and weed out every one of their moles in the Administration as a
policy
Which abhors power exercised by unauthorised coteries in the body-politic as
the bane of national meritocracy
That is, if ever I were by any stretch of the imagination the duely-elected
President of the Republic
And even if I never ever had no country so sick
XXXVI
If ever I had a country
And if ever I were but the President PM or even divine King
I'd lose not any sleep over who makes the belfry bells toll or telephones ring
I'll not fret and frown every time trade unions business or professional guilds
sing
Out of tune with the voices of aides aide-de-camps or Chiefs of Staff in the
West Wing
I'd keep a finger on the Peoples' Pulse and when I rule I'd know I'll be doing
the right Thing
That is, if ever I were but the President PM or even divine King
And even if I never ever had no country to wring
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 16,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XXXIII and XXXIV
IF ever I had a country: XXXIII - XXXIV
XXXIII
IF ever I had a country
And if ever by hook or by crook I were the Secretary of HEW and Culture
I'd make it compulsory for any being who wishes to run for office
To first undergo psychologcal tests to prove (s) he's sufficiently mature
Pass televised Public Examinations on Constitutional Law Logic Economics and
Political Philosophy for the novice
In short, revive some sort of the old Confucian Mandarinate system of
competitive torture
That is, if ever by hook or by crook I were the Secretary of HEW and Culture
And even if I never ever had no country to torture
XXXIV
IF ever I had a country
And if ever by hook or by crook I were the Imperial State Counsellor
I'd advise the King PM or President to put political aspirants under
psychiatric surveillance
For it's most surprising that those who have more or less no vestige of culture
would wish to be other peoples' manager
Furthermore, I'd insist that once elected they take the Oath of Anonymity and
Silence
And watch how long they would then want to hold on to their power
That is, if ever by hook or by crook I were the Imperial State Counsellor
And even if I never ever had no country to empower
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 15,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XXXI and XXXII
IF ever I had a country: XXXI - XXXII
XXXI
IF ever I had a country
And if ever by fluke I was asked to audit the National Budget
I'd first set out to monitor the Elus' va et vient to the water-closet
And clock the nation's time they waste in parroting speeches in their jet
Then I'd add-up all the country's time they tweet away the interviews they
repeat
The tuxedos they jump into to putt golf-balls down the Republic's smooth green
parapet
That is, if ever by fluke I were asked to audit the National Budget
And even if I never ever had no country on which to place a bet
XXXII
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were asked to write the Constitution by the Founding Fathers
I'd have a Hall built in the Heart of the Nation for a Book with virgin pages
And thereupon let inscribe every wish of every citizen justly not put in
fetters
And let no Magna Carta or genial Jefferson nor Freemason Human Rights Charter
carve article upon commandment article for hoi polloi brothers
And which thus pave the way for NRAs to lock House Senate and Chief Exec in
private profit-based manoeuvres
That is, if ever I were asked to frame the Constitution by the Founding Fathers
And even if I never ever had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 14,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XIX and XXX
IF ever I had a country: XXIX - XXX
XXIX
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were but the Alexandrian National Librarian`
I'd drag every under-elected village township city and national politician
Handcuffed to the Sistine Chapel-domed book-lined reading auditorium
To read aloud and commit to memory every act of the Grand Inquisition
And swear by Oath Torquemeda their natural Father denounce Demosthenes the
subverted Athenian
That is, if ever I were but the Alexandrian National Librarian
And even if I never ever had no country/education
XXX
IF ever I had a country
And if ever by chance I were but the Director-General of Prisons
I'd make the Metropolis the strictest Concentration Camp for political
malfeasance
For those who run the State without the slightest prick of even animal
conscience
And there force them to read aloud plebian-voiced Athenian magnificence while
they bake in the heat of the ovens
As a reward for bringing Our World day by day to the brink of Hitlerian Final
Solution horizons
That is, if ever I were by chance but the Director-General of Prisons
And even if I never ever had no country/education
© T. Wignesan, Paris, July 13,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XXVII and XXVIII
IF ever I had a country: XXVII - XXVIII
XXVII
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were but the Registrar of Companies
I'd appoint Snoopy - pet-dog Bo's first cousin - Inspector General of Secret
Societies
I'll tell him to overlook the fiddling of Stock Exchange equities and
concentrate on fan-club iniquities
To publish lists every morning on each member's earnings pilferings including
health reports on their starving unemployment-pay beneficiaries
On who pays for the face paint jerseys mass-migration air-tickets five-star
hotel and beer and block-seating fees
That is, if ever I were but the unpaid Registrar of Companies
And even if I never ever had no country company
XXVIII
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were but the Inspector General of Secret Societies
I'd post packs of howling hound dogs to announce at portals of lodges drugcartel
penthouse mansions and haute-cuisine fan-club eateries
Whose chauffeur-driven sleek limousine dropped off which hired diamond tiara
damsel from what political parties
Question the secret expense-accounts of fan-club funding at football stadiums'
madly-howling jamborees
And assess the damage to the GDP despite hipes in taxes imposed by police
clashes with fans after crushing defeats at shoot-out penalties
That is, if ever I were but the Inspector General of Secret Societies
And even if I never ever had no country or society
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 12,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XXV and XXVI
IF ever I had a country: XXV - XXVI
XXV
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Secretary of State for National Unity
I'd appoint myself the Director of the National Football Industry
Order every child over-weight skinny lame dumb deaf spastic or rickety
To go to the school grounds every morning bouncing or kicking balls free
With one solitary thought in mind: ultimate World Cup victory
That is, if ever I were the State Sec for National Unity
And even if I never ever had no country
XXVI
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Minister for National Unity
I'd appoint every World Cup national footballer Vice-Chancellor of University
Have him create as many Chairs as he wishes for the Football Ph.D.
Teach every student the art of foul-tackling anybody not from his country
Till I'd make it second nature not to play ball but to kick the enemy
That is, if ever I were the Minister for National Unity
And even if I never ever had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 11,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XXIII and XXIV
IF ever I had a country: XXIII-XXIV
XXIII
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were but the Home Secretary
I wouldn't sit on my baked beans doing my level-best to avoid responsibility
While waiting to pat myself on the back on Bastille Day down the Champs Elysée
I'd keep both public and pubic forces from running rampage on every refugee
But set about tidying the House with bleach to rid oath-taking secret
skullduggery
That is, if ever I were but the Home Secretary
And even if I never ever had no country
XXIV
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were but the Interior Secretary
I'd neither arrogate nor take for granted Hobbes's Leviathan-authorised cruelty
I'd seek and demolish local townships' self-appointed chief mafiosi
Who undermine hotel-maids with virile World Bank authority
Who add to the You-Too Hall of Fame Hollywood-producer community
That is, if ever I were but the Interior Sec in Gay Paree
And even if I never ever had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 10,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XXI and XXII
IF ever I had a country: XXI - XXII
' I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and
judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever
is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if
asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a
woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass
my life and practice my Art. ' Excerpted from the translation by Francis Adams
in Wikisource of the Oath of Hippocrates,400 BCE.
XXI
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were but the Health Minister
And if some breach some tort against The Hippocratic Oath reached my ear
I'd rage and storm through ward portals in Olympian Apollonic gear
To arraign the culprit whether Male Nurse Sister Matron or specialist Doctor
Till no patient need fear contamination poison nor Secret Service murder
That is, if ever I were but the Health Minister
And even if I never ever had no country
XXII
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Health Secretary
And if some sleepless stateless victim of the Secret Police's Third Degree
Was put under Trileptal and made to undergo Tomo-Scintigraphy
And the operators abandoned the patient to general tonico-clonic seizure in
epilepsy
I'd either order the hospital closed or put the service heads out-of-activity
That is, if ever I were even the Health Sec in Gay Paree
And even if I never ever had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 9,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XIX and XX
IF ever I had a country: XIX - XX
XIX
If ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Minister of Industry
I'd put a stop to the production of machines that disturb the peace
Electric-drillers motor-bikes clanking street-cars trains infested with fleas
Exile all Formula One champions to Singapore and Monaco
Where only the reeking rich besides you-know-who go
That is, if ever I were the Minister of Industry
And even if I never ever had no country
XX
If ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Minister of Technology
I'd clamp huge fines on manufacturers of machines without silencers
Banish all noise-making inventors wifeless to the Antartica's fastnesses
Lock-up for life all architects and engineers who build tenement-flat cities
With walls and floors so paper-thin to permit all kinds of sleepless atrocities
That is, if ever I were the Minister of Technology
And even if I never ever had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 8,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XVII and XVIII
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XVII - XVIII
XVII
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Minister of Education
I'd make every child take an Oath of Nature upon leaving school in June
That every kid learn by heart by autumn ten local birds' tune
The Garden Warbler's varied repertoire the toot-toot of the Owl under the moon
To tell which Wood-Pecker drummed which tree out-of-tune
That is, if ever I were the Minister of Education
And even if I never ever had no country
XVIII
If ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Secretary of HEW
I'd make it a certified condition for the leaving of school
Only when every teen acquired the skill of notation as a musical tool
To stock his memory with quarrelsome magpie curses or soothing cuckoo calls
cool
And let no carrion crow flutter at school-top eaves calling him a fool
That is, if ever I were the Secretary of HEW
And even if I never ever had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 6,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XV and XVI
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XV & XVI
XV
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Treasury Secretary
I'd outlaw all big-time ' companies ' who beg for money
Especially those who beg in the name of the Almighty
I'd write virulent circulars on how to cajole Him through litany
To wheedle trillions of dollars euros yuans rupees throughout Eternity
That is, if ever I were the Treasury Secretary
And even if I never ever had no country
XVI
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Minister of Finance
I'd make every charitable organization head dance
On a tight rope stretched from here to comeuppance
For wasting nearly all what we give them on bribes penthouse mags and stamps
And take them on a tour of the streets and hovels littered with hungry children
and tramps
That is, if ever I were the Minister of Finance
And even if I never ever had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 5,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XIII and XIV
IF ever I had a country: XIII - XIV
XIII
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Sports Secretary
I'd remind every sportsman performing for money
That the buying and selling of humans born free
Died with slavery in the Nineteenth Century
And put behind bars all club committees found guilty
That is, if ever I were the Sports Secretary
And even if I never ever had no country
XIV
If ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Sports Secretary
I'd fine any sportsman his salary for hood-winking the referee
After every judo throw and karate jab above or below the knee
Just when the ball's dribbled to the goal --- for a penalty
Even if the VAR-referee is blind to what we see on TV
That is, if ever I were the Sports Secretary
And this, even if I never ever had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 3,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: XI and XII
IF ever I had a country: XI - XII
IF ever I had a country
And if ever I were but the Admiral of the Fleet
I'd issue an edict to keep ships out of foreign waters
I'd order all on deck on or off duty curse-under-breath sailors
To fish out of oceans crushed cans and twisted plastic bottles
And whatever else poisons sardines dolphins sharks and whales
…………………………………
…………………………………
………………………………..
………………………………..
I'd see to it that all our ancestors of the primal soup deep
Were brought onto land with all their shredded creep
And to the tune of the Divine Land's Anthem make all weep
In solemn burial ceremonies commit such memories to keep
That is, if ever I were but the Admiral of the Fleet
And even if I never ever had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris, June 28,2018
Translation of Besame Mucho, Lyrics by Consuelo Velasquez
Translation of ' Bésame Mucho ' from the lyrics by Consuelo Velasquez
Refrain:
Kiss me longingly long
Kiss me, kiss me longingly long
As though this night has to be
The very last
Kiss me longingly long
Kiss me, kiss me longingly long
For seized am I with the fear of losing you
Losing you hereafter
(Refrain repeated twice)
I long to hold you close to me
While gazing deep into your eyes
Making us look as but one together
The thought nags perchance tomorrow
I'll have already gone far away
Far far from you
(Refrain repeated thrice)
For seized am I with the fear of losing you
Losing you hereafter
The original lyrics in Spanish:
Bésame mucho
Bésame, bésame mucho
Como si fuera esta noche
La ultima vez
Bésame mucho
Que tengo miedo a pederte
Pederte despues
(Refrain twice)
Quiero tenerte muy cerca
Mirarme en tus ojos
Verte junto a mi
Pienso que tal vez manana
Yo ya estare lejos
Muy lejos de ti
(Refrain thrice)
Que tengo miedo a pederte
Pederte despues
© T. Wignesan - Paris, May 12,2018
Khatia Buniatishvili's Piano Concerto 1 by Tchaikovsky
Khatia Buniatishvili's Tour de Force of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto N° 1 in Bflat
minor on Zubin Mehta's 80th Birthday*
… the caged-beast terrified defying the donderbus blasts vollies of muskets and
cannons heralding the charge cavernous ton caisses blown asunder one blow after
another yapping at the heels tense fingers rouse rout the oceanico- volcanic
rumbled roars Napoleonic regiments march to the Hapsburg and Prussian theatre
fields socket-bayonets lowering bison hooves churning up fossil-stamped-under
turfs prairie cacti the starved beast within clawing at the iron black-andwhite
bars 7,800,000 Brown Bess muskets rip the leaden air Khatia pulsating on
array upon array of stiff-backed goose-stepping hussars her eyes half-closed
under chaffed curls the un-ending march of drilled fingers over ages no single
gap within-between mounts of palms pounding the thunder out of the bowels of
the earth growling up and down the veins of notes come never come unstuck
furious furnaces of maddening cries surging in unison through her stoking arms
raking the fire fissioning fusing in the pulsating funnel of her torso-seat
furnaces of energy bursting bubbly bold and raw veiled eyes strain on the
girdle's romping rise and thumping fall from side to side alternating drawn-out
lean dulcet notes in spaced out lulls with bass and clarinet strains the steambrimming
summits about to give about to part now yes not yet the ultimate
squeezed up orgiastic boil down to laboured thematic repetitions seizing the
memory cold the rapid-fire flint-lock musketeers in range after range falling
to each triggered chord by the hundreds hussars cavorting high leather squatkicking
while strings echo breathless the hind-core juices spouting at her
finger-tips cannon calls collide on trumpet blasts clarinets foreshadowing the
wayward raga come to nag and jog the sullied brains behind deadpan listening
disarmed visages fussillades upon clacking thunderous hussar roars the strings
strain and lag to hold together the air after the dispersal of fog and smoke
bourrasque after bourrasque of drums pour seething metal over her head and nape
in stoop to conquer fixed-bayonet thrusts of notes thump thumping the stoop
forty fingers to the fractured nano-second bend blend bake each note into the
fury of torrential sound charging down the pent-up waterfall of inturned eyes
….
saved by the lone raga come a-loose just in time
Hurrah! Hurrah! Cry the Hussars!
*Israel Philharmic Orchestra, pub. April 22,2016
© T. Wignesan - Paris, May 5,2018
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE
What's the difference…
The difference between the Short Distance's height
And the Long Distance's shallowness drawn tight
Is that neither knows the hollowness of its might
Whichever way they may look: up down left or right
If you went up the shallowness of the one you slight
You'd end up in the hollowness of the other recondite
Or if you slid down the one who stands stiff upright
You're bound to fall screaming upside down in a fright
Either way neither will say unless it was day or night
When Short Distance at last met Long Distance alright
Though neither or either will own up to being really tight
After running a short then a long distance before the fight
If you think you could mock these errant lines downright
I challenge you to disentangle them under darkened light
© T. Wignesan - Paris, June 13,2018
Villanelle: Look not back and lament how your life's gone astray
Villanelle: Look not back and lament how your life's gone astray
Look not back and lament how your life's gone astray
Mistakes you have made must of needs be also made
Don't guiles lies with smiles guide all forms of inter-play
If mistakes never lie in wait in one's blind way
Each one of us can choose our path in sun or shade
Look not back and lament how your life's gone astray
True, some like Sexton or Plath would fall by the way
What they said somehow reach down to us still persuade
Don't guiles lies with smiles guide all forms of inter-play
Think of those legions minds deranged maimed shut away
Through no fault of their own nor by mid-wives' hands degrade
Look not back and lament how your life's gone astray
The madness of the moment wreaks mistakes holds sway
Some urge some hapless encounter the fated raid
Don't guiles lies with smiles guide all forms of inter-play
Far too complex far too hidden each act to weigh
Sometimes some mistakes lead on to a choice well made
Look not back and lament how your life's gone astray
Don't guiles lies with smiles guide all forms of inter-play
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Translation of Aranjuez lyrics from the Spanish original, sung by
Andrea Bocelli
Translation of the Aranjuez lyrics from the Spanish original sung by Andrea
Bocelli
Your lovely presence still lingers at Aranjuez
Aranjuez,
A place fused through in dreams of love
Where the whirr of fountains
In crystal
Make believe the waters chatter in the garden
In hushed tones with the roses
Aranjuez,
Nowadays the faded dry leaves
Which waft and drift in the winds
Recall the tenderness of our tryst there
That once upon a time
We let surge in our hearts you and I
And without cause let befall us oblivion
Yet that intense fervour lies safe
In some sun eclipsed by the horizon
Or in the hint of some breeze or lingering in some flower
Awaiting only your return
Aranjuez,
Nowadays the faded dry leaves
Which waft and drift in the winds
Recall the tenderness of our tryst there
That once upon a time
We let surge in our hearts you and I
And neglected without reason
In Aranjuez, My Love
You as well as I
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Villanelle: Merchants of the Word make Writers write for Prizes
Villanelle: Merchants of the Word make Writers write for Prizes
Merchants of the Word make writers write for prizes
Does not the failed writer pose as house editor
Great treasures of the past were weaned without judges
Prized-writers in our midst make all kinds of noises
Matters little so long as till fills publisher
Merchants of the Word make writers write for prizes
Lope de Vega scorned long-suff'ring Cervantes
His plight mattered only to French Ambassador
Great treasures of the past were weaned without judges
Prized-writers need not fear e'en wise connaisseurs
Don't they write with flourish cocking-eye on reader
Merchants of the Word make writers write for prizes
Does the Nobel go to some who serve lost causes
Or to some who serve publishers like the Booker
Great treasures of the past were weaned without judges
True, ancient poets sang under patronages
Yet those we love most lived life under the jailor
Merchants of the Word make writers write for prizes
Great treasures of the past were weaned without judges
© T. Wignesan - Paris, May 4,2018
Villanelle: O What a way to go They Say locked in Lover's Arms
Villanelle: O! What a way to go They Say locked in Lover's Arms
O! What a way to go They Say locked in lover's arms
Damned he or she be to live curséd life alone
Do we not all smother most what we love sans qualms
Lone bodies shiver in beds quothing inane psalms
No body loses heat when both stoke flesh and bone
O! What a way to go They Say locked in lover's arms
No Romeo with potion Juliet embalms
Had not either to deep mock sleep stayed up immune
Do we not all smother most what we love sans qualms
Some prefer the chivalrous spears of knights-at-arms
Others prefer not to go at all all alone
O! What a way to go They Say locked in lover's arms
Passion mounts the pressure on lonely hearts' dire charms
The choice in these cases is either stroke or be-gone
Do we not all smother most what we love sans qualms
The lesson here is simple: by the bed stock arms
He who must go first may her shoot ere he is blown
O! What a way to go They Say locked in lover's arms
Do we not all smother most what we love sans qualms
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Olga Scheps embodies Chopin's Piano Concerto No 1, e-minor
Olga Scheps embodies Chopin's Piano Concerto n° 1
For a pianist who ponders her prey
The taming arms-length erect posture
The torso and pulsating violin back encased in red-rich ornate coarse wrap
Nape muscles strung by swaying grace-groomed arms branched aloft
Pursed lips part for allegro romp
Tensile gushed groin screaming on seat-edge flailing fingers
Averse to sleek chord whale case under knee-cap check
Who is the Master of the indomptable Mistress
Does the script express and extend the actress's role
Or trundled chords liberate hidden Polish voices yearning
Cabriole on prairie pastures
The yearling kicking high on the keyboard
Startling the chevron-sinewed munching herd
Light lambs and kids throwing frolicking fits
Round and round the heifer humping high down the meadow
Stung to the quick half-recurring bars of the theme
The feline fauve now appeased by soft churning cuddles
Pages of screwed signals hung on lined sign-posts
Roused by nut-cracker knuckles
Flush out repartee collective timbre strings
Doused by the sweet-sweating triumphal orgiastic release
The wilful eyes of the hungry panther
Turn soft and pander to the prey
Is this when the poised moment of the composed kill
Misses the mark just once
The sleek black whale bears its twinkling teeth
in hollow rage
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Villanelle: Don't some live Life the way he or she wants it
Villanelle: Don't some live Life the way he or she wants it
Don't some live Life the way he or she wants it
Look around and see who lives resounding lives
If I were Life's Playwright won't I so fix it
Make both Yang and Yin agree to make things fit
Into the entire Scheme of Things which us drives
Won't some live Life the way he or she wants it
No playwright can banish conflict from his Script
He'd play to empty seats actors who mime lives
If I were Life's Playwright won't I so fix it
So Evil-Doers reign supreme to make it
The way the Play devolves on stage each scene contrives
Won't some live Life the way he or she wants it
Not to shift blame on either won't I judge it
Best to make Authorities live double lives
If I were Life's Playwright won't I so fix it
Doubt not why Evil-Doers always make it
Protected pardoned cherished Queen Bees in hives
Don't some live Life the way he or she wants it
If I were Life's Playwright won't I so fix it
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Is ARANJUEZ a pining after the composer's mother
Is ARANJUEZ a pining after the composer's mother?
(Joaquin Rodrigo - 1901-1999 - who composed the ' Aranjuez ' concerto on piano
in 1938/9 and which later was destined for the guitar and orchestra, turned
blind at the age of 3, due to complications with the onset of diphtheria. His
Turkish pianist wife Victoria Kamhi whom he married in 1933 is said to have
remarked that the exquisitely captivating composition of universal appeal
recalled ' happier days ' in his life. What could be ' happier ' than those
days at his mother's side. Despite the eminently masterful version by Paco de
Lucia, I am convinced Pepe Romero's rendering the most moving and apt. This is
a tentative essay in Rodrigo's recall.) T. Wignesan, April 19,2018
Age cannot wither your bright fond face
Nor the cares of my shrunken shuttered world
Oh! What would I not give for a mere glimpse
Of those cheerful tearful eyes orbs of merry gold
The silvery dancing glint trailing golden down your uncombed strands
The scent of fresh milk drenched in sweat bathed in myrrh breath
Your darling eyes doting on my tight shut suckling lids
The lambent darkness pulling back the shrouded dawn
The myriad pullulating chirping chants rousing up the morn
And I in your downy cradled gently lilting lap surfing in your warmth
Was that a fleeting memory or a momentous cuckoo call
Still dim and growing dimmer by the day
All that is real palpable the wet steamy heat of your merciful lips
And the humming coaxes of your gently trailing voice
Do I still recall
as if I were still in your arms
Real ripe
deep in my thoughts
Age cannot wither your bright fond face
Nor the cares of my shrunken shuttered world
Oh! What would I not give for a mere glimpse
Of those cheerful tearful eyes orbs of merry gold
The multiple cries you wake to
during interminable nights
The plastered stink of limbs to dry with Cologne
The cooing chest-humming drones along with ticklish cuddles
With never so much as a rebounding complaint
Who can forget that tell-tale melodious rant
And then you dressed me up into stuffed woolen bundles
To show me off
Every evening bright by the neighbouring patio and plaza
Me proud as a pigeon in a fountain puddle
The toys you dangled in my cradle
The jingle you played with deft fingers on a toy tympan
And the excruciating melody
Drowning the simmering light in deep dungeon night
Never to be released again
Never to light up your proud face again
Though the sweet scent of your holy breath
Blesses ever so gently my temples against yours…
Age cannot wither your bright fond face
Nor the cares of my shrunken shuttered world
Oh! What would I not give for a mere glimpse
Of those cheerful tearful eyes orbs of merry gold
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Villanelle: Don't we all cling to Life tooth and nail guts in groin
Villanelle: Don't we all cling to Life tooth and nail guts in groin
Don't we all cling to Life tooth and nail guts in groin
E'en if the insatiable Beast glowers close behind
No matter what nor how long the grind we bear 'n' pine
Merchants of Faith made in mythic images divine
Tell us all their gods have told them what lurks behind
Don't we all cling to Life tooth and nail guts in groin
Each in his own way nailed to some Alien loin
All assured this World's for the best of Mankind
No matter what nor how long the grind we bear 'n' pine
True gods are those Men who behind the scenes combine
Thrust up Leaders who lisp words for Them who us bind
Don't we all cling to Life tooth and nail guts in groin
Children grow up and swear by their words anodine
Believe rot Batman Hulks Wonder Woman's behind
No matter what nor how long the grind we bear 'n' pine
Till that day the bubble bursts the last word on line
Shows neither Nations nor gods mean well for Mankind
Don't we all cling to Life tooth and nail guts in groin
No matter what nor how long the grind we bear 'n' pine
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Isaac Albeniz's Asturias, Three Versions, Three Instruments
Isaac Albéniz's Asturias, Three Versions, Three Instruments
I
By Andres SEGOVIA, guitar,2006
Man lopes up mast-pole
Man lopes up mast-pole
Man lopes up mast-pole
And finds no maiden fair
Who mimes his Asturian air
II
By Andronicus, piano version
Man bikes up mountain
Man bikes up mountain
Man bikes up mountain
And espies masts far from there
Biscay Basques back with wares rare
III
By Florin Croitoru, violin-solo
Man runs up belfry
Man runs up belfry
Man runs up belfry
To count sinners in every square
Come to keep their bosoms bare
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY - continued: IX and X
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY…
IX
If ever I had a country
And if ever I were not robbed of my barrister's degree
I'd set up shop on a perch at Hyde Park Corner
For a chance to plead for the Damnés de la Terre at Old Bailey
Receive the eternally forlorn under a tree for no fee
And rally all victims of pleadings under my barrister's wig free
That is, if ever I were not robbed of that Call to the Bar duty
And this, even if I never had no country
X
If ever I had a country
And if ever I were not robbed of the chance to plead for the unfree
The poor who tremble helpless at the Law's ermine garb decree
The innocent wretched who let fall their inalienable rights and flee
The defenceless cowed by the moneyed clients' Big-Time lawyer crap
Claim and Counter-claim Summons for Disclosure trap
That is, if ever I were not robbed of my self-taught Inns of Court degree
And this, even if I never had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY - continued: VII and VIII
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY…
VII
If ever I had a country
And if ever I were the Keeper of the keys to the Treasury
I'd invite all the tramps from every contree
To weigh with sunken eyes the lack of bullion for paper money
Into each tattered pocket drop slabs of gold to keep them company
During chilblained nights of growling intestinal acrimony
That is, if ever I were the Keeper of the keys to the Treasury
And even if I never had no country
VIII
If ever I had a country
And if ever I were cast in the role of the Night Soil Men
I'd make certain every caste citizen got a taste of it
No use pretending you don't know what I really mean
It's the stuff caste-men push down gullets with spicy relish
And let blast off galore trumpets and bassoons at full throttle
That is, if ever I were cast in the role of the Night Soil Men
And even if I never had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY - continued
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY…
V
If ever I had a country
And if I were the Minister of Justice
I'd keep an open eye on covert fascist lechers
To arraign dodgers from witch sick woman's clutches
Who annul marriages the Holy See blesses
To mask her lewd tantrums in the Secret Services
That is, if ever I were the Minister of Justice
And even if I never had no country
VI
If ever I had a country
And if I were the Home Secretary
I'd make all secret files on all dignitaries
An open book on the art of rape incest or adultery
Pedophily sodomy perversity y compris
Not to mention lodge-keepers' skulduggery
That is, if ever I were the Home Secretary
And even if I never had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Villanelle: On listening to Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin and Paco
de Lucia - June 12,1980
Villanelle: On listening to Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia
Concert - June 12,1980
Tico Tico swallows tumbling in the frisky air
Round and round in Rondenôs whisk sparrows
Paco aloof in Andauzian tempo Malaguena rare
Piroueting incisive onrush cascades bare
No strings wave upon wave in strict sweeping rows
Tico Tico swallows tumbling in the frisky air
John abeting Al to shake free from Camaron dare
The tsunami shaking out of the Devil's maws
Paco aloof in Andaluzian tempo Malaguena rare
All argumentative cursing beginning no-where
Irascible abrasive rabid racy tune soars
Tico Tico swallows tumbling in the frisky air
Torrential currents let John loose in manic scare
That Al contests entraps in torrid lassoes
Paco aloof in Andaluzian tempo Malaguena rare
This salmagundi of virtuoso notes snare
One and all from the caverns of Sleepy Hollows
Tico Tico swallows tumbling in the frisky air
Paco aloof in Andaluzian tempo Malaguena rare
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY…
I
If ever I had a country
And if I were but a low-paid Judge
I'd mind every line and leaf of the Law
And let no one step over the Bench
Nor will I let any Law-Maker
Break but a word of his
That is, if I were just a judge
And even if I never had no country
II
If ever I had a country
And I were but a common policeman
No matter how lean my native shores
I'd patrol the streets at all hours
Citizens, nay, immigrants too, behind unlocked doors
Will sleep the sleep of the untrammelled Just
That is, if I were even just a policeman
And even if I never had no country
III
If ever I had a country
And if I were the Chief Exec
And the hoi polloi shunned the polls
Abstensions thrice over thrust me up in office
I'd rather commit felo de se
Than as top Magistrate refuse hemlock
That is, if ever I were the Chief Exec
And even if I never had no country
IV
If ever I had a country
And if I were the Plenipotentiary
And the popular vote went to my Enemy
I'd go back to making or losing money
I'd surrender my post to run my own company
Even if it were under the company of my Enemy
That is, if I were the very Plenipotentiary
And even if I never had no country
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Random Excerpts - 2: Ice in My Eyes Smoke in Yours, A Novel
May 29,1957: …have to think about getting a thesis director…know no professor
yet in the department…someone suggested i get hold of Derek Fogg for an intro
to the big guns in the philosophisches Seminar…can't bother him too much…i like
the way he lectures…lively, informative, obviously in tune with his subject,
emitting an air of being on top form nearly always and always ready with an
answer…someone said he too is looking for a prof to direct or rather accept his
dissert on Bernard Shaw…he's been working on the man for years…he's easily the
most knowledgeable on Shaw, the fin de siècle and Edwardian period…guess he
knows his Shakespeare too from the constant references he makes to the master…
and to Marlowe, Sheridan, Oscar Wilde, and Galsworthy … must admit i like the
man…affable, courteous, always considerate and above all open, honest, and
forthright…i think he likes me too…he liked my poems…his girl though German is
curiously very English…she's a demure, pretty brunette, not as tall as he is
but cast in the same mould: not too lean, not too skinny, just right i'd
say…she smiles naturally, looks innocent, at least without guile, no hang-ups
or pretences…quiet, in any case, doesn't say much whenever i'm around and
doesn't object to my presenting myself in their after all tiny Collegium
Academicum room…she seems very content with her catch…wasn't she a student of
his, someone said…don't know many students at the hostel… the place was meant
mainly for scholarship holders and lecturers…
(…)
…and so has Nature's purpose been achieved: ETERNEL CONFLICT but in cyclic
periods, the yearly seasonal changes to the Brahma Day…the YIN half of the year
buckling under to the YANG half…to the Brahma Night…the BIG BANG to the BIG
CRUNCH…no, no I'm afraid to the gobbling up of all matter…yes, even dark matter
in the universe…and even universes through the blackest of BLACK HOLES…
…what we see is what we don't if we do not have eyes…light travels in photons
always on and on without impulsion without cause until the point of mirage
until the point of no return until what we see is circumscribed by reflection
of what we can see up to a point… up to a point which is only verifiable with
eyes…NO ONE HAS EVER COME BACK…we can never know while still alive if all this
and that exists when we are not here…in any case if we see at all when we are
gone, it may not necessarily be what we see while still here…all the rest is
conjecture…what we see exists what we don't may still exist if we tried to
see…Orion exists maybe when i see…does it exist when i'm not looking…does it
matter that it exists for my life to be realised…astrologers would say
yes…pork-sellers might think it a waste of time even to think of such a
thing…all we know is that everything exists for us because we exist…otherwise
there's no reason why anything else should be existing…everything else that is
we can see…there are things that exist even if we can't see them…like dark
matter…that is things exist also if we can deduce their existence…in other
words we can see them because we have still eyes….but what happens when we are
dead…do we continue to see…the answer to this question is simply we don't
really know…it's no use if ONE Christ resurrects…can he return to say he
actually resurrected…why can't he…what's the reason…don't tell me it's not the
right time yet…that he had sent his emissaries to Lourdes…all that sort of
'reasoning' is conjecture or sophistry…why should there be doubt…why can't life
be more certain more definitive…is it because it isn't…that it's just a mirage,
an illusion MAYA…you know only what you see what you don't see you don't know
is the only possible truth…all other forms of reasoning have given us the gods
the faithful the priests the vendors of commodities without proof of the
possession of goods…has created classes clergy castes medicine men voodoo women
witches prelates churches synagogues mosques temples lodges cathedrals houses
of prayer…in short power houses…in turn to keep the faithful orderly not
anarchistic obedient herded together disciplined capable of communal life
capable of promoting truth…their own truth…their own brand of life…their own
insignia of race in the end for faith is race race is faith in the centre of
masses leaving the periphery open to conversion even if races have sprung from
the bushmen of the east African divide and all the languages from their clickclacking
tongue-cluckers...
…are the ruba'iyats attributed to Omar Khayyam his and therefore right
then…live all you can…
Excerpted from T. Wignesan. Ice in My Eyes Smoke in Yours. A Novel. Allahabad:
Cyberwit.net,2016,672p.
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Villanelle: If everybody did everything right
Villanelle: If everybody did everything right
If everybody did everything right
No ripple on surface will world betray
Wait out the sun till bright light burn outright
Yang will marry Yin and Me-Too yin blight
No lawyers can then lead us all astray
If everybody did everything right
Workful day will succeed pleasure-filled night
E'en Lone Star will cease to reflect lone ray
Wait out the sun till bright light burn outright
Won't nations die from want of will to fight
And polls abstentions drive leaders away
If everybody did everything right
Won't ephemeral men increase in might
Who needs the Jün-tzu* the Yogi anyway
Wait out the sun till bright light burn outright
Who would underwrite life by LONE playwright
To amuse some conglomerate Milky-Way
If everybody did everything right
Wait out the sun till bright light burn outright
'The Superior Man of the Yi-Jing
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Villanelle: The only thing the masses can buy
Villanelle: The only thing the masses can buy
The only thing the masses can buy
That's not listed on the stock market
The one-way ticket out of our sky
They scrub they shine they barely e'er cry
With no bats to defend their wicket
The only thing the masses can buy
Marx and Engels tried to tell them why
Yet unions all the reasons forget
The one-way ticket out of our sky
Best show on earth watch democrat ploy
Big Ben Speaker cry " ORDER" and fidget
The only thing the masses can buy
Yet the masses sell votes on the sly
To slice bi-cameral house in secret
The one-way ticket out of our sky
Duped by spam tv fearful and shy
See they why Socrates kicked the bucket*
The only thing the masses can buy
The one-way ticket out of our sky
* 'The trial of Socrates (399 BC) was held to determine the philosopher's guilt
of two charges: asebeia (impiety) against the pantheon of Athens, and
corruption of the youth of the city-state; the accusers cited two impious acts
by Socrates: " failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges" and
" introducing new deities" .
The death sentence of Socrates was the legal consequence of asking politicophilosophic
questions of his students, from which resulted the two accusations
of moral corruption and of impiety. At trial, the majority of the dikasts
(male-citizen jurors chosen by lot) voted to convict him of the two charges;
then, consistent with common legal practice, voted to determine his punishment,
and agreed to a sentence of death to be executed by Socrates's drinking a
poisonous beverage of hemlock.' (Source Wikipedia)
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Random Excerpts from Ice in my Eyes, Smoke in Yours - A Novel
'Hey, you philosophysing Hindu. Give me a break, Buddy. I was just pulling your
leg. [...] I want the rest of the story. Really, I mean it." Theson said
nothing. [...] " I can see you're mad at me. I was only clowning to get you out
of there. You realize how long we were in there? The Mensa closes at three."
" Really, there's nothing much more to say. I don't know how I fell for your
faked eagerness...[...] I don't know if you're serious about Krishnamurti
either."
" No, really, I swear on my mother's head. I'm dead serious. I want to know all
you can tell me about the Baagvedgittaa or what d'ya call it." He came closer
to Theson as they got out of the building. " Do ya want me to stand on my head
to prove that I mean business? That I'm damned sorry about it all. Hey, Buddy?
Then, here goes! " he announced, and proceeded to take the position of the
shirshasana yogic posture right there in the middle of the entrance to the
Mensa building. Dev interlocked his fingers, knelt down, lowered his head,
placed his palms on the crown of his head, and was just about to pivot his legs
up and above his head when Theson held his legs and brought him down. Some
students who stood nearby in little groups of twos and threes turned to look at
them. They probably must have thought Dev was preparing to perform his
afternoon prayer, facing Mecca, but then he was facing northwest while
crouching down and would only have faced southeast if he could have completed
the yogic posture.
" Okay, I give in. Let's go sit there. There… under that tree, " urged Theson and
directed him by the arm towards an aging oak tree.
…how long does it take to live one life…learn the lessons of a lifetime…find
the time to live…find the time to sort things out…know what you did was
wrong…know in whom lay the blame…what court hears your plea over your unwanted
unwilled birth…who is there to tell you here is where you went wrong in the
choices you made…take you by the hand and tell you this is not your making…this
is all a dream…a dream that'll never come true… what… is the maker a
masochist…to what enduring purpose have you been asked to join the rest… would
you want sex if you knew who you would put into this world… is there a crime
more despicable than the life you engender into a world you cannot foresee… can
you live as long as your progeny to protect them from the torture your genes
prepare them for… can you provide for the unforeseen… for the dark that awaits
you…your own faults visited on someone else you could never have conceived in
thought…since the yonder is dark unknowable for all you know empty… why
continue… what ultimate purpose aeons from now affects you… is there a purpose
to purpose…we search and search and see far enough only to be told we are
getting closer and closer to the truth… nearer and nearer to the eternal truth…
the one single formula to explain it all… the unified theory of theories… only
to be told in between lie the dark matter the black holes three times the known
dimensions of worlds hidden within unfathomable dungeons of universes buried
beyond sight beyond thought… all exploding colliding intermingling intersecting
in the unreachable distance that may have been but never probably was…that the
infinitely tiniest world releases the infinitely bigbangish universe… who is to
believe we're going anywhere… who is to believe we are going some place…can you
conceive of anything of anybody of anybeing of any self-making engine who/which
can create an ounce of space let alone the mighty exploding skies hidden within
atoms… can you conceive of a plan so complex so minute so self-propagating so
complete so thorough from time immemorial to time eternal from the ends of the
endless space which could have inhabited some mighty self-sufficient allmightiness…
and yet it is true… it must be true…how else can you explain this
eternal laila this eternal ephemeralness this eternal dance…nadarajah stomping
twisting flailing his six arms in all six pairs of eye-directions…siva the
destroyer…siva the adept dancer…siva the twelve to twenty-nine strings dancing
vibrating in dimensions unseen to the eye… IT is there to be seen and be
wondered at to be felt and to be suffered to be thought of and to keep thinking
about to be befuddled about and to be flabbergasted about to know that IT
exists… touch yourself and you touch the IT… think you're touching and you're
the IT thinking… but spread your fingers and cry abacradabra… no matter
materializes no ready-made canvass no finished book no symphony drops from your
hand… is this a mystery… is this a joke… if i'm part of the IT why is there no
nothing at my command… are we then part of the IT… can we be part of the IT… or
is the IT split into smithereens no more the IT… no more the creating
preserving destroying omnipotent IT the dancing Nadarajah the thundering Rudra
the wailing Vayu the slaughtering Kali the admonishing Krishna the cool
beneficent Vishnu…is the IT then in need of its sundered parts…must we all come
to gather come together to save the IT and put IT back into place… put IT back
in ITS self-conceiving womb never again to see the light of the Brahma Day…is
the IT in need of all the consciousnesses IT split into to constitute ITS once
inconceivable consciousness…is this the Christian redemption… is this the
Mohamedan heaven watered by streams of milk by date-palm oases to the sound of
the singing of seventy-two virgins… is this the Buddhist nirvana… is this the
Taoist-Stoic submission to the ways of Nature…if not what purpose is there to a
finishing finite world… what purpose is there to extending a quest for
betterment when the Aztec sun drunk with human blood never rises again…when
suns quasars galaxies universes are all doomed to be exploded out of their
orbits… what purpose to so much human suffering and animal and insect and plant
degradation…
(c) T. Wignesan. Ice in my Eyes Smoke in Yours. Allahabad: Cyberwit,2016,
672p.
Villanelle: Who has it the way he or she wants it
Villanelle: Who has it the way he or she wants it
for Stephen Hawking, à dieu!
Who has it the way he or she wants it
Unless the World's mistaken: not e'en Trump
Maybe Dalai Lama's got the secret
Pats Amanpour on the cheek and lumps it
But Net-Any-Ahoos ride high during slump
Who has it the way he or she wants it
E'en Brits have hard time trying to Brexit
With Putin vying with Xi to dump Trump
Maybe Dalai Lama's got the secret
E'en the hard-sweating man seldom makes it
Try as he might someone grips on to rump
Who has it the way he or she wants it
ANZAC NATO and what you may call it
All contrive to keep small nations in dump
Maybe Dalai Lama's got the secret
Out of the Black Hole alas Hawking made it
Now all we've got: World according to Grump
Who has it the way he or she wants it
Maybe Dalai Lama's got the secret
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Villanelle: If you think you think and not feel your thoughts invade
Villanelle: If you think you think and not feel your thoughts invade
For Mozart's solo piano in Concertos Nos.20 & 22, K466 & K482 (1785)
If you think you think and not feel your thoughts invade
The conscious via sub-conscious tease unconscious
Tingling dulcet chords chased by strings through cascade
If you think you think your ideas in stockade
Echoed by winds second cousins vertiginous
If you think you think and not feel your thoughts invade
Aeons of whistling neurones make myriad aubade
Flutes clarinets horns bassoons trumpets flirtatious
Tingling dulcet chords chased by strings through cascade
Runaway scales submerge thoughts mind not fingers made
The conscious giving in to outpouring rushes
If you think you think and not feel your thoughts invade
Surrender will till tortuous arguments fade
Cascading chords bully strings winds unconscious
Tingling dulcet chords chased by strings through cascade
If doubts till unborn day ne'er will sink nor downgrade
Hark not to high extra-mundane Art grown luscious
If you think you think and not feel your thoughts invade
Tingling dulcet chords chased by strings through cascade
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Villanelle: It's all been said said better and bolder before
Villanelle: It's all been said said better and bolder before
It's all been said said better and bolder before
Worse now most repeat over and over again
No shibboleths now to test smooth words more hollow
Those who trouble not to delve into sages yore
Make not but weak links in the derivative chain
It's all been said said better and bolder before
Those who toiied without e'en recompense for valour
Toiled for insights ripped out of seething guts in pain
No shibboleths now to test smooth words more hollow
Homer Murasaki Valmiki Boccaccio
Gilgamesh Beowulf Pillow Sei Shonagon
It's all been said said better and bolder before
How much the ' creative ' writing courses ignore
Those whose suffering wrought talents in deep dungeon
No shibboleths now to test smooth words more hollow
The reign of digital maths spells poiein woe
Business minds now serve as mid-wives during birth-pain
It's all been said said better and bolder before
No shibboleths now to test smooth words more hollow
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Villanelle: Do Evil People know why they're so
Villanelle Do Evil People know why they're so
' Evil people resemble the Gods in that
They too may do as they please. '
From the Thirukural*
(Cf. T. Wignesan. The Thiruk-Kural of Thiru-Valluvar. The Secular Yogi in the
Temple. Allahabad: Cyberwit.net,2018, p.75.)
Do Evil People know why they're so
For if it weren't for them will Life not end
Who puts to test the Good must Evil sow
If all the World were Yang will any know
The purpose of our existence sans end
Do Evil People know why they're so
Must not Evil People pay the price and go
To another world earned karma to spend
Who puts to test the Good must Evil sow
See you not why the Yin multiply more
The Yang isolated stand yet defend
Do Evil People know why they're so
They prance they dance they lord it and richer grow
In their heart of hearts not by courage mend
Who puts to test the Good must Evil sow
Ask not why we must thus by Fate endure
Either this or with endless boredom contend
Do Evil People know why they're so
Who puts to test the Good must Evil sow.
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Limerick crochetes: Once a Teacher who didn't like school
Lmerick crochetés: Once a Teacher who didn't like school
Once a Teacher who didn't like school
Since his kids kept calling him a fool
Wished to do himself in
Lost control of discipline
All day his class looked like a swimming pool
To this Land of the Bow and Arrow
Came Settlers blasting hip pistols two
They shot their way Far West
Taught the Injuns what quest
In Alexander's conquests wasn't tabou
Then the Rifle Association
Triggered Trump to top the Nation
' Arm all teachers, ' he said.
' Boost rifle sales - the Dead
Will bless the use of Ultime Unction! '
With books the Teach packed solitary weapon
Hidden under the school's emblem apron
Kids laughed loud nonetheless
To see Teacher fearless
Till Terrorist at window broke open
Criss-crossed class red-hot streaking bullets
Kids dived under desks yells burst gullets
Some clung to the Teach's vest
Others hid behind broad chest
Struggled he to match bullet for bullets
Full square the singeing flare ripped his chest
Till rounds automatic echoed the West
Some say his looks bereaved
Looked very much relieved
Like a scion for his kids gave his Life's best.
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Villanelle: How much is how near enough and yet not much
Villanelle: How much is how near enough and yet not much
How much is how near enough and yet not much
The measure of the cup is what the hand grabs
Must the common man pay the price or all go Dutch
Some take more than what is their share in one clutch
Most really take what comes trickling down for grabs
How much is how near enough and yet not much
Many such grow up never knowing what is much
Nor how the rich few make an art out of nabs
Must the common man pay the price or all go Dutch
Most make up the legions who for others march
Those who run the State run it for magnate flabs
How much is how near enough and yet not much
Big fish eat shoals of small fish all in one munch
And the bigger they get all the smaller nags
Must the common man pay the price or all go Dutch
Yet everyone wants to dangle from the high hatch
E'en when there's nothing much the Nation brags
How much is how near enough and yet not much
Must the common man pay the price or all go Dutch
(C) T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Limerick crochetes: Once a band of non-hearing sans abri
Limerick crochetés: Once a band of non-hearing sans abri*
Once a band of non-hearing sans abri*
Camped on the banks of a highway free
Full score years stopped traffic
Begged at lights electric
Police scrapped their dear home sans country
Held on to rubbish rolls quilts rags these gents
While township lords robbed them of their tents
Down where reinforced slabs
Pylons concrete bridge sags
To nurse their punctured pride clogged-up vents
All day all night long year in year out
The crunch of tires on tarmac clout
Their senses ear-drums numb
Drive them sick deaf and dumb
Yet none up high see why they hold out
None see them cook none see them strip wash
Morning day and night wrapped up in their mush
Tipsy turvy happy
For them our world's at sea
Espy passers-by their eyes in ambush
Yet sleep they the sleep pure in spirit
But those in power who at them spit
Would put'em in HLM*
Blot them out overwhelm
Insomniac quiet sure'll kill'em no bit!
•" sans abri" : French for " destitute, those without shelter"
•" HLM" : French abbreviation for " tenement flats of the lowest social scale"
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Limerick crochetes: Once North Koreans joined South cousins
Limerick crochetés: Once North Koreans joined South cousins
Once North Koreans joined South cousins
Agreed to let drop divisive sins
Formed one team ice-hockey
Won bronze not so lucky
Each side said: " Not for US, no side wins! "
Both sides appealed to prize committee
Some judges with none could agree:
" South on its own could win
Gold! " said Pence swilling gin
Kim Jong-un said: " No, Siree! "
" Next time round we'll stage World Jamboree
South will pay for nukes in joint country!
Not cash but solid gold
Stand on launching pad bold
Remember who stood by US in '53! "
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Limerick crochetes: Once Japanese couple from USA
Limerick crochetés: Once Japanese couple from USA
Once Japanese couple from USA
Skated to stardom near Tokyo Bay
Japanese throbbed waived flag
To recall champions snag
America gives no Trump cards away
Not even smiles nor acknowledgement
Watching one tier below Kim Jong-un
Sister looks down on Pence
Even Quest can't fix fence
Waiting for fireworks after Pyeongchang
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Limerick crochetes: Once our Senorita from Sevilla
Limerick crochetés: Once our Señorita from Sevilla - XV
Once our Señorita from Sevilla
Came to Paris on a flotilla
She stepped out on high deck
Slipped and twisted her neck
Guess what happened to her mantilla
She stood under five metres flood pour
Couldn't help but gulp Seine while she swore
Dreamed of Paris fiesta
During noon freeze siesta
But the wine tasted nothing like Dior
So to set sail called her Armada
Up Thames to sip with Liz II limonada
Head hit by Tower Bridge
Due to thawed Arctic fridge
Flamencoes with Raleigh in Andromeda
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Limerick crochetes: Once MidEast refugee hijacked plane
Limerick crochetés: Once Mid-East refugee hi-jacked plane
Once Mid-East refugee hijacked plane
At Heathrow Airport without much pain
Set course for Florida
Down Gulf Stream danced salsa
O'er Bermuda Triangle lost brain
Raised head in parallel universe
Where everybody spoke only in verse
Shakespeare just a mere page
At beck and call of Sage
Who rode on a flying-trapeze hearse
Walt Whitman why whipped hard ten times tight
For turning fine-tuned verse e'er so slight
Beat poets all sweat caned
Their howls and growls un-maned
Ginsberg last seen dropping out of sight
Harriet Monroe drowned in P-Soup
To lay P-Foundation nin.com poop
Rhyme and dine for a dime
At Multi-Verse win prime
Refugees now cross Atlantic in sloop
At P-Soup Port they re-fuel with port
Learn how to parse clichés sans rapport
Great poems like Hardy's
Drivel from their panties
" America" refugees sing out!
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Porto Vecchio, Julien Dore's Song Translated by T Wignesan
« Porto-Vecchio », song by Julien Doré
(Note: If there's a melody that can slither/sail past the ear-drums
imperceptibly and settle permanently in the hypothalamus, this's it. The
sustained tempo in a low key and the husky but soothing and infinitesimally
modulating whispered tones of the songster set in a tropical town on a
promontary overlooking a chrystal-clear blue-water bay where a sloop glides as
if through the doldrums add to the charm of the sweet sadness which pervades
this song. Yes, the lyrics and refrain, too, are equally mesmerising, but the
magic of the melody and the words is in the expletives: « ah ah… Ah ah… » ---
it gets you till all your defences are down! There's a dulled and lulled
moment in the song when Julien Doré dives into the deep, and his pet dog
hesitates whether or not to join him, but he cannot find his master, look as
long as he may… Just try the clip for a change! For the moment, it's all the
rage on CStar channel. Or try mp3.) T. Wignesan
[Couplet 1]
La lumière est divine sur le Porto-Vecchio
Les nuages et le spleen ont tatoué ma peau
Je ne pars pas, je nage dans le murmure des vagues
J'ai laissé ton nom et mon coeur sur la plage
Ah, ah
(Stanza 1)
Divine is the light over Porto-Vecchio
The clouds and spleen have tattoed my complexion
I do not (wish to) leave, I swim (floating) through the murmur of the waves
I have abandoned your name and my heart on the beach
Ah, ah
[Refrain]
Un soupir se dessine sur le Porto-Vecchio
Immortelle, assassine, te voilà sortie des flots
Je ne pleure pas, je nage dans le murmure des vagues, ah
J'ai oublié ton nom et ton corps sur la plage
Ah, ah, ah
(Refrain)
A sigh sketches itself over Porto-Vecchio
Immortal, crucified, here you are come out of the deep
Ah
I cry not, I swim (floating) in the murmur of the waves,
I don't remember your name nor your body on the beach
Ah, ah, ah
[Couplet 2]
Tu m'as lâché la main sur le Porto-Vecchio
Je souris au venin qui me brûlait le dos
Je ne pleure pas, je nage dans l'océan de flammes, ah
Pour oublier ton corps, pour mieux tourner la page
Ah, ah
(Stanza 2)
You let go of my hand over Porto-Vecchio
I smile at (the thought of) the poison which kept burning my back
(See) I cry not, I swim through the ocean of flames, ah
In order better to forget your body, to better turn the page
Ah, ah
[Pont]
Je reviendrai demain sur le Porto-Vecchio
Pour oublier ta main et le goût de ta peau, ah
(Bridge)
Return I will tomorrow to Porto-Vecchio
(In order) Not to remember your hand and the taste of your skin, ah
[Refrain]
Tu m'as lâché la main sur le Porto-Vecchio
Je souris au venin qui me brûlait le dos
Je ne pleure pas, je nage dans l'océan de flammes, ah
Pour oublier ton corps, pour mieux tourner la page
Ah, ah, ah
(Refrain)
You let go of my hand over Porto-Vecchio
I smile at (the thought of) the poison which kept burning my back
(See) I cry not, I swim through the ocean of flames, ah
In order better to forget your body, to better turn the page
Ah, ah
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
Limericks crochetes: Once in quest of just a lost penny
Limerick: Once in quest of just a lost penny
Once in quest of just a lost penny
Found at Tumble-Weed Hotel ha' penny
Played Trump cards Stock Exchange
Now never short of change
Bought Sea Anne-Anne: Quest now not so funny!
So he thought of making more money
Changed his name to Quaid-il-Swamy
Found in Red Sea oil-gold
Drained Sea Anne-Anne all told
Now Quest's back all for just a ha' penny!
All day we hear story of penny
Penny dropped by woman in a hurry
If Quest means good business
Quest not lest you make mess
Till Sea Anne-Anne Quest really marry!
© T. Wignesan - Paris,2018
The PUNISHER and the PunishEd
The Punisher and the PunishEd
I
The Punisher needs the Punishéd to punish
(Will anyone argue this point)
That is: Who will the Punisher punish
If He had no-one to pinpoint
Unless He punishes Himself
And since we are all per se the Punishéd
We must all be part and parcel of the Same-Self
Why then punish Himself/Ourselves
Some would say: for sado-masochistic reasons
Others: if He didn't do that
What would He do with Himself
If only to amuse Himself
Create never-ending limitless demonic Purusha universes
The antithesis of Himself
That would produce and re-produce Itself/Themselves
A never-ending cheap television series
The Brahma Day followed by an extinguishing Brahma Night
Dissipate boredom
Alternate the Yang and the Yin
One up One down ad infinitum
Time for the Brahman creation
Time for the Vishnu preservation
Time for the Siva destruction
Le théâtre de l'Absurde
The Myth of Sisyphus
The cavernous cries of those who writhe and rage
Le théâtre de la Cruauté
Die Verfremde Effekt
The Punisher embracing the Punishéd
Playing to an empty Brechtian house
Who watches us: squirm squirt squeal
A magic-lantern Khayyam show
The winding caravan heading for a Shangri-la blinded by sand
Dogs who bark turned to stone
II
The Punisher wields the stick
The Punishéd stickless flees the stick
Fiddlesticks
What if the Punishéd also wields a stick
Sticks
Then you have conflict
But for the divine right to a bigger stick
The Puppeteer and the Puppet
The Trumpeter and the Tyrant
The Tortionneur and the Funambulist
The Union of Fifty-Sticks waiting for Brexit
One more over-used and bloodied stick
III
The Punisher justifies the need to punish the Punishéd
KARMA serves to ease the conscience
Of both the Punisher and the Punishéd
Makes Yang feel stronger than the Yin
Makes the just punishment a case for outright win
The Punishéd needs to feel he's fulfilling a debt
Hamartia come into its own: make no mistake
For some mindless mistake in some irredeemable moment
Assuage some masochistic phobia in the memory crypt
Watch the virtuous Yang bite the dust
And wonder if this up-side-down world
Makes any sense to the Just
IV
Which Playwright would think up such a forlorn plot
To drive all actors on stage down the trap-door shut
Do not particles aimless in the Primal Soup
By trial and error
Wrap on centillion Hawking key-boards
The perfect Greek tragedy
Sans Deus ex machina
Make the fate of all mankind
A matter of mindful matter
No man be so bad
As be by his role forbade
To assume a role
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Villanelle: Everything takes time: take not time by the forelock
Villanelle: Everything takes time: take not time by the forelock
Everything takes time: take not time by the forelock
Whether in deference to the past's foiled efforts
The tingling ergot fires our desires do unlock
Rye clavicus purpurea our joints dislock
Till the soil of our conscience deeper than roots
Everything takes time: take not time by the forelock
Eastern sky pyrotechnics rude rockets won't mock
In deference to witches' brews sharp mandrake roots
The tingling ergot fires our desires do unlock
Infernal fires rage on in limbs of mad rock
Gargled warnings in the larvae spouting cheroots
Everything takes time: take not time by the forelock
Is that Bosch who will St Anthony's fall not baulk
Memories of charred instant byres turned to soots
The tingling ergot fires our desires do unlock
Took thirteen point eight billion years to make a lark
How many to buy back twenty-one eight trillion debts
Everything takes time: take not time by the forelock
The tingling ergot fires our desires do unlock
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Lyrics of Bigflo and Oli's DOMMAGE: What a Pity, Translated by T
Wignesan
Lyrics of Bigflo & Oli's hit song, Dommage: " T'is a Pity! " Translated by T.
Wignesan
https: //bigfloetoli.lnk.to/LaVraieVie
(Two brothers: Florian (the elder with the " Big" prefix) and Olivio ORDONEZ,
born and raised in music from an early age in Toulouse by their musician
father, have only - one might say - recently come out of their teens, but have
already made it up high in the charts with the likes of Katy Perry and gang on
CStar and other channels featuring rap. They have just brought out their second
album, and to all intents and purposes, it would seem, determined to rage all
over the pop world with their cheeky straight-faced comic clips and savoirfaire.
Here's a sample of their catchy and infectious lyrics, for a start - if
" they" will not mind.
I have not tried to force the rhymes in my rendering though.)
Louis takes the bus as usual every morn
Walks past the same girl wrapt in sweet parfume
If only she'd come to talk, he keeps hoping every day
What he feels deep down is what they call love
But Louis, he's timid
And the girl, she's so beautiful
He dares not budge, he's stuck to his seat
Once she deigned to smile at him while alighting
And ever since that fateful day, he hasn't laid eyes on her again.
Refrain
Ah He ought to have taken the initiative, ought to have made the move
Believe me
They all said: ‘Ah! What a pity! Ah! What a shame! That surely was his last
chance! '
Yasmine has a great voice, she knows she's well-endowed
During the tempests of her life, music served to buoy her
Exposed to her melodious strains, the world would fawn at her feet
But her father kept insisting, " find yourself a true calling"
Sometimes she imagines herself lit up by projector lights
Showered on stage with applause and the target of bouquets
But Yasmine has gone all rusty, trapped by routine
Though sometimes she bursts out singing on the factory line
Refrain
Ah She ought to have taken the initiative, ought to have made the move
Believe me
They all said: ‘Ah! What a pity! Ah! What a shame! That surely was her last
chance! '
Diego stays sunk slumped in his settee
And he scolds his little brother for walking past the telé
His buddies had all gone out, he didn't join them
Often he finds himself alone with only the moon to keep him company
Diego is downcast, he lets the night bypass him
He feels depressed for not having found the girl of his life
" But, my poor Diego, you can't be more mistaken
That was the evening you were destined to meet her! "
Refrain
Ah He ought to have taken the initiative, ought to have made the move
Believe me
They all said: ‘Ah! What a pity! Ah! What a shame! That surely was his last
chance! '
Pauline she's discreet, she forgets she's beautiful
Covered all over her body shades of the colour of sky
Her husband will soon be home, she'd rather not let the thought bother
When he takes her hand, for sure it's not to make her dance
She recalls the day at the Town Hall the decision she took
The afternoon when she packed all her belongings
She had a future, a son to bring up
After the last dance, she has never been able to pull herself up
Refrain
Ah He ought to have taken the initiative, ought to have made the move
Believe me
They all said: ‘Ah! What a pity! Ah! What a shame! That surely was his last
chance! '
BETTER to endure feelings of remorse than to harbour regrets
BETTER to endure feelings of remorse than to harbour regrets
BETTER to endure feelings of remorse than to harbour regrets
BETTER to endure feelings of remorse THAT's the secret
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Villanelle: Envy or disdain which the slave-master of pain
Villanelle: Envy or disdain which the slave-master of pain
Life is an arrow stuck in the flesh - ask not WHY nor WHEREFROM, made of WHAT
nor HOW
just tend to the wound.
THE BUDDHA, the Enlightened ONE
Envy or disdain which the slave-master of pain
Yet the many dote on the media-made stars
Do States rest immune to the hell they wreak insane
The secret of success lies in bearing with bane
Every ego seeks to exact lost largesse wars
Envy or disdain which the slave-master of pain
Disdain's the god-daughter of envy when inane
Everything serves to mask one's failed hard-worked chores
Do States rest immune to the hell they wreak insane
Disdain feeds on high gnarled puritain racial gain
Such egos as stand not other ethnic higher scores
Envy or disdain which the slave-master of pain
Can the State be envious of Citizen Kane
Or just the giant voice on radio Star Wars
Do States rest immune to the hell they wreak insane
Would the Enlightened One deem today's scene stark vain
Is the wound self-inflicted or caused by our stars
Envy or disdain which the slave-master of pain
Do States rest immune to the hell they wreak insane
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Unquotable Quotes VIIIL: SEXUAL HARASSMENT - the feminist
kind
Unquotable Quotes VIIIL: SEXUAL HARASSMENT* - the feminist kind
(*" aggressive pressure or intimidation" : Is it really " any different" in most
cases in the act, judging by Hollywood standards?)
STOP: ARREST ALL GIRLS
- standing with legs apart on street-corners
- sitting with knees exposed on bar stools
- lolling with or without protruding bosoms at traffic lights or bus-stops
- swaying hips on high stilts on zebra crossings
- strolling with transparent bikinis on beaches
- reclining one eye shut and jutting exposed legs on airplane aisles
- climbing with bottoms stretched on mountain faces
- cavorting in up-side-down-T during figure skating championships
- gymnasts tumbling on mattresses in Olympic contests
- Lolitas copying the alphabet with contorted limbs on swinging rings
- getting ready for the shower under spot lights curtain less
- with or without swim suits doing the breast stroke
- behind high counters with low neck-lines
- with un-buttoned uniforms in the armed forces
- press-secretaries with false eye-brows and mascara on eyelashes
- showing off sets of false teeth under aesthetically shaped noses
- after school giggling and disturbing the peace as they pass you
- including police women with condescendingly beautiful looks
- and wives who open and slam windows while you pass under them
YES, ARREST ALL DAMES
- and all women teachers who entice male students with high marks
- y compris grandmothers
- all queens who learn Hindustani from servants for no higher pay
- and shop-assistants who caress your palm with short-change
- APHRO-dites who make you foam at the mouth
- and the three witches made Macbeth fear not none of woman-born
- and Lady Macbeth for inciting her Lord to usurp the crown
- and Juliet for not letting Romeo know before quaffing the potion
- and Gwyneth for turning Tom Boy to entice the lovesick Shakespeare
- and Judy Dench for aiding and abetting the actress
ARREST ALL VAUDEVILLE and CAN-CAN GIRLS
- for throwing up in your face while you let drip Vermouth on your lace
- all models who parade cat-walk side-walks
- y compris those spruced up in cocoons beside husbands at summits
- all women heads of states who rub cheeks to warm starved breasts
- y compris Brezhnev and Krushschev for preferring lips to cheeks
- y compris aboriginal chiefs who tickle noses with spiked lips
- and all sex-starved women who bellow at your bad jokes
ARREST ALL
- bitches mares felines who lick you to leave sticky needle-sharp furs
- she-goats with beards for masquerading as kid-bearing moms
- all mares for braying like donkeys
- all race jockeys for riding bare-back
- all lionesses for throwing up their fore-and-hind legs after a night of…
- all elephants who unfurl and dig trumps looking for nuts in holes
- all crocodiles for looking all one and the same
- all apes for aping humans in the act
ARREST
- all secretaries who stoop to pick up their bosses pencils with mouths
- all sportswomen who roll with pain on the turf without shame
- all rugger-women who tear to shreds their partners shorts in scrums
- all tennis-women who sprawl between sets to earn free thigh massage
- all women cyclists whose hinds swallow up seats
ARREST ALL GIRLS
- riding in the METRO/UNDERGROUND or BUSES during the rush-hour for they can
all potentially sue the men who squeeze them all without - YES - wanting or not
wanting to every time the trains or buses jog and pull away at every station or
through midway change of speed
ARREST ALL CONNIVING GIRLS
- who stoop low in search of dropped coins in super-market queues
- who suck lollipops at bus-stops and railway platforms for exercise
- all damsels in distress on deserted roads and by-lanes
- all toughs who kick-start their motor-cycles over and over again
- all wanton who want-men for being so darned bloody beautiful and giving-off
so much un-merited pleasure - just to be looked at - in such a dreary world
without relief without hope if not for their cunning cuddles, caressing coaxes,
carefree cavorting and courting curses!
ARREST THEM ALL and PUT US ALL IN THE SELF-SAME DEN so that we can continue to
be harassed by them SANS END!
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Villanelle: Too late too few the tears she sheds on cradle
Villanelle: Too late too few the tears she sheds on cradle
Too late too few the tears she sheds on cradle
Bosom-fed mouths sing no tame lullabies
Innocence raped in the womb heeds no fable
Each child on its own must its life enable
Who would re-crush the seed ram the egg with lies
Too late too few the tears she sheds on cradle
Bad enough the baby's plucked through tight stable
Wrapped in a putrid bag stink slime stuck on eyes
Innocence raped in the womb heeds no fable
Animals all trained to rut machos enable
None sneak in on the sly sans broken horn tries
Too late too few the tears she sheds on cradle
No engine smokes to cut lifeblood off cable
Nor let pistons lockstep shunt through torrid sties
Innocence raped in the womb heeds no fable
Monsters all baked in ovens below navel
No use pretending we are the scions of skies
Too late too few the tears she sheds on cradle
Innocence raped in the womb heeds no fable
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
IF YOU THINK YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE
IF YOU THINK YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE…
" A quiet and modest life, " says he in German, the most successful of them/us
all, " brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant unrest."
Albert Einstein's hand-written tip to a courier at the Imperial Hotel
Tokyo, November 1922
If you think you're the only one to record the way the world's run
Know that every top's naked spun when the wrapped string's outrun
Everyone's in such a hurry to step out of this collapsing quandary
Even if the one and only query is left without comforting certainty
Everybody wants a piece of posterity to be part of everlasting history
Even at the cost of mimicry if only to keep shoring up sheer vanity
Fire burns out in an empty shell the way the poem slim content quell
Who reads for meaning to feel well means to read more feeling swell
Roads lead to where one wants to go, lines come to an end in vertigo
To each ego own voice sounds best, who renounces the will but hobo
Tell this to a Cervantes five years in quarries after the Battle of Lepanto
Confront Dostoeyeski with firing squad again after four years in Siberia
Tear Theo from Van Gogh's bosom after Gauguin's bullish loud hysteria
Tease Mozart in his deathbed with the sleepless scores of his concerto
There's no quiet in a modest life for billions will step eager on your face
Our world honours the sham strong the phoney the fake the half-baked
The weak work all day not to crave success but to fend off all disgrace
No true mother harassed by rape abandons the baby for rapists' sake
Success is always drenched in sweat except for those fils de Putes
Who inherited the earth long before the oldest profession followed suit
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
IF YOU WERE FOOL ENOUGH TO
IF YOU WERE FOOL ENOUGH TO….
If you were fool enough to ask me things that better be
What I'd rather do twiddle-doo twiddle-dee if I were free
Yes, if you lived in a caved-in sagging igloo like our Magoo
I'd say go to sleep thinking of sweet Sue in downy mildew
Suck honey sirupy through wildly singing tulip stalks
Wake up on clouds fluffy where this world ne'er baulks
Better be listening to long King Crimson aubades fade
Than bang through Doors the mashed ear-drum brigade
Toss through worlds where logico-tractatus makes sense
Than watch elected hypocrites lipservice nuclear rea mens
Who would grudge me leave fuming in contours cannabis
Away from all this ritual rigmarole: watch praying-mantis
Mount your own back to munch your own squirting penises
What a donna-wetter way to perpetuate the human species
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Eric Mottram's The Cat Sat on the Mat Translated by T Wignesan
Translation of Eric Mottram's The Cat Sat on the Mat, La chatte s'est assise
sur la natte by T. Wignesan
(Unless I'm sorely mistaken, this's EM's first published poem: Poetry
Magazine/Poetry Foundation, Chicago, February 1959, pp.306-307.)
La chatte s'est assise sur la natte
Assise sur ses hanches de la souche de vin elle
Evoque la loi de trépied
Et elle lance son quatrième jambe
En la direction des parasites
La partie supérieur de son cou blanc: un habile
Petit coup obsessionnel de ses muscles fins
Le soleil se palisse. Des plats nuages font tourner
La voile brumeuse sous le ciel.
A la limite maniaque du pivot
De sa vibrante crise sans fin
De son grattement elle s'arrête et fixe son regarde
De ses paires d'étangs du sens aux teints vertes
Elle s'est enfermée en rejetant
Mon sens d'empathie pour son état de dépression.
Des marées précoces de la panique
Ravagent mes pores et secouent
Ma langue fatale pendant qu'elle
Reste tout bien protégée. Etendue à l'extrême
Dans des toiles tropiques hautaines de nerfs
Des grosses images se sont assises les jambes croisées
A l'intérieur de son crâne outré et absurde.
Une rose blanche ne peut pas croire
Que, moi, je l'ai vu désintégrer.
Des lianes s'adhèrent dans son coeur,
L'impulsion se montre sans même une parole.
Sa jambe obsessionnelle s'est sauté dès son coeur
Et le mythe silencieux en forme de bec
De son amour s'apparaît en se remontrant
Prenant entièrement pour proie le nez et l'aine
L'isotype* de Venus dans son sang.
(Note: * probably an error for " isotope" .)
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Translation of Eric Mottram's A Faithful Private - 7 -excerpts from
Notes on Poetics by T Wignesan
Translation of Eric Mottram's A Faithful Private 7 with excerpts from " Notes on
Poetics" by T. Wignesan
(Note: With this post, I bring to a close EM's pamphlet collection: Faithful
Private, GENERA editions by Colin Simms, issue 13 (Place: ?) ,1976, n.p.
Translation of No.6: " Courbet, Elegy 8" I had already posted up on September
26,2017.
EM's " Notes on Poetics" appeared in The Journal of Comparative Poietics, Vol.
I, n° 1 (Paris) ,1989, pp.37-44. Founder-Editor: T. Wignesan)
" Since the 1960s poetry readings have become seriously effective event in a
poet's life in Britain - that is, not some actor actorizing himself at the
expense of the poet and the poem, but the interacting performance of poet, his
own work and an audience. At least, in a small place. The large hall, probably
these days with absurd electronic amplification, discourages interpenetration
and encourages poet-demagogues, and keeps the poet apart and evasive - but, of
course, some official establishment poets thrive on this, poet-laureates and
the like. (…) During the 1970-1976 period when th Poetry Society, later the
National Poetry Centre, in London, became for the first time a centre for truly
contemporary poetry, we held regular readings, but also public interviewdiscussions
- one poet at a time - as part of evenings billed as Poetry
Information. (…) Poetry had been taken out of the classroom and the academic
judgmental enclosure. (…) …and performance also came to include the longplaying
record, the cassette, and the video-tape: the poet's voice and physical
presence. The speed of the poem, its sounds and rhythms were offered by their
composer as part of poetry, not restricted to print typography. As with music
and theatre, performance is the life of the work. Information and exchange of
interests founded a poetics that could hold everything within the act of
performance between writer, reader, audience and publisher. (…) Most poetry
readings are recorded by someone, so that the (poet's) commentary (on his work)
and the performance become part of the poem, and as it is with recorded music,
readings can, and often do, vary as - with any luck - the performances increase
in number. They become part of a general poetics, too: no proper account of
twentieth century poetry is possible without them. Poetics is both the sound
and the typographic notation - and notational forms are endless, except for the
pathetically classicist." (JCL, pp.37-38)
7.
est-ce que vous avez envie de commencer?
n'importe où
ce que ne pas
détritus?
le baptisme est la tête sous l'eau
un prêtre coupe le sexe
un examen de sang tenu à l'hauteur du ciel
renouvelle les matériaux
autrefois les mots
une léthargie qui prévoie
à présent des parties de la vie
pas des conquêtes mais l'acceptation
des dons et ne pas de montons
ou les restes du festin
mais les feuilles d'invitation
en avançant nous échangeons des morceaux
ayant d'orgasms dans l'un et de l'autre
comme on s'en fait avec des photos et des poèmes
sans un plafond sur vos yeux:
des trous bien définis de faite et l'ambition
contribuent à faire celui qui agisse:
à l'autorité l'acolyte et le secrétaire
caressent les poignées du pontiff
le Mohave n'est pas silencieux
vous n'arrivez pas l'entendre
pas de Kalahari en (Grande) Bretagne
en s'excluant Fleet Street
Portland Place Shepherds Bush
Great Turnstile entendu avec facilité sur chaque
signalement de rue dans la ville
si vous fermez les presses
en dehors dans la parque où Shiva
entre en tant que Herne
unis pour toujours:
partageant le beat aux couteaux:
un étranger entre dans cette verdure
les crevasses dans le vent d'antan
les mauvaises herbes dans les fissures de la ville
la glace rivet la terre à la forêt
le livre sterling on dit est en train de chuter
les banquiers mangent leur repas avec hâte
la Presse trouve plus d'actualités:
et vous connaissez-vous le remède?
Nous oui
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Translation of Eric Mottram's A Faithful Private - 5 Homage to
Humphrey Jennings by T Wignesan
Translation of Eric Mottram's A Faithful Private 5 Homage to Humphrey Jennings
by T. Wignesan
for Elaine Randell
à quoi sert le talent
si l'aire la mer et la terre
pollués les eaux coulent passant un peuple
qui n'a pas
l'intention de vivre
la-bas où la pelouse
est enlevée afin de libérer d'espace
pour un homme pour qu'il augmente
son espace pendant la période
de la guerre Les feus furent allumés
un travail par un homme dans une génération livrée
au loisir sans ressentir la culpabilité:
la façon qu'ils menèrent leur vie
c'est comme ça que la revolution
commence: la pollution alors
n'aviez pas d'origine
dans leur têtes:
ils se livraient à la peinture à la rame aux chansons
réalisaient des films pour le bureau central de la Poste:
une personne parmi eux entreprit une direction
en s'observant le geste
arrêté en mouvance arrêté
en se tournant sur lui même lequel devient un talent
des hommes et des femmes dans
l'aire la mer et la terre devenus
un gros danger pour la vie à cause des armes
l'exactitude contre l'exactitude
pour la survie voulue:
l'insanité arrive
avec la marée haute et basse
les ruisseaux qui coulent
loins à l'intérieur resistant
l'exploitation de cette grotesque
minérale conquise
la lune comme un homme
autrefois plongée dans des eaux
pour le choral blanc
dans des sables dorés
nageait dans une trance
le long d'un lit de la mer:
puis les hommes du parage
m'avait dit que cet endroit de la mer
fut choisi par les requins pour reproduire
venus d'autres lointaines mers
aux eaux peu profondes
où ils circulaient autour d'eux-même en amoureux:
à quoi bon
d'expérimenter ce frémissement
Involontaire
pendant qu'on fixe les yeux sur l'eau limpide:
ne pas penser
de soi-même
sans un besoin exigeant
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Translation of Eric Mottram's A Faithful Private - 4 with a Clive
Bush Comment by T Wignesan
Transl. of Eric Mottram's A Faithful Private - 4 with a Clive Bush comment on
Mottram's poetry
Excerpt from an article, " From space to caves in the heart recreating the
collective world in Eric Mottram's poetry" by Clive Bush, Director of American
Studies, King's College, University of London in The Journal of Comparative
Poietics, Vol. I, Nos.2 & 3 (Paris) ,1990/1991, p.49. Founder-Editor: T.
Wignesan.
" The very few good English poets are buried endlessly under unbelievably
overpublicized and minor poets like Larkin, Betjeman, Tom Gunn, Irish exiles,
expatriates from previous colonies (and the darker the skin the better) who are
endlessly flattered by the Arts Council, the British Council, and the
Establishment Poetry Society and who have never understood the difference
between writing " political" poetry and writing poetry politically.4* They
ensure that anybody with a noisy social, sexual, racial, religious, or
mental/physical problem, and almost everybody published by Faber and Faber
since 1960 is instantly legitimated in a market dominated by the comforting
guilts of liberals. (…) Mottram himself is absolutely unprovincial in form,
content, and in the sheer range of available materials he puts together. In
this sense he is closer to an English tradition which took for granted it was
artistically part of Europe: a tradition which includes Chaucer, Milton,
Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, and beyond Europe, an American tradition which would
include Whitman, Pound, Williams, H. D., Rukeyser, Olson among many others.
Jerome Rothenberg is among the exemplary poets whose sense of the world enables
him to draw on traditions which range from ancient Indian and Chinese poetry to
poetry of Native Americans, Eskimos, Pacific peoples: that still enormous range
of different histories, often non-literate poetries, artistic practises, forms
of life, and human experience which academics, aristocrats and commercial
advertisers designate as " ethnic" . "
4. Le chanteur
l'Interstate 40 au croisement
de la State Route 27
abandonnée aux graffiti
les fumeurs et copperheads
— Visant la Gloire —
la bibliothèque d'Okemah
Oklahomah ne voulait pas
ses écritures et signes
ses cendres
au-delà des falaises d'Atlantique
la pluie tombe ne tombe pas
sur les peacans cacahuètes
sur une église
pour chaque centaine
pour le compte de la fierté civique
dans des clubs de service militaire
où un agent de service secret
témoigne sur serment quotidiennement
le chanteur en déplacement
est détenu par les Soviets
afin qu'il fasse adapter les chansons de guerre russes
en ballades américaines jouables
agent Matusow R. S. No.115
Woody Guthrie Memorial Inc.
une corporation à but non-lucrative
pour un musée en vigueur
la date est 1972
le faux témoignage
sans vitre sans portes
la maison à l'intersection
de qui la terre
de qui
les chansons
* The distinction is Kurt Well's….(…) quoted in Eric Mottram's Interrogation
Rooms (London: Spanner,1982) , p.10.
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Translation of Eric Mottram's A Faithful Private - 3 Dolores Huerta
by T Wignesan
Translation of Eric Mottram's A Faithful Private - 3 Dolores Huerta by T.
Wignesan
3. Dolores Huerta
aucun coq n'y annonce la reveille:
les étudiants et les dirigeants des travailleurs
font partie du piquet de grève contre les Wine Brothers:
les bourrasques collent contre les pancartes de grève
les jeans trempés les bleues de travail réfléchissant:
à Los Altos ils chantent des chansons de grève
à l'honneur de Chavez et de Dolores
dans un camion emménagé en un lit plat:
les enfants et les pères qui portent des enfants
la famille la United Fruit Workers
tout l'été sur les lignes de piquet de grève
dans des prisons des maisons et les meubles
vendus pour d'hivers vêtements voitures
les essentiels pour le travail au delà
de ce mois d'août au-delà d'épreuves:
deux hommes tués à Arvin
Nagi Daifullah tué
par la lampe électrique d'un chérif
Juan de la Cruz fusillé sur le piquet de grève
Dolores Huerta la vice-présidente
stratège négociatrice
ses dix enfants prises en charge sécurisés
sa grace
son rire par concentration
prends soins de sa santé
pour sa fille afin d'être saine
contre l'avarice
contre la charité des libéraux:
le machisme gagne maintenant les femmes
le non-violence provenant des femmes et enfants
leurs bras meurtris par les planches des Teamsters
les yeux de la police cernés par le plaisir
caressent leurs étuis de revolvers:
à la maison pas de conflits
l'homme est le chef:
une famille soudée par le respect
quant au machisme des hommes toujours
la vieille religion:
le mariage dissout détruit le Syndicat
des badges d'officiers des cultivateurs brillent
au lever du soleil les.22s en défense-propres:
" nous étions si heureuses, en paix et jolies
même les grand-mères jusqu'à
ce qu'ils commence à tirer avec leurs fusils" :
Reagan fut photographié
en train de manger des raisins scab:
les troupes de Vietnam
mangent des laitues du gouvernement provenant des champs de l'entreprise
les trottoirs lézardés
stroes en délabrement: bousculent
dans les campements de l'entreprise
des terminus plein de poussière placés sous surveillance:
les travailleurs de Brothers dispersent
surveillés par des brigades en voiture
" you find a way
it gets easier
all the time"
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Translation of Eric Mottram's A Faithful Private - 2 with
Commentary by T Wignesan
Transl. of Eric Mottram's A Faithful Private - 2 with a Clive Bush comment on
Mottram's poetry
Excerpt from an article, " From space to caves in the heart recreating the
collective world in Eric Mottram's poetry" by Clive Bush, Director of American
Studies, King's College, University of London in The Journal of Comparative
Poietics, Vol. I, Nos.2 & 3 (Paris) ,1990/1991, p.61. Founder-Editor: T.
Wignesan.
" As Mottram points out in his article on Michael McClure, " ecology" is a major
problem for both capitalist and communist societies.47 Everywhere in Mottram's
poetry is an appalling sense of anguish at the wastage and repressive cruelties
of both major powers and their allies in our time. In Interrogation Rooms
(1982) where the vision is very dark, Spinoza's dictum " there cannot be too
much joy; it is always good: melancholy is always bad, " 48 is a hard-won and
always unstable conviction. The existential anguish and sense of political
betrayal felt by anyone of sensibility in the late twentieth century (and
certainly acutely in post-Imperial, Thatcherite Britain) is never ignored: " the
cultural scene can never be divided and it is always political and economic." 49
A Burroughsian vision of virus, sexual invasion, cancerous deterioration, hitec
manipulations, malign control-fantasies, the deadening energies of mass
media, and enactments lead Mottram to Artaud's cry quoted in The Legal Poems
(1986) :
do not make me do evil to myself
since God has already committed
every filthiness.50"
Un fantassin loyal - 2
le sang de vieilles bobines d'actualités des films
entachait dans des chambres d'induction
de la tribu
mais en soutenant la robe en tant que don
appelée l'invitation
alors puis-je passer à travers
dites aux étoiles " en haut"
sans (dire) " qui s'en sort"
asseyez-vous à la table ronde
sur la dernière étage vers les étoiles
ouvertes et entourées des modèles
dans leur imitation
abandonnez-vous les morts calcifiées
continuez afin de pouvoir passer à travers
pour manger des nouvelles branches
par le biais des chambres d'oreilles
entendez une scène d'odeur en couleurs
goûtez le matin du printemps les chansons d'oiseaux
trouvez-vous que cet écriture
soit placée sous l'emprise d'une charme
ayant mangé la vieille femme
elle s'est émergée de sa peau
altérée ses pores de pigment et
ses follicules ont une masque d'aliments
vieille déesse
homme nouveau fontaine
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Translation of Eric Mottram's A Faithful Private - 1 with
Commentary by T Wignesan
Translation of Eric Mottram's A Faithful Private - 1 by T. Wignesan
For Barry MacSweeney
(GENERA editions by Colin Simms, issue 13 - Kent Winter-Spring 1974 -
Ohio/London 1976, n.p.)
A poet should have on his coffin not a wreath but a gun to show that he was a
faithful private in the liberation struggles of humanity.
Heinrich Heine
" Un poète devrait avoir sur son cercueil pas une couronne mais un fusil pour
démontrer qu'il fut un fantassin loyal dans les luttes pour la libération de
l'humanité." HH
Un fantassin loyal - 1
du fait d'être effrayé ce n'est pas quelque chose
dont nous n'avions pu être certains
le passage du temps nous le dira qui tombèrent
qui se trouvaient délaissés en arrière
le front de l'orage étendant à deux cents milles
vers l'est blanc derrière le gris
les ciels du nord et du sud
est-ce qu'un homme quiconque
choisit ou quelqu'un parmi nous
est choisi que le fait
de l'écrire fasse
une différence
frère
en liberté une espace
de flamme entre nous
se soulevant dans les Serpent Mounds
des chansons sans paroles
textes rites
les mineurs montent comme des machines
descendent pour rafraichir
l'aire
pour des mines d'humus
où le soleil brille fort
sans relâche et animé
" who is this man
from abroad
to tell us we are part
of disaster
against the Freedom Trail
he urges us not to be victim"
à l'extérieur sur un arbre dénué des feuilles
un cardinal ouvre au ciel
balayé par le vent une pluie qui se jette
à travers l'analyse
à travers des tons engagés
le détritus d'un siècle
se réuni dans des chambres des côtes
les rues affaissées
se moquaient du Trail
" we are not
a moment
of your insanity"
Excerpts from an article, " From space to caves in the heart recreating the
collective world in Eric Mottram's poetry" by Clive Bush, Director of American
Studies, King's College, University of London in The Journal of Comparative
Poietics, Vol. I, Nos.2 & 3 (Paris) ,1990/1991, pp.55-56. Edited by T.
Wignesan.
" One of Mottram's most distinguished essays which is at least as important as
Mailer's essay " The White Negro" (1956) which to some extent it modifies and
extends, is " Dionysus in America" (1976) . The essay looks at Rock Culture in
the United States (and by implication the rest of the world) , drawing an
exemplary contrast between Altamont and Woodstock. Distinguished musician as he
is, Mottram questions the value of Rock in general, makes important exceptions,
and relates his two examples to traditions, inside American culture in general.
Following the resources of the myth, Dionysus is seen as a " major origin of the
Devil in Christian mythology and is deeply associated with ecstatic rituals of
change." 27 Its embodiment in Rock music was first seen, therefore, to be
profoundly upsetting to those in authority: " White Citizen Council groups
linked it with sin and communism, while the Soviet Union linked it with sin and
capitalism." (xxx)
(…) The Dionysian break-through needs social context of viable revolution if it
is not to diminish into mere rebelliousness, licensed orgy or ritual which reenergizes
the reactionary and lethal status quo. (xxx) …Mottram also cites
Nietsche to the effect that, " Dionysus deteriorated gives us " a mixture of
sensuality and cruelty, " the sexuality of sado-masochistic power." (xxx) ….
Within this radically impoverished and controlled space, traditional American
revivalist dramas are enacted (ecstasy, dissolving rationality, the promise of
new community) . (…)
At one level, therefore, Rock is a permutation on all rituals of hypnotic
ecstacy which need a constellation of angels, stars, gods who deliver " energy"
to a passively-manipulated populace intended to " orbit in half helpless
gravitation." (xxx)
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Translation of Eric Mottram's The Nerves of Proust and Sitting
Bull by T Wignesan
Translation of Eric Mottram's The Nerves of Proust and Sitting Bull by T.
Wignesan
Excerpts from an article, " From space to caves in the heart recreating the
collective world in Eric Mottram's poetry" by Clive Bush, Director of American
Studies, King's College, University of London in The Journal of Comparative
Poietics, Vol. I, Nos.2 & 3 (Paris) ,1990/1991, pp.48-49. Editor: T.
Wignesan:
" In Mottram's work there is no illusion that poetry will save us. Nonetheless a
commitment to a poetry of intelligence with its necessarily radical and varied
forms, to a clear-eyed and non-moralistic politics, to celebration of nondogmatic
forms of life, and to creativity and its happiness, at least rehearses
the possibility of choice rather than submission. It is as necessary a task for
Mottram as it was for Shelley in the era of the Peterloo massacre, or Swinburne
observing Disraeli's absurd antics in relation to the Ottoman Empire. Certainly
the difficulty is all the greater for Mottram in the sense that there is no
" good place" for committed creative intelligence. (…) Mottram expands his frame
of reference far beyond officially-recognised English poetic practice in order
paradoxically to recover the actual and multiple richnesses of English cultural
traditions currently betrayed by the know-nothing, pseudo-lyrical confessions
of poets who mistakenly think their personal lives interesting enough to record
in immediately comprehensible invariably tear-stained and melancholy
mediocrity. The " immediately comprehensible" flatters a populace whose
intelligence has been undermined by an autocratic State paranoid about
criticism…"
Les nerfs de Proust et de Sitting Bull
comme une guérison pour l'original
tissu fin
qu'il a mis des bouchons d'ivoire
dans ses oreilles
avalait presque n'importe quoi
créa sa
scène inoffensive et l'appela la mémoire
pour honorer la divinité une centaines
de pièces de
peau lesquelles furent presque arrachées de ses bras
qu'il gagne
le triple farce de désobéissance
qu'il donne quelque chose
pour le reporter de Tribune de New York afin qu'il perde
la mémoire pèse pour réaliser un massacre
sur les nerfs qui
se sentaient une guerre Franco-Prussienne et commençaient à périr
dès le début
ainsi le passé d'une détaille urbaine voyageait comme le culte d'une cargaison
les Sioux donnèrent nos
jeunes américains qui rêvent d'un dernier bastion
(from Eric Mottram. the he expression. London: Aloes Books,1973, p.49)
(c) T. Wignesan, Paris,2017
Translation of Eric Mottram's Twentythird Legal by T Wignesan
Translation of Eric Mottram's Twentythird Legal by T. Wignesan
Le vingt-troisième légal
pendant la guerre le peuple devient obéissent de nouveau
plein du respect (et) de la confiance les enfants naïfs dans la foi
la gouvernance nécessaire la responsabilité perdue
des serviteurs loyaux des castrés adults
la gouvernance appropriée dans leurs esprits c'est l'urgence
Ils se sentent bien obligés à la ration bien dans le manquement bien
d'être restreint l'anxiété permanente reconnaissants
pour le chocolat addictif
nous n'avons pas besoin d'une guerre pour l'instant
uniquement des structures favorisant la mort
une gouvernance parfaite
qu'ils posent des questions inattendues
alors nous pouvons continuer à vivre
(from The Legal Poems. Colne: Arrowspire Press,1986, p.19)
Excerpt from a review of EM's Selected Poems.1989 by Simon Smith in
" fragmente', Issue One, Spring 1990, Ed. Andrew Lawson and Anthony Mellors at
Oxford, p.39:
" …The police state enters these poems with great frequency, and its shadow
becomes darker in later works like Interrogation Rooms and The Legal Poems. The
oppression is seen as global not local. (…) The way we are pinned into
responses and grindingly intolerable lives, Mottram reveals in chilling fashion
with the " Twentythird Legal Poem" … (…) This is Mottram's bleak assessment of
the situation facing us in Thatcherite Britain: his poetry is about the use and
abuse of this kind of power. As he points out in " Elegy 4" : " politics came
throgh (sic) poets/ poet-statesmen the rule" (24) . But the power networks have
changed since Wyatt's time (a writer Mottram particularly admires) . The poet is
no longer one of Shelley's legislators; our poets are simply the most
articulate of the dispossessed. This Selected (Poems) faces up to this
readjustment in a way few others have dared."
Excerpts from Eric Mottram's letters from America during 1965-66 (continued) :
August 10,1966: «Dear Wignesan,
I'm so sorry I put you to writing to enquire about the safety of your Burroughs
bundle: everything arrived safely forwarded from New York Univ. while I was up
in Buffalo. I just could not find the time towards the end of my time there for
anything except teaching my two graduate courses and grading the hefty papers.
Up there I found three editors who want the article [actually the first part of
William Burroughs: The Algebra of Need. London: Marion Boyars,1977,282pp.]:
to appear in Audit, Salmagundi and as a separate thing. Your work in getting
hold of it and the letters must have been irritating and I sincerely thank you
for it all. One thing: I did send the Reich - did you get it? Since you don't
say, I gather not: that's worrying because you know how They are about Reich.
Incidentally, Brown has a second book out at last - Love's Body -not quite the
brilliance of Life Against Death but pretty good and an original form.
Otherwise I am hung up totally reading and thinking about Olson, as a result of
hearing tapes of his discourses and seeing lecture notes of his seminars at
Buffalo. Quite apart from my steady admiration for him as poet and Black
Mountain organizer. (Incidentally I owe you one pound one and six for the
postage - shall I pay you by check now or when I arrive?) Under the pressure of
my courses up there, I felt energized and tackled a number of other projects in
a way which astonished me - all sorts of things loose in my mind started to
come through connected. Partly the decent conditions, the sunshine, the
airconditioned office, and the excellent company recruited for the summer
session - Fiedler, Barth, Richard Stern, Mudrick, Clive Hart, Arnold Stein,
Basil Bunting, Tony Connor - etc - and Me. - it added up to work done and
feelings used. Not one bad dream. [...11 lines suppressed] Olson is not a
Negro - why did you think he was I wonder? : interesting. You are right about my
position in London and the betrayals of everything you and I stand for: latest
is M.L.Rosenthal's piece on Ginsberg - after years of talking to him about
Allen and hearing my lecture on him at Kilve, he comes out with this classic
shit in the NY Times Book Review. But I now have three of my best students
teaching in universities in England - some hope and happiness here. And let me
say, everywhere I have taught and seminared and lectured here, the response has
been great, and the jobs offered very heartening. Especially at Buffalo. [...
10 lines suppressed]
I shall not write again from here - I have three weeks to do everything in. So
I am telling everyone no more letters from this end -unless imperative. I have
unfinished business from Buffalo to get down to while the whole thing is
fermenting, and a number of pieces to complete here. Whether I'll get to San
Francisco as planned I doubt - not only the plane strike but sheer weight of
things. I earned the money for the trip, so that's ok. On[e] thing I would like
to do is to go and see Olson at Gloucester at the end of the month. Feel I need
it.
So that's it. Let me know if there is anything urgent at all, nevertheless.
Otherwise we'll get things out in September - sailing the seventh.
[1 para of 6 lines on my writing lobbed off] Yours sincerely, Eric.»
[From c/o Wilentz,17 West 8th Street, New York 10003. Letter addressed to Room
3,7, Buckland Crescent, Swiss Cottage, N.W.3]
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017
Translation of Eric Mottram's 1922 Section 1 in Earth Raids 1976
by T Wignesan
Translation of Eric Mottram's 1922 Section 1 by T. Wignesan
for David Attoe
Notre devise pourrait être: ‘que nous nous ne soyons pas envoûtés'
Wittgenstein in Zettel
laissez pendre la graisse sans cou
où la tête flotte sur les épaules
un joyau sacré liaison contre
la chair nouvelle
nom nom
appelez le nom la marque du nom
l'impression de l'ange
emmène la loi emporte le soleil
nom de la lune le mangé la cuillère le nom
nom de merde baignoire lit pot (le pot du lit)
le mal le bien le silence à plat sur votre dos
le nom joyau s'appuie sur le muscle
n'importe quel bébé doux
il arrive en volant du plaisir
übersichtlich* l'habilité d'un aigle haut à l'intérieur
s'intègre l'oeil la touchée et la tête lignes
un champ de passage facile
l'un vers l'autre ange au pays cartographié
ainsi le joyau règle les rêves
décline tombe
donnant de noms aux animaux
donnant de noms aux poupées le sobriquet
le vieux Nick
* EM notes in " Resources" : Wittgenstein's ‘descriptive word for an arrangement
of factual material for easy passage from one part to another'.
*
May 23,1966: «Dear Wignesan,
All right, I know I am a poor letter man but really I have [been] so occupied
with travelling around and lecturing lately. [...5 lines suppressed] By the
way, speaking of the Enemy, you could do me a favour: could you collect that
damn Burroughs article from Peace News for me? I still haven't heard a single
bloody word from that ‘f-----g' McGrath: when I get back, that man is going to
suffer if it's the last thing I do. He's not worth the full word. The interview
I did from New York was with the editor of the Realist, Paul Krassner - a fine
satirical man who puts the wind up every fool within earshot. I admire him
completely. Do you know the magazine? You used to be able to get it at Better
Books, but now I gather all is changed and no terrible beauty born with it.
Except that Miles fellow who had the gall to say in the East Village Other that
London had no regular poetry readings last year which paid the poets - the
bastard never turned up to a single one of the things Bill Butler and I put on
at ICA.... So much for his oh so touted interest in literature, the sod. My
next Negro piece will be very different to the last: I want really to examine
the business of anti-semitism among Negros, and to look into the blackness
business - each number of the Liberator kills my reason. Incidentally, or
rather not so, Leroi Jones was finally thrown out of the Black Arts and escaped
to a hiding place in Newark - by his own people - and he still does TV shows
and radio ones attacking the whiteys, the Jews (I happen to know that he
regularly gets money from and cashes his checks with a Jewish friend) , and
intelligence. A curious trio, don't you agree? (There is no paperback Shadow
and Act yet: if there is one, you will have it, I promise) . (Anything you want
otherwise?) As for me, I lecture in universities where I am listened to as I am
not in England, let alone London: I could have any number of excellent and
richly paid jobs for the asking; my reputation gets better, my work therefore
improves because my inferiority feelings diminish with encouragement; I have
friends such as I rarely have found in England - people really I can move with;
and the thought of coming back to the humiliations of London fills me with
apprehension. Recently, I was in Michigan, in Kent (Ohio) , and Bridgeport
(Connecticut) - and spent a long weekend on Shelter Island, an idyllic place in
the arms of Long Island at the Atlantic end. I saw Plisetskaya dancing with the
Bolshoi and felt the radiance that comes of charismatic womanhood and total
skill. Now I have to leave my flat because the owner is returning from his
travels, so I shall be staying eith [with] Ted Wilentz and his wife until the
destiny boat in September but I shall not be there much. I go to Buffalo to do
a graduate course on June 25 - unti[l] August 5 - and somehow I have to make
Harvard and San Francisco as well. It looks like that boat will be the haven it
was last September. I can't rest up, and there it is. But I'm reading a lot and
sort of blossoming.
[... A whole para: 5 lines left out]
Yours ever, Eric.»
[From New York University.Letter addressed to 156, Gloucester Place, London
N.W.1, but re-directed twice to: 47, Broadhurst Gardens, N.W.6 and 7, Buckland
Crescent, N.W.3]
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,2017