Rêves : “Word was brought to Anathea that her brother was in prison, bring me gold and six fine horses, I will buy my brother’s freedom”. Et le reste de la chanson Anathea, interprétée par Judy Collins, que je connais par coeur. Et les mots d’un poème de Kari Unksova, dit par André Markowicz, lors d’une émission radio : “le coeur du grain crépite dans la terre”. Voilà. Il y a avait aussi, je crois, des extraits d’une encyclopédie interdite, mais je ne me souviens pas des détails.
Les mots du poème (je ne me souviens pas de les avoir lus dans la collection de ses poèmes, traduits et publiés chez Mesures) * me font penser aux mots d’une Ukrainienne, au début de l’invasion russe, tendant des graines de tournesol à un soldat russe et lui disant de les mettre dans sa poche pour le jour où son cadavre se retrouverait dans le sol.
Laz Lathea stole a stallion, stole it from the misty mountain, and they chased him and they caught him, and in iron chains they bound him. Word was brought to Anathea…”
Le rapport entre tout ça, et avec le bout de Isaac Asimov que je me suis imposée hier soir ? Aucune idée. (Je n’aime pas, n’ai jamais aimé Isaac Asimov qui écrivait comme un manche au sujet de mecs invraisemblables dans des univers inter-galactiques aussi invraisemblables qu’eux mais, je ne sais pas pourquoi, je me suis dit “tiens, je parie que c’est ce genre de merde qu’adorait Elon Musk quand il était gamin.” (Question science-fiction, je suis plutôt lectrice de Stanislaw Lem et Ursula Le Guin.)
Pendant que Judy Collins continue de chanter Anathea dans ma tête. “Cursed be that judge so cruel, thirteen years may he lie bleeding, thirteen doctors cannot cure him, thirteen salves of drugs can’t cure him.”
Rosa vient cueillir ses caresses du matin.
Thé du matin.
Ma tête, encore dans l’ état de désorganisation survenant entre projets d’écriture. Les petits cailloux s’accumulent sur la table, un pour chaque jour, mollets brûlants et souffle court, je suis le conseil du médecin. Je crois que je vais aller dire bonjour à l’aulne glutineux au bord de la rivière.
“Judge oh judge, please spare my brother, I will give you gold and silver, I don’t want your gold and silver, all I want are your sweet favors.”
*
…et pour mes lois
j’ai deux
petits soldats très en papier
Un chameau très paresseux
Un déserteur vert
Un brasseur-embrasseur
Un embraseur
Insaisissable comme une chauve-souris
Qu’on a dressé surtout
Pour chauffer et jouer
Avec les lucioles marécageuses des crapauds
Voilà toute ma petite armée
Mais bien sûr
Si notre petit criquet
Porte un nom si précieux
Alors nous irons sans histoire
La victoire ! *
*Kari Unksova, La Russie l’Été, Préface et traduction d’André Markowicz, Editions Mesures 2021.
*
Dreams : “Word was brought to Anathea that her brother was in prison, bring me gold and six fine horses, I will buy my brother’s freedom.” And the rest of the song Anathea, interpreted by Judy Collins, which I know by heart. And words from a poem by Kari Unksova that André Markowicz spoke during a radio broadcast : the heart of the grain crackles in the earth. There. There was also, I think, excerpts from a forbidden encyclopédia, but I don’t remember the details.
The words from the poem (I can’t recall reading them in the collection of her poems, translated and published by Mesures) remind me of the words of a Ukrainian woman, at the start of the Russian invasion, handing sunflower seeds to a Russian soldier and telling him to put them in his pocket for the time when his corpse would like in the ground. “Laz Lathea stole a stallion, stole it from the misty mountain, and they chased him and they caught him, and in iron chains they bound him. Word was brought to Anathea…”
The relationship between all that, and the bit of Isaac Asimov I forced myself to read last night ? No idea. (I don’t like, and never liked Isaac Asmov who wrote like a shovel about unbelievable guys in inter-galactic worlds as unbelievable as they were bu, I don’t know why, I told myself “yes, I bet this is the kind of shit Elon Musk adored when he was a kid.” (Where science-fiction is involved, I’m more of a Stanislaw Lem and an Ursula Le Guin reader.)
As Judy Collins goes on singing Anathea in my head. “Cursed be that judge so cruel, thirteen years may he lie bleeding, thirteen doctors cannot cure him, thirteen salves of drugs can’t cure him.”
Rosa shows up to gather her morning pettings.
Morning tea.
My head, still in the disorganized mental state it becomes, between writing projects. Small pebbles gather on the table, one for each day I follow the doctor’s orders, with aching calves and short of breath. Think I’ll go say hello to the black alder along the river.
Judge oh judge, please spare my brother, I will give you gold and silver, I don’t want your gold and silver, all I want are your sweet favors.”
*
(word-for-word translation from the French ? And as for my laws, Kari Unksova wrote, I have two very papery paper soldiers, one very lazy camel, one green deserter, a mixer upper-kisser, a blazer, as elusive as a bat that was trained mainly to heat up and play with the fire-flies by the swampy frogs, this is my entire little army, but of course if our little cricket bears such a precious name, then, without fail, victory will be ours !)
