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Poetry

	Michel Galiana
	PROFILE About me Friends (8) Poetry (30) Video poems (2)

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Michel Galiana, 19 november 2011

Silence

We lived together hours that know
Of nothing but words and semblance
We told of things of long ago
The word that surged from far below
Shunned even cautious utterance

T' was with love a deceitful game
Whereby silence was our joker
We felt on our hearts rise a flame
Forgetful of bond and of shame
That lust stirred up like a poker

Teeth are an enamelled barrier
Protecting better than a host
The hoard where words fit together
We were to twin stars similar,
To each other so near but lost

To reach the point where the nights spring
And bore the well where rises pain
Our silence was both drill and sink
Unsated lust from us fleeing
Opened to us wood and fountain

And opened the cradle of silt
That leaves an escapist hopeless
For nowhere there but on the hill
Does seed sprout in the soil we till
When sowing grains of loneliness

SILENCE

Nous n'avons connu que le temps
Des paroles et des visages
Nos souvenirs furent d'antan
Mais le mot qui nous fut latent
Déserta nos lèvres trop sages

Au poker de l'amour trompeur
Le joker fut notre silence
Par delà la berge et la peur
Le soleil montait sur nos coeurs
Où le désir plongeait sa lance

Une barricade d'émaux
Garde mieux que char et cornettes
La grotte où s'agencent les mots
Nous fumes ces astres jumeaux
Qui se guettent et ne se quêtent

Pour gagner la source des nuits
Pour forer la source des peines
Le silence fut pic et puits
Et le long désir qui nous fuit
Ouvrit le bois et la fontaine

Ouvrit le berceau des limons
D'où ne s'évadera Latude
Car ne germera que le mont
Sur cette terre où nous semons
La semence des solitudes

number of comments: 3 | rating: 9 | detail

Michel Galiana, 4 november 2011

Persephone

Your dream throughout the room where a honey bee hums
Progresses. And time sleeps. An apple that perfumes
Of dozing orchards in willow baskets gathers.
The carpet is designed by the unspoiled summers.
You sing. On your forehead, playfully, shade and shine.
Pass and rhythm and peace their numbers intertwine.
In your voice two rival realms compete and unite,
Persephone, who knows of awe-inspiring woods,
Of terror of midday, of dismal sets of roots...

In silence my forehead bends, benumbed with night.

Ton songe par la chambre où bourdonne une abeille
Avance. Le temps dort. Une pomme, aux corbeilles
Recueille les parfums du verger assoupi.
L'été, l'incorrompu, compose le tapis.
Tu chantes. Sur ton front jouent et passent les ombres.
Le rythme et le repos entrelacent leurs nombres.
Deux royaumes rivaux s'unissent en ta voix,
Perséphone, et tu sais, l'obsession des bois,
La terreur de midi, les racines funèbres.

Mon front sourdement ploie, alourdi de ténèbres.

number of comments: 2 | rating: 7 | detail

Michel Galiana, 27 december 2011

Slumbering peaks

Slumbering peaks deep in our hearts,
Crystals that no flights ever touch,
You are impassable hindrance.
And storms raised by far histories
Do not roar on these boundaries
Where music is supreme silence.

But if the temples' crashing down,
And for a love lost wail and moan
Sometimes furrow this silent spell
Never may they eagles compel
Their silent hovering to bend
That no arrow ever attained.

I have dived where your image slept
And crunched underfoot clinkers left
By happiness. And the remorse
At having failed to seize my bliss
And left smile vanish from your lips
Subsided as did memories
Of you. But I shall never wean
My throat off the now dried up stream.

Les cimes dorment
Les cimes dorment au fond du coeur
Cristal que n'effleurent pas les fuites
Inaccessibles,
Et les tornades des histoires lointaines
Ne retentissent pas à ces confins
Où la musique est suprême silence.

Mais si le fracas des temples écroulés
Et la plainte de l'amour perdu
Sillonnent parfois ces silences,
Ils n'effleurent pas même la paix.
L'aigle plane, inaccédé,
Et nulle flêche ne trouble
Son vertige.

J'ai plongé où dormait ton image.
Les scories du bonheur s'écrasaient sous mes pieds,
Le remord de n'avoir su être heureux,
Celui de ton sourire éteint
S'effaçaient à leur tour come ton souvenir.
Mais rien ne pourra apaiser la soif
De cette coupe où nous ne sumes boire.

number of comments: 1 | rating: 5 | detail

Michel Galiana, 10 december 2011

Alphabet

A brightly coloured day encouraging freely
Great hordes in joyfully knowable lavishness
May not order people queer rogues so to undress
Without xenophobic yesterday's zealotry.

Astres, brutes chaussées d'effrois, frêles granules,
Hautains, incendiez, joyaux, kriss lumineux,
Mais n'osez pas que rois souterrains, ténébreux,
Ululant vers wadi, xènes y zinzinulent!

number of comments: 1 | rating: 3 | detail

Michel Galiana, 9 december 2011

Crystal body

To become a mirror. New meanings to contrive.
May the song that you raised become both source and path;
A flawed Aldebaran of closing walls deprived;
A boundless flight sketching in the face of the wraith
Who surrounded your rest, your sense, with your own fire.

A sphere changed to hub distorts your memory.
Can the wing be the point whence tears itself the cry?
Inmost depths where the scroll unrolls transparency,
A forbidden knowledge where the world is inscribed.

Stubbornly breaking waves shall dispose of your spears,
And your beacon's glitter shall sink into this jail,
Sheer radiance, your final display at last appears.

A diamond shall tip the restless, wobbling scales.
Sparkles shall blind your eyes. Silence shall numb your ears.

Corps de cristal
Devenir le miroir. Réinventer le sens.
Le chant que tu levas deviendra source, sente,
Aldebaran fautive où les murs sont absents.
Un vol illimité dessinera l'absente
Qui cerne de tes feux tes haltes et tes sens.

Une sphère en moyeux agence ta mémoire.
L'aile est-elle le point d'où s'arrache le cri?
Transparence, au tréfonds déroule le grimoire.
Un savoir interdit où le monde s'inscrit.

L'onde en bris renoué dispersera ta lance
Et lueur, en l'éclat englouti, ton fanal,
Le seul rayonnement formera ton final.

Le diamant immobilisera la balance.
Eblouissement. Scintillation. Silence.

number of comments: 1 | rating: 4 | detail

Michel Galiana, 8 december 2011

Stone slab

I was caught in a whirl, with loud shouts and drum rolls,
Flags streaming in the wind, delirious prophecies,
Squirting blood... Suddenly, from their feasts I was torn
And fell into rest which ignores time and worries.

I shut a crystal door on my new peacefulness.
Once the tumult had ceased, I was god, though vanquished
I saw how wings fluttered high above my recess,
But nothing would upset now my secluded bliss.

And a stubborn repose limits my violence.
I don't know if I am a dream or a soldier,
Nor the place of the fight causing my hesitance,

Nor shall I know under whose standard and order
I fought, the day I'll throw away helmet, shield, lance
And flee this rubbish fray for a bed of silence.

Stele

Un tourbillon m'a pris. Eclats, tambours battants,
Pavillons claquetant, délires de prophètes,
Sang giclant, quand soudain arraché à leur fêtes
Je chus dans ce repos qui ne connaît de temps.

Le cristal sur ma paix referma ses battants.
Le tumulte apaisé, je fus ciel et défaite.
Je voyais s'agiter des ailes sur mes faîtes,
Mais rien ne dérangeait mes lointains éclatants.

Un sommeil obstiné borne ma violence.
J'ignore si je suis le songe ou le soudard,
Où se tient ce conflit qui m'habite et balance

Et je n'aurai connu quel fut mon étendard
Quand je déserterai, jetant casque, écu, lance,
Ce combat de copeaux sur un lit de silence.

number of comments: 1 | rating: 7 | detail

Michel Galiana, 1 march 2012

Renée Le Glas

I
O listen all attentively
I'll sing you a new melody!
A song about little Renée
Whom her parents married away

This year Renée the Pale was wed
But loved another one, instead.
Everything started when Renée
Has asked her mother one day:

- Pray, what is in our house afoot,
Hearth fire and three caldrons to boot?
One of them red-hot already,
The big and the small, presently?

- I am surprised by your question:
It's to celebrate your union!
- If tomorrow I'm to marry
I'll go to bed immediately.

I'll go immediately to bed
And I'll rise at daybreak, she said.
I'll rise at daybreak tomorrow:
My wedding dress I must narrow. -

Renée the Pale then has addressed
Her little maid with a request:
- My friend, concerning my lover,
Would you do me a small favour?

To my clerk's with this letter go!
His eyes with tears must overflow.
- O my young mistress, this moment
For you I shall go on errand. -

At Kervalbrey's the little maid-
Servant arrived soon and she said:
- My greeting to all everyone!
Tell me where is your eldest son?

- He is in bed, sick and aching
Since he heard of Renée's wedding.
His bed is in the library.
Go, you won't miss him, certainly! -

- Young Clerk, I wish you good morning!
- Good morning, maid who's so charming!
- Here is a note for you to read:
You should peruse it. Go ahead!

- This letter, if it tells the truth,
My anxious mind never will soothe
She has but three days to live! Still
I'll die before. I am so ill! -

II
Renée the Pale said, one morning
At her bedroom's window leaning:
- Over there I see a party
That will cross Diez Wood presently.

Yves Sellar rides ahead of all:
A special curse on him I call!
And on my father and mother,
And all such as raised a daughter

And all such as a daughter raised
Just to decide all in her stead. -
To the church when they all did stroll
They heared the bell for the clerk toll...

Three times the poor girl swooned and fell.
Yves helped her up. Ominous bell!
Renée the Pale told the parson
Who celebrated the union:

- Quick, hurry up! Or I shall pass
Away before you said the mass. -

III
Renée said on entering the house
Where lived the mother of her spouse:

- To your daughter-in-law don't frown,
But show her a bench to sit down!
- I am surprised you should be tired.
Had you not a fine horse to ride?.

- I would have come on foot, for sure,
If this had been a pleasant tour.
If I am your daughter-in-law,
Show me my bed. I will withdraw.

- Over there: in the library.
- My son Yves keep her company!
And in God's name, cheer her up, please!
She did not eat. Make her at ease!

- My beloved one, good day to you.
- Young widower, I greet you, too.
I do not mistake you for such
But soon the word won't be too much! -

She arranged for herself a chair,
And for him, with the greatest care.
- My poor husband, if you love me,
Let me go to the wake, briefly.

To the wake, briefly, let me go.
- To the funeral wake? Oh no!
Since tonight is your wedding night.
But to the interment you might.

- My friend, I'd like, with your consent,
To make my will and testament:
In the pouch of my wedding gown
There's a sum of five hundred crowns:

This will be for you, my husband,
For the expense you had to stand.
The same with the apron I did:
Another fifty crowns are hid.

Please, give them to the little maid:
I bothered her to get her aid
And aimless letters to convey
From Manor Glas to Kervalbrey.

Further, within my cotillion
Are sixty crowns in addition:
Part of it should be for the poor.
But for the priests you'll keep a score,

That they may once for us both pray
Whom in the cold glebe they will lay. -
Upon her lap his head she bent.
Now her life had come to an end.

O God, grant pardon to the dead!
Upon the trestles they were laid.
Their souls to heaven they took flight
They wed before God the same night.

They did not sleep in the same bed,
In the same grave they lie instead
By one another they took stand
To be united by God's hand

Translated from the Breton

number of comments: 1 | rating: 3 | detail

Michel Galiana, 20 november 2011

Fear

This place where instant does not cease
Is an unchanging stage setting
Made up of rock of pearl of freeze
Where a deathless drama proceeds
Titled refusal of living

Where lily knows not of decay
Of perfume of bees of struggle
That ends when all is charred away
Of hunger's wondrous display
Of ponderousness and tumble

Into a rock is turned the stream
And for having scorned to travel
The tale prince who preferred to dream
Was laid alive as dead he seemed
Forever on bier and trestles

To dig out the grotto of song
There's no need of killing all pains
Of letting the god run among
Fields that he'll make barren and wrong
Worse than wealth that from trance refrains

Any fire is doomed to be gem
Henceforth anyone's lip is dead
Whose wandering has reached its term
And his tear to pearl shall be turned
That could be raging gale instead

HANTISE

L'instant n'aborde pas ce port
Mais le roc la perle le givre
Dressent l'immuable décor
Où jouer le drame sans mort
Dont le titre est refus de vivre

Le lys ignore le déclin
Le parfum l'abeille la lutte
L'envol qui fut flammes et fin
Les sortilèges de la faim
L'abandon grave de la chute

En rocher se fige le vent
Et par son dédain du voyage
Gagne le prince au bois rêvant
Le lit grabat du mort vivant
Où ne saurait l'éveiller l'âge

Pour forer la grotte du chant
Faut-il tuer toute souffrance
Faut-il au dieu livrer le champ
Stérile plus et plus méchant
Que l'or où se fige la transe

Etre gemme est destin du feu
Désormais toute lèvre est morte
Pour qui gagne le port de dieu
Et son pleur sera perle au lieu
D'être le vent brisant la porte

number of comments: 1 | rating: 5 | detail

Michel Galiana, 9 november 2011

A prince

I am the fallen Prince of a haughty kingdom.
Deprived of my song, not of my memory,
Books read by candlelight, that's how my days drag on
And I recall the dawn of my proud ancestry.

Where my shadow has passed I claim to have my gods.
All I performed in dream makes up my history
I shall not swap my void for your shimmering words,
Being flesh does not prevent your lapse of memory.

If I sometimes regret, on my lonely errands,
That I may no longer lead with cross and banners
From illusive Ilium to Thule glorious bands,

Absence and refusal are my sole blazoners,
I'm proud never to have yielded to conquerors
And my fame is spreading over thriving moorlands.

LE PRINCE

Je suis prince, déchu d'un royaume orgueilleux.
Exilé de mon chant, mais non de ma mémoire,
Je prolonge mes jours en clarté de grimoire
Et garde en souvenir l'aube de mes aîeux.

Où mon ombre passa, je tiens que sont mes dieux.
Mon seul rêve accompli compose mon histoire,
N'abdiquant mon néant pour vos reflets de moire,
Vous qui pour être chair pensez n'être oublieux.

Si le regret parfois m'obsède sur mes landes
De ne plus entraîner avec croix et pennon
D'illusoire Ilion en Thulé gloire et bandes,

En absence et refus je place mon renom,
Mon orgueil au vainqueur d'avoir fait le grand non-
Et ma légende règne où fleurissent les brandes.

number of comments: 1 | rating: 7 | detail

Michel Galiana, 5 november 2011

Cat and bird

The flight which you suspend haunts your quivering fur,
Echo of wings by some caprice strayed from the sky.
As you feel you could not follow the flight you spy,
Your buried bound is dream, expectation, anger.

Block similar to rest, rock wherein hides the claw
And that mirrors the bird through a golden window,
Stubborn death on the watch that is your death's fellow.
A spring will suddenly dash the hook on the flight.
Wedding, where love was crowned by a subtle lover.
It's in vain that the bird strives the day to regain.
A paw of lead caresses it and will retain
In its wing such a keen and tenacious pleasure
That its soaring, crushed, ends in a grave of feather.

LE CHAT ET L'OISEAU
Le vol que tu suspends habite ton pelage,
Echo d'aile qu'au sol un caprice égara,
Et ne pouvant suivre l'essor que tu flairas
Ton jet enseveli est songe, attente, rage.
Bloc pareil au repos, pierre où la griffe dort,
Miroir mimant l'oiseau par sa lucarne d'or,
Mort à guetter tenace et semblable à ta mort,
Un ressort abattra le croc sur le volage.
Noces! L'amant subtil a couronné l'amour.
C'est en vain que l'oiseau veut regagner le jour.
Une patte de plomb le caresse et allume
En son aile un plaisir si tenace et si lourd
Que son envol brisé revêt tombeau de plumes.

number of comments: 1 | rating: 7 | detail

10 - 30 - 100

Latest items:

Poetry

Silence

Persephone

Slumbering peaks

Alphabet

Crystal body

Stone slab

Renée Le Glas

Fear

A prince

Cat and bird

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