Cyberspace has done it…

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficent means for going backwards.” – Aldous Huxley

“I know there’s a proverb which says ‘To err is human,’ but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.” – Agatha Christie

 

Cyberspace has done it

 

Cyberspace – has eaten my poem

Two pages- copy, sans paste

Without a trace

The shortcut copied

But wouldn’t paste

Said nothing was there

 

Anger at an inanimate object

As useful as catching waves

Yet time away might save it

From my temptation to destroy

That which stole from me

 

So patiently it waited

Fumbling to copy it all

No, of course it wasn’t – being

Extremely technically challenged

Can’t I just blame the new PC?

My MAC, saved as I typed

 

This old dog – slow but steady

Never wins the race

Technology I’ll never conquer

It keeps me in my place

Humble, frustrated and confused

 

In the deepest despairs of

Cyberspace, my ire is raised

About to trash it, not my fault

When technology is granted

A royal reprieve – F.F.T.T.

Feline Focus Therapy Training

 

 

In the immortal words of

E.M. Forster – “I don’t know

What I think, till I read what I said”

Two pages, a poem in the ether

No ropes to pull it back

I stare at a blank page

 

Bisous,

Léa

 

 

Scattering

“In one of those stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night. And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend…I shall not leave you.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.”
– W. Clement Stone

“Here is my secret. It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Scattering

Every new

Moon

I curl up

In my

Curvaceous

Crescent

Encircled

By each

Starry night

Celestial dreams

Await me

There is no man

Here

I control

The ebb

And flow

Of the

Seas

I watch

Over your

Attempts

To comprehend

Me

To encapsulate

Into ode

Or song

It is difficult

When you

Haven’t

The language

Of the

Universe

Bemused

My laughter

Scatters

Stardust

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

Curriculum vitae

“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”   – Dorothy Parker

 

 

Curriculum vitae

 

Darkness

Orchestrates

Rhythm

Opalescent shadows

Tirades soaked in gin

Hardened by life

Yichus

 *

Particular

Acidic

Razorsharp wit

Keen

Emboldened

Resumé

 ***

Bisous,

 

Léa

knowing dark

“Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.”   –  Walt Whitman

 

“In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.”   –  Dante Alighieri

 

“Roll on, deep and dark blue ocean, roll. Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. Man marks the earth with ruin, but is control stops with the shore.”   –  Lord Byron

*

knowing dark

 

were you aware

that both darkness

and light

possess specific scents, music and texture?

the odor of darkness cannot be

fully appreciated by inexperienced senses

years spent where light was restricted

refine the senses educate them

intimacy with every shade of night

each nuance

feeling my way

making the most of a unique gift

over time

senses heighten

evocative

mnemonic

tranquillité

now

sunshine

reveals

a new world

Léa

mon voisin aime me taquiner / my neighbour likes to tease me

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn.”   –  Jane Austen

 

“Listen, you only tease the ones you love.”   –  John Boehner

 

“I have an intense dislike for artificial society. In France, one could lead a free life – to do what one wanted to do without interference or criticism from one’s neighbors.”   –   Robert W. Service

 

Symbol d’Occitan

 

mon voisin aime me taquiner / my neighbour likes to tease me

jean est taquiner moi

he delights in telling

le monde

says i am a spy

for obama

the twinkling

dans ses yeux,

illuminating smile

gives him away

everytime

the hard rods of

steel

he shapes into

gates, railings,

le croix de Cathar

or the symbol of the

pays d’ Occitan

the flames of the

forge

a mask

outside

l’ atelier

le masque

tombe

*

bisous,

léa

lumière du soleil

“I desperately want to see the day today and do the best I can not to miss a shred of sunlight. It’ll be over before I know it.”   –  Mandy Patinkin

 

“If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.   –  Napoleon Bonaparte

 

“A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.”   –  Anais Nin

*

lumière du soleil

*

playfully

she slips upon me

as I sleep

nudging me awake

filled with laughter

forcing my eyes

open

*

impishly she creeps

into corners

illuminating cobwebs

chasing shadows

yet they disappear

as she moves on

*

like a torch

her beams

warm the forest’s

thickly needled carpet

peeking between branches

and leaves

*

with a silent smirk

in her wake

she ignites starlight

*

bisous,

léa

dans le sable des mots / in the sand of words

“To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.”   –  William Blake

 

“When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.”   –  William Shakespeare

 

“All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the fest of the mind.”   –  Khalil Gibran

*

dans le sable des mots / in the sand of words

my hands plunge deeply

this insatiable quest

finding the right verbs,

adjectives and adverbs

the preposition

which when assembled

like Rubik’s puzzle

lead me to what is missing

yet words like sand are

flexible

capable of embracing

the power of

la mer

or sliding through my

fingers

so strong, she restrains the oceans

 large ships skim

across their surface

she cradles the ravaged

cities swallowed in the

tsunami’s of time

concealing their final

resting place

so delicate

a breeze thrusts them

into oblivion

starfish, shells the

similes and metaphors

dans le sable des mots

*

bisous,

léa

A quote, books and an author…

“Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry bypasses the rational thought and goes straight to the limbic system and lights up like a bushfire. It’s the crack cocaine of the literary world.” Jasper Fforde  –  (First among sequels)

This quote comes from a book I just finished reading. For those of you who have not yet discovered Jasper Fforde, perhaps this is the time. His Thursday Next series has been most enjoyable but also a tremendous stretch. I’ve never been into reading fantasy but would follow him right back into the Literary World he has created. The first book in the series, The Eyre Affair, our tour guide was none other than Miss Havisham who trained the intrepid Miss Next. Thursday is an excellent student and rapidly builds her reputation among the Literary Operatives of the book world. To date there are seven books in the series: The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, First Among Sequels, One of Our Thursday’s is Missing and The Woman Who Died a Lot.

You can follow Thursday as she travels around hopping into this book or that, interacting with characters, story and text. Of course there is the evil nemesis The Goliath Corporation and they are always on Thursday’s heels. Due to great advances in the world of genetic engineering, cloning is a popular hobby and therefore, Thursday has a pet Dodo bird. Re-engineered Mammoths can be a menace to gardens in their path.    

For those of you who have not yet made your travel plans for August, you can join in on the festivities at the annual Fforde Ffiesta. It is located in the town of Swindon the hometown of Miss Next. This weekend of silliness is inspired by the works of Jasper Fforde.  This year, 2013 will be set in the year 2057. For more information on the event and the opportunity to meet Jasper Fforde check out this website:  http://www.ffordeffiesta.co.uk/

Bisous, 

Léa

thief

“Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?”   –  Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can play together all night.”   –  Bill Watterson

 

“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”   –  Henry David Thoreau

*

thief

for that is what

you are

entering

unobserved

stealing my thoughts

having your way with them

*

the nights

are the hardest

in your absence

pillows cannot

caress me

their support fails

*

running rampant

through my dreams

always three

dimensional

i feel the

roughness of

your hands

 *

your voice reverberates

in whispers and moans

and at times I marvel

as your warmth

penetrates my

dreams

*

bisous,

léa