Saturday, October 1, 2022

Charles Leblanc : Three poems from allumettes, translated by Jérôme Melançon and revised by the author

 

 

 

 

attacks

among others québec january 29 2017 

tried everything
failed at everything
doesn’t matter
try again
fail again
fail better
after samuel beckett, cap au pire (worstward ho!)

some days
when the unacceptable
takes on personal hues

i brood over a black fire
that gives me a stomach ache

i expel heavy tears
soak up a vengeance

that feels good for a bit
like a sex pistols song

a shovelful of adrenaline
a brown sugar rush

then the powerless fall
with its cynical moments

before i sit on the ground
take a deep breath

before i get up in spite of the fractures
since there’s nothing else to do

but to get back up
clinging to the wall

take up the march again
the war against inertia

and keep on
so that on some days

we feel better

(march 2017)

 


 

residence

poetry is the last lighthouse
in rising seas

lawrence ferlinghetti
for whom poetry is his residence

 

i could build a house
from a decrepit cabin
in the woods near a lake

like al purdy
after his irregular travels

in the far north and the city
searching for words

to describe the imperfect silence
of water of forest of animals
 

i could find myself
in other circumstances
in a decrepit cabin

somewhere in mexico
dying in delirium

of an excess of cheap alcohol
in a tornado of spit words

like malcolm lowry’s consul

i could rent a bunker
like william burroughs in new york
a fortified place to stay inside oneself

focused on work
because visions come from silence

welcoming visitors from time to time
to avoid forgetting other humans
 

i could live in a monastery
like gary snyder
to find the peace

my means can get me
cut myself off from the world

for a little while
soak up greenery and infinity

forget even to write
the stay would be short

too much tranquility
too close to the idea of god

maybe

i could live
in a hotel room
like jean genet

after a last exit from jail
essentially nomadic

two small black suitcases
or a sailor’s bag

some clothes two or three books
a few writings in progress

spirit in alert
waiting for a distress call

to change rooms
cities

countries

i could live on a ship
travel the world like herman melville
and thousands of others

feed on elsewhere’s smells
on people’s spirit

on the territory’s history
on surprising landscapes

to give birth at my return
to a whale calf

a few words to illuminate
images i’d have brought back

that carry freedom

i could buy an apartment
live in europe like franz kafka
facing the armies of ignorance

the ghosts of the disappeared
the arbitrariness of life

in a safe place
as long as senselessness

stays in the hallway
on the other side of the door

which it never does

(june-july 2016)

 


poetry in caraquet 

before the foggy bay
you can’t see the other shore
behind the super-eight

you don’t feel too important
before the mother sea
 

out of breath often enough
the sea air shocks your system
you don’t walk too far

in this ribbon city
along the serrated coast

but you look stubbornly
pumping in the salt water

through all your visible pores

then you go read and listen to poems
with newfound friends of speech
in a bar that’s used to artists

the back yard of a village bistro
an atmospheric theatre auditorium

a home of attentive ladies
a multimediated warehouse

where poetry danses a joyous song
the bell tower of a church

unhooked from the sky for the grass
and close to an disused lighthouse

against the muted melody of the sea
and on the dock where 500 people

bring back to life
their seafarers lost at sea
 

then you also learn
how to burn down a stone church
by lighting a votive lamp

for grandma so kind
one night quite late in front of the hotel

chatting and smoking cigarettes
with a québécois mason of your age

who rode from home on his motorcycle
to assess the brand new ruins

of the saint-paul de bas-caraquet church
for the future of the monument
 

on the way back
above the irregular clouds
you have your own fire

you see the setting sun
copper the lit lakes
 

(september 2018, Festival acadien de poésie, august 2 to 5 2018)

 

 

[Jérôme Melançon also reviewed allumettes here]

 

 

 

 

Actor, poet, and translator born in Montreal in 1950, Charles Leblanc moved to Manitoba in 1978 and took up the trades of industrial worker and translator; he also hosts a radio show dedicated to jazz and unusual music. His passion lies above all with theatre and literature. Throughout the years he co-founded six theatre companies in Québec and in Manitoba, did improv with the Ligue d’improvisation du Manitoba, did political theatre with the Popular Theatre Alliance, and acted in productions by the Théâtre Cercle Molière, among others. Along the way, he has published with Éditions du Blé a collaborative book of epistolary stories and ten collections of poetry of the street and of the heart. He is also one of the cofounders of the Association des auteur·e·s du Manitoba français (AAMF).

Jérôme Melançon writes and teaches and writes and lives in oskana kâ-asastêki / Regina, SK. His most recent chapbook is with above/ground press, Tomorrow’s Going to Be Bright (2022, after 2020’s Coup), and his most recent poetry collection is En d’sous d’la langue (Prise de parole, 2021). He has also published two books of poetry with Éditions des Plaines, De perdre tes pas (2011) and Quelques pas quelque part (2016), as well as one book of philosophy, La politique dans l’adversité (Metispresses, 2018). He has edited books and journal issues, and keeps publishing academic articles that have nothing to do with any of this. He’s on Twitter mostly, and sometimes on Instagram, both at @lethejerome.