Salut/Rencontres

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” – Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths you Can’t Avoid

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”  – Oscar Wilde

“We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what the are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

– John Locke

“Language forces us to perceive the world as man presents it to us.”

– Julia Penelope

 

 

Salut/Rencontres

Antoine comes to the café

Each morning

A magazine in hand

Periodicals about small boats

Or great ships

The sea courses

Through his veins

Antoine skims le journal (newspaper)

Drinks his café

Diving deeper into

His nautical world

Pausing to acknowledge

Friends

Today he shows me

A new book “Milk Cows”

U boats of WWII – hardback

En anglais

In turn, I produce my

Latest paperback of French poems

On parting we raise les livres

And laugh

Bisous,

Léa

Free books or the price of ignorance…

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”  – Haruki Murakami 

“You don’t have to burn books to destoy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”     – Ray Bradbury

For Jack Eason and the other authors who keep us in stories despite the struggle. Please visit Jack at his blog: https://havewehadhelp.wordpress.com/ and do all you can to support our independent authors, presses and publishers.  I owe so much to the books in my life as well as the neighbor’s daughters that taught a three year-old how to read. It saved me.

Free books or the price of ignorance…

The author says nobody wants to buy

Real books, waiting for kindle

Or what they can get for free

Long ago I learned that

Precious little is free

Waiting to see the strings attached

Or what might appear

From behind someone’s back

I will admit to a “free” book

But I did have to exchange one

Of my own precious volumes

The price to be paid

Yet Jack is right

The author deserves his compensation

When one writes, much of who we are

What we believe is invested in each word

Writing is not merely work, a job

It is opening veins and pouring

Out your blood, opening oneself

To the acid tongues of the critics,

Those judging not only your work

But your life, who you are

Fiction’s DNA, the authors reality

To take what is produced

Without re-numeration, theft

 

 

–

Remember, purchasing a good book is a gift you give yourself. It needs no batteries nor electricity and is easily shared. 

 

Bisous, 

Léa

 

 

Profond dans ses poèmes

As introduction to the following poem, I will tell you of a gift from my dear friend Yvonne in London. For the holidays she presented me with a copy of Les Fleurs Du Mal (Flowers of Evil) by Charles Baudelaire. With it she gave me a challenge to begin writing poems in French. Within the first poem or two, I was hooked. If you have not read any of his work, I encourage you to try. Translations of his work are available. Some may find it strange but as I began writing this piece, it came out bilingually. I present you with the original and again in English.

“Any healthy man can go without food for two days-but not without poetry.”  –  Charles Baudelaire

“The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself and others as he wishes.”  

                                                                        –  Charles Baudelaire

“Genius is childhood recalled at will.”  –  Charles Baudelaire

*** 

Profond dans ses poèmes  (Original)

Amélioration de mon français

With a little help from a

Friend

Un cadeau pour noël

I am falling in love

Avec l’homme

Baudelaire

Snuggled up

Near the fire

Losing myself

Profond dans ses poèmes

Planting his perennial seeds

Les fleurs du mal

Dans

les pétales de vers

Blossom

Scenting tongue and

Pen

Avec l’odeur de ses mots

My persistent muse

***

(In English)

Deep in his poems

 

Improving my French

With a little help from a

Friend

A Christmas gift

I am falling in

Love

With the man

Baudelaire

Snuggled up

Near the fire

Losing myself

Deep in his poems

Planting his perennial seeds

Flowers of Evil

In

Petals of verse

Blossom

Scenting tongue and

Pen

With the fragrance of his words

My persistent

Muse

***

Bisous,

Léa