I do have probably 300 horses written, rode over and over, and little hope to see them all running free one day. Not because they are bad tempered (horse magazines had some of them pictured) but because this world seems to not need horses anymore, while more and more people ride horses or something related to horse. Less and less horse ranches, less and less horse magazines, less and less horse books readers, more and more riders. This is grand absurdism. No, this is perhaps a consequence of a market oriented world. Also, horse has something to do with attention, a treasure we lose if we're not paying (attention). Regarding the market culture, I have never seen a rider making his first million with horse riding (it could be funny to have a rider milliardaire), where it is still possible to make money with painting, music, writing, film. Horse riding is a parent pauvre de l'art and this is why it is extremely precious. Its poverty proves its honesty.

"There is something in our soul that loathes true attention much more violently than flesh loathes fatigue. That something is much closer to evil than flesh is. That is why, every time we truly give our attention, we destroy some evil in ourselves. If one pays attention with this intention, fifteen minutes of attention is worth a lot of good works".

"There is true desire when there is an effort of attention. It is truly light that is desired if all other motives are absent. Even if the efforts of attention remained apparently sterile for years, one day a light exactly proportional to these efforts shall inundate the soul".

Simone Weil, Attente de Dieu

Patti Smith

La voix emplie de chevaux
qui sortis de sa gorge
galopent sur la scène

auréolée de ses crachats

Son livre jeté par terre
elle danse pieds nus
une guitare entre les dents

And she said that her mother, as her own parents were about to divorce, was sent to this little village. There she grew amongst cousins, aunts and people, going to the little school, surrounded by beautiful landscapes. An enlarged family that opened her little heart to the world; a family that she started to love almost more than her real parents... As the couple eventually found a peace agreement, she was sent back to the parisian suburbs and started to dream about the little village in Limousin, as a lost paradise. After the 10th june 1944, when she happened to know that 8 relatives from her dearest people had been killed in the massacre, she started to think of Oradour sur Glane non tantum as a lost paradise, sed etiam as a lost paradise turned into ashes.

(a person I spoke to yesterday)

My archive from the 10th june 2004

This is what 'obliterate' means, stupid woman.

I don't like plastic chairs, do you?

la poésie la vérité


je me bats pour qu'
éclate

comme un beau crâne
se fend sur les trottoirs
de la République

la poésie la vérité

Still working on a short movie script called the prepared piano. The first version would have cost too much and it was too long for a short film... I eventually figured out what was wrong in my story, thanks to Caroline R., filmmaker and script doctor, the girlfriend of long-time-no-see David Fenech. So today, instead of bathing under the big left sun, I will remain in shadow and cut short hair to my script.

You can read a new poem called Brutes on Les Cahiers de Benjy, my favorite poetry blog.

I drove yesterday through Juvisy in the southern suburbs, where there's an amazing castel with an abandonned observatory from the XIXth century: it was the house of Camille Flammarion, astronom, spiritist and a successful writer, the brother of Ernest who founded the publishing company. Flammarion, the publishing company, should give the money to restaure it, if the government doesn't.

The tainted glasshouses: one of Camille Flammarion's experiment about ray colours and plants growth: it was through the red glasshouse that the plants gave the best results.

La Salamandre d'Alain Tanner (1971), un film que j'essaie de voir depuis des années; Bulle Ogier en 1971. Mais aussi les deux acteurs principaux de ce film géant, Jean-Luc Bideau et Jacques Denis. Aussi, des actrices comme Juliet Berto, plus encore que la Zouzou ou la Nico de Philippe Garrel, femmes à surnom. Des actrices de cette trempe, uniquement. Peut-être que la femme de Joseph, jeune acteur et trader rencontré il y a quelques semaines, est de cette race là... La femme dans ce qu'elle a de rebelle à tout sauf à elle-même, rébellion qui ne vient pas du garçon manqué en elle, mais de la seule Ève en elle.

Criticism: to have agreed the validity of any critical approach in all the art fields and human knowledge. Then, to pass one's way... To not tint one's own work with an artificial critical touch, fake, slow run after a rapid train... But to defend, affirm, claim in a critical context, the right of re-enchantment... A critical re-enchantment which has seen the ruins and decided lucidly, to sing all the same. To sing louder. This is a posture in movement, a walking posture, while the critical posture is a seated posture. Critical is the seated P(h)arisian who knows the Law perfectly, while the re-enchanter is like a walking Jesus.

Le Jardin Ouvrier, from 1995 to 2003, was a poetic garden where the poet Ivar Ch'Vavar (a poet born in 1952 who lives in Amiens under 100 heteronyms) grew flowers that only grew in his étrange jardin picard. Flammarion, the french publisher, recently published an anthology of this adventure. Since one of the main characteristic of le Jardin was its extreme poverty (paper, design, distribution...), Yves Di Manno at Flammarion decided to keep intact la pauvreté de l'original. Page 365 and 366, two pages by G.W. Toog, a man searching for a pseudonym, instead of a heteronym... In this 400 pages anthology, many poems by Christophe Tarkos, Lucien Suel, Laurent Albarracin, Christophe Manon, Nathalie Quintane, Stéphane Batsal, Charles Pennequin, and many others, sometimes in other languages (picard dialect, scottish, german...).

I met Ivar Ch'Vavar with Florence a few years ago in Amiens, when we used to have a Dyane. We met in his house rue Gaultier de Rumilly, the same street where Jean-Jacques Perrey used to live as a very young man. But first, before having heard of him, I bought a book by Evelyne Salope Nourtier, a female poet who was mentally sick, poor and abandonned, about her inner conflicts between salvation/destruction/alienation. There was also souvenirs in this book, written by people who knew her closely. We published some of her poems with an english translation in TO. I really loved this pink poetry book and wanted to know more... Evelyne Salope Nourtier was one of the 100 heteronyms of Ivar Ch'Vavar. This is how we met the man. He gave me a pile of original Jardin Ouvrier non-mags, and a copy of his masterpiece, Hölderlin au Mirador, as an original auto-edition which came out before this confidential one.

So why do Flammarion publish an anthology of Le Jardin Ouvrier instead of Ivar's own poetry, which fills many of these garden pages? The same logic would create an Adam and Eve's religion instead of God, the periphery becoming the centre. Reversed french poetry history... Really, the world is upside down and I don't understand anything anymore.

Last month in Paris, the invité d'honneur at the Salon du livre was Israël. What a good idea, what a perfect time! A great sign appeared not in the sky but in the metallic hall were the huge book fair took place: a heavy partition fell on Israël's President during the opening, because of the heavy crowd. The security guards, like angels, lift up their wings together and could stop the wall right before it knocked Shimon Peres head. Here is the only film we have of this incredible event. Did Israël politicians understand the sign? It's an international and easy language; it means: 'I know you like walls in Israël, so here is a heavy wall for you, my friend.'



In a few months, let's all go to China! What a good idea, what a perfect time! An other country where liberty rhymes with if I want. I wonder what will be the sign there, if it will be as accurate as the Salon du Livre one. What could it be?

Having moved to the new appartment 2 weeks ago, thanks to our friends physical help and psychological support (special thanks to Aurélien, François, Olivier, Rémi, Elizabeth), we have been busy finishing our installation. Florence is back to drawing after 4 months of severe frustration due to the hard work we had to make ourselves/ourslaves. The street where we live now is ugly but we love it. It looks like an ancient prostitution street, and in fact it was. The man who grew up here recalls the dames de petites vertus bringing him home from school. A sudden descente de police during the sixties stopped this activity. The ancient hôtels de passe have become hôtels de la honte, the same hotels for poor strangers as the Paris Opera who burned exactly 3 years ago in 2005. Hopefully, they are being renovated...

Now I'm going back to music but technically, nothing works except my imagination. I could eventually send to Karaoke Kalk a new track for his forthcoming compilation, a track called l'Esprit de l'inventeur featuring the voice of Michel Gondry. The french director talked to me about his grand father, inventor of the electronic bells and the clavioline, one proto-synth I do own. I finish to correct the script of the Prepared piano and will go back soon to the post-production of Prelude to Sleep, Jean-Jacques Perrey's documentary, which was an incredible film to make, a blessed experience because everything was working like in a dream. How could I imagine, for instance, that Angelo Badalamenti would play Visa to the Stars on the piano, one track he composed with Jean-Jacques in the early sixties? The film should be finished in may but I will need to add english subtitles right after. Contributions for correcting my french to english translations are welcome! What else...



I'm reading a book about the origins of christianism and learn a lot about the Qumran manuscripts, the Essenians, the reality of Israël during this strange period of roman occupation. I need to know more about Jesus in his context to be able to figure out what his coming was, as a reality event and not only a reported reality event. It has nothing to do with faith. I need to know more about the context of Jesus life; I promise that I won't become Franco Zeffirelli or Mel Gibson if one day - who knows. Pasolini's Jesus is alright, apart from his 'ragazzi' tendency: his Jesus is much too beautiful. “He has no form nor glory, nor beauty when we beheld him, but his appearance was without honor and inferior to that of the sons of men.” (Isaiah 53)

It's my first review as a poet. I didn't know the name of the verses I made (arithmogrammatical) because I composed these 36 poems between 1994-1998 and found the verses process all alone, like a poetical ascese. It's always kind of stupid when a solitary quest leads you to a spot that other people already reached, without you to know them. It's like getting to a desert island after a shipwreck... But only half of the island is desert: the one you reached. The other side is a popular family resort.

This music video by Philippe Boisnard (the man who wrote the chronicle) features a song by the french poet Sylvain Courtoux, in his electro-cheap opera rock: 'Vie et mort d'un poète (de merde)'.

There is a link between Un Homme qui dort, a book/film from french writer Georges Perec and Sean Penn's movie Into the Wild (Chric Mac Candless real adventures into the wild, that ended up tragically in an abandonned bus on an Alaska trail). Going into the wild can also happen in a room, in a city knowned by heart, like Georges Perec's character who's gone far away without going anywhere. This is an experience of the limits, the limits of being human without being human.

I call me non- in the previous post, because every commitment in this actual world means a lot of keys that I'm not possessing. For instance, being a musician means being able to play a live concert: I cannot play any instrument live. Being a poet today, means to write about the processes of language: I don't do that, it's not my job and I find it interesting- boring. Being a filmmaker signifies loving the people and the stories between them: I don't like the people, my heart is not opened enough for it. And I hate most of the little stories and constructions they make, the jouissance of the ego and other projets égoïstes of their lives. This is why I hate most of the french cinema from today. Except someone like Isild Le Besco.

It is through Canada that I became a non-poet. Through Britain and America I became a non-musician. Through France, I might become something like a non-filmmaker (title is wrong: the documentary is called PRELUDE AU SOMMEIL).

I.

la chose pour qu'elle même s'autorise


la chose pour qu'elle-même s'autorise
à être comme si la chose elle-même
étant de trop
non pas que la chose soit mais qu'elle

essaime
pollinise
virilise

voici le nouveau mode de l'être
tel qu'il se vit aujourd'hui

retranscription simultanée
comme mentir

de l'être en trop à la surface sur les bords
coule
cela ressemble à du jus de chaussette
authentique jus de chaussette

comprenez

le monde l'ensemble de ses possibles et
significations
entré dans le temps de grande jachère

précédant la moisson finale

il est préférable à toute action
le retard de cette action même
car celle-ci est dans le retard

sauvée libérée de la pollution
du nom pire que le brouillard
qui précède les grands tournants

le matin ose le retard la lenteur la paresse le silence
l'arrêt brusque et réfléchi
l'irréfléchi de la possibilité même

pour comprendre ce que Dieu signifie par son absence
qui parle

il n'est pas d'autre poésie que celle-ci
elle fait la parole trembler
attendre trois jours au tombeau sont ici

rouler la pierre comme parler avec

un caillou dans la bouche
les syllabes viennent mieux comme ça
et ça fait fuir l'Enfer


II.

donner un aperçu du règne
qui se souvient


donner un aperçu du règne
qui se souvient

tu l'as déjà rencontré simplement
tu ne mettais pas un nom dessus
un visage
un film un souvenir une émission

tu le connais mieux que toi-même

c'est enfantin que le visage de Dieu
s'appelle visage unique
tous les visages comme un seul visage

rien à voir avec ce procédé numérique
à la con qui superpose le visage des gens
pour en faire un visage moyen

haine du kitsch
du montre-moi

le droit des aveugles ont vu
promesse incontournable
il y a mieux que voir
sentir entendre toucher avec les mots

cet incendie au sommet duquel
Douceline vole dans la chapelle
de Roubaud à Digne puis à Marseille

vous qui vouez vos vies
à la chose présente
aux gémonies

quel est le poids de la croix

admirable est la chose bue

On peut se procurer mon premier livre en France, au Canada, aux USA. It's my first book and it's a good opportunity to meet me as a poet, being the peak of myself. I'm not writing poetry for poets, my poetry is for the people, regular people like me. There's always a mountain exploding somewhere, a naked woman watching an old bike when a poet's writing.