One day, I dreamed that I was a human amalgam drawn from the imagination of a few artists: marginal figures such as “Nowhere Man,” “Dreamer...,” “Tommy,” and even Félix Leclerc’s “Bozo.” Following this exuberance of my imagination, I began writing a long poem dedicated to Marilyn Monroe. In my mind and in my intentions, this spirituphile work was not to end until my life itself ended. Thus, born a dreamer, at the slightest desire, I once again become king of that castle that is my imagination.
TEARS OF PROSE
God! What are these tears of prose... ...that gleam upon my face? My life wedded to the moon’s reflections, to the mystery of love, in passing? Is it a secret veiled within a message, like tears of light beneath runes? Words from her heart would be my fortune!
Tears of ink that, one after another, water one another, swell and burst, sweeping aside my shortcomings, you call the other, recall the one. A hunting cry, from shadow to image, clothed in death that frightens me, whose omens I dare... dare openly to love. But God!... Is death a rostrum?
Must I discourse with her before I am lost? Offer myself like an ember to her sweet fantasy. To the Scythe, spraying its threats through the interview, when it asks: “Dust, who are you?” I would answer: “An isolated and reclusive prince, exiling himself from a body lost from sight. Persona non grata in his own life, nothing more!”
And beneath her piercing, cowardly gaze that nonetheless kills... would I add, like a forgotten fable: “Is it age?... I remember, I was faithful to the queen without reward. Yes, I, the prince without the right of the first night, in quest of a queen without a king, in this land owed to me, this cruel plain where my solitude is hunted down. Now slipping away into the end, where isolation is less arduous!”
Lifting her cloak, like a jealous evil angel, she would conclude: “But what are you waiting for?... Go join those other 99 madwomen and madmen! Since so many of you lunatics adored that bodice, then I shall be the eternal asylum for your homage! You, the 99 mad souls scattered here and there. You, pious ones, will dream of the woman with 99 faces!”
I would reply: “Before!... Then!... Yes, ogress! I was a valiant knight searching within and without. Except there, where I stood before it, upright. I lived alone with what I believed to be death! There were 99! We have been a hundred ever since! A hundred to unite, to join together, to marry the mirage... of an empress offering herself tonight to fate.”
The shadow of shadows will collapse beneath my words, and doze off limp, trembling and drenched in sweat! Blinking a half-closed eye, aiming at my face, like a smile coming to sweeten her bitter sleep, like a candid, idiotic nursery rhyme of wonders, seeing me as the horrible beast hiding its ugliness, she will judge her task futile before the incomparable challenge.
THE GOLDEN LETTERS
Grandiose! The star bears a gold-plated name, that shines by day in the azure sky, dethroning that of the writer... King Arthur. The moon and her renown light my lingering night, more than the magic of art or sport. More than all goddesses or heroes. Even Garbo, Madonna, Lennon or DiMaggio!
Shame on me! Her name makes mine seem pale. An iron resonance but a colour of tin, at baptism, it had been spat into my hand. Later, I sealed it into my palm, casting a spell upon myself as alms. Yes! I desecrated the tomb of destiny, staining the moonstone with the blood of “Côme”.
What are the names of the 99 sly worshippers, flattering the Eldorado that was her body? They who also hope for the pleasant balm that, for our purpose, will give our designs a thatched roof, will gild our name beside hers, will glorify our Argonaut’s end, after one final fault!...
BIOPSY BLUES
Long ago, the queen took flight, leaving, in the shock of her repose, suitors hanging and enemies frantic. Each subject, thinking the other one too many, set about distinguishing himself through books, roses and pots, but envy of her crown, none confessed.
Thus history selects, over time, prince consorts among her fortunate lovers. Yet, through omission, it forgets or rejects those 99 fools, as well as me, in my seclusion. We who, out of love, attached ourselves to the star. We, from every side, who in humble ways... polish lives and navels... to make them shine.
Shit! “Fuck and shit!” for the others! In debauchery or innocence, let them wallow! Of the two, I alone take part, on my own ground. For in my mission I am the mad apostle. Prophet of my apocalypse and witness to my end. No choice between her love and my wine. For the chalice and the cup are ours!
But how can I bind myself to eternity? Fill the void without betraying infinity? Not through the round of the gods down here!... I hate their threats and doubt their guarantees! A universal melting pot of survivals? No matter! After death, it’s democracy! My point of support?... Her life alone.
Proof... even my panicked unconscious could not care less about being reincarnated. Or my unbridled consciousness, about seeing itself resurrected, glorified! No choice but to go all the way to the sacred. No choice, faced with winged death, but to fight it, to confront it.
Yes! I confess! I, the bewitched one, believe in this eternal and destined love. Let them mock me and laugh at the top of their lungs! Let them think me mad if I say: “Madness reveals my reason.” I shall fight for this lofty dream, even if it means bleeding my imagination?
I shall summon happiness, by proxy... Thanks to these artifices that bind me, that cradle me with her life. By exorcising my heart... ...I shall metamorphose the illusion, and drink my soul... to the dregs.
CLICHÉ.
To seduce the inadmissible... Those photographs that let themselves be gazed upon. That credibly recount her life. And to think of her end, without “Goodbye!” Yes! Risk everything for the impossible. Try everything for a faint hope. Even love her without being able to prove it to her.
But I am here, in time, travelling through it as through a subway. And on this train of years, I look at one of her photographs. I drool and sweat in the movement... ...of my libido’s lucid gaze. “Tell me... am I one too many in time?”
When my eyes seem mere accessories and dance upon the burning paper; death appears to me in evening dress, brushing against eternity, that mirror. Then I imagine myself there, reflected in it, camouflaged by my mask of sand and my dreams of ice that ramble on.
It is like the old “Chaplins.” When they come alive, those old films, we do not laugh at the past, with the actor, the clown, the mime... we want to forget living in order to have fun! Projecting like tiny shadows onto eternity’s immaculate screen!
FLIGHT OF LIFE.
Take aim!... I remain welded to time, that sight. Bull’s-eye! I shall reach infinity! Will we be there together or married? Each day, the same desires. I torture myself with those same dreamed-of joys. As water that attracts can destroy the fire that warms...! I desire her!
Yet here, my pupils already devoid of pleasure grow blurred by my hands without warmth. No beauty, no sensuality. No body to place beneath my heart... No voice, no words; nothing to hear, to repeat. Not one of my breaths will mingle with her sighs, not even the breath of my final hour.
I move forward without reflecting, without thinking, that I will always dream of her, without shock, without embarrassment, without faltering. And this despite that strange guilt of revealing a secret I must betray. Will she forget the mystery that will follow? Forgive me! I am not small, I am low!
Oh! You, my imprisoned thoughts! You, bearing the look of millennia, who tremble and flutter in my soul, you who flow like a torrent, I grow intoxicated on your waves. Go, reveries! I urge you on, bitterly.
Leave me gently and without misunderstanding, at the speed of my wish, this breeze. Shoo! Go ahead, behind, or all together, all willing. My heart brings you into harmony, gilds you with the coherence of what it stakes.
Launch yourselves over the sea, across mountains, valleys and atmospheres. Like a prayer, move the orphan girl. Be like a troubling mantra, a motto, for pity’s sake, touch the one I aim at. The one whose longing my whole being imagines. Tell her: “I love you, Marilyn!”
FLIGHT OF REVERIES.
At last, here you are, beautiful queen! For a long time we have been travelling, seeking from zenith towards the horizons, transparent in tender tones. A fine vibrato making a simple refrain, your soul, like a breath without breath, draws the amen from our choir.
Our aim is to proclaim the prayer of our dreaming master, longing for healing. We are a futile prayer that brings you here, his last chance. Our mission: to rescue him from this torture in which he struggles. All of us, his thoughts, hope out of duty, in honour, that he finds deliverance from his pain.
To reach you, in your harbour, we became drops of rain. Then, mingled with that pure source of life, one morning in Eden, as you drank, flowing into you, we seeped inside. That sweetness, never before felt in your soul, is the love of a stranger, our friend.
His voice and words, filtered by death, will vibrate as cries and requests, released into the mystical echo of the hereafter. And never, through time, in this place forbidden to all that is stone and body, will such a voice have prevailed, in a wish to survive.
We strongly doubt we can convince you to listen to this laughable heart, to weep over his vivid complaints, to drink from his mad and troubled desires, or amuse yourself with his velvety joys. Nevertheless, here is what we have to say, like a bible... a few words to reveal...
WORDS FROM THE STRANGER.
...In the hope that my words, even translated without reason, disturb and alarm official minds. May they be the splendour of God, of his goodness or his halo. May they have the brightness of the devil or the torment of his fire.
Our love, unpredictable passion, will fool them even within their plot. They who, by tacit agreement, like spies, shared the unison between them. All that for a mere matter of work? No! For the sharing of this harvest: the indescribable power of emotion.
We shall be like a marriage of galaxies, my strange dreams will be their fascination, your waves will engender laughter and sublimations. From this, at last, they will understand that we are our own messiahs. For you are my alpha, their paradise. I am our omega, your possession.