in spring she used to write poems

about love and death - she pulled some

fresh metaphors from the black moist earth;

there was a humming in the air

and she held them in her hands,

pressed to her chest like magnolia flowers -

shape shifting metaphors may mimic spring blossoms;

it is well known that

the mind survives precisely due to its instability: 

fall, collapse, rehabilitation, healing, redemption

rotate periodically around the axis of folly;

nothing more absurd, I know,

than an ideal of order and harmony -

a ‘fabrique de jardin’ where

neither body nor soul will find shelter,

she said with a sigh, folding the clouds on her lap;

was she edgy, watchful?

was she afraid she’d be played?

oh, no! she expected nothing straight,

good or true

from the treacherous spring and

she trusted nobody with a human face.

une déconnexion avec la réalité, un décalage -

a dream within a dream -

my space ship,

in a maze of ghostlands -

une mise en retrait affective et sociale (or so they call it)

yet i loved you once and we travelled the world;

sheltered from the noise 

in my make-believe home

i feel stardust in my blood - mine or

someone else’s, who can tell -

i am everybody else and nobody at all;

can I choose to dance

to my own music or is it

une désorganisation de la pensée?

on the slippery slope of sleep -

tell me, grand jester,

is it the right thing to do -  stand on the edge,

peering down into the universe?

what constellations are those at my feet?

dans le pays des chimères

tout est possible…

is this my life or 

is it a ripple in chaos - 

a haze at the edge of my vision -

an eyelid that grows into 

tentacles and claws -

why do you keep saying

that i am not i but lies and fading music

or the last wish

of one of those long-suffering women

who lived before me and

who could only dream about freedom;

the freedom i have  

to inhabit a shadow.