A little bit different this time. Here you will find short poems in English (love, reading and cooking, you might call it) et en français (larmes et extase). These are not versions of the same poems. The poems are different language to language. And, as in many another Montaigbakhtinian case, some have been revised, a little or a lot, since first publication.

♦
The barber with his razor sharp

The barber with his razor sharp
Shaves the stranger’s face.
A beloved by the river feels
A hand about her waist.

♦
The worst thing of all
The worst thing of all may be a great date.
Then the woman’s thoughts are frayed.
If love should fall on the he or she,
What O where would this new me be?

♦
Not everyone’s too busy to read

The hawk he comes to eat the squirrels,
Ducks to fountain, for water and crumbs.
The butterfly on my book delighting –
How does she know the story’s good?

♦
Poem after a post on Facebook

One day you’re cooking, and me, I’m naughty.
I have to go with a pot to the potty.
And sausages emerged as I did squatty.
Watch what you’re putting between those chapatis!

∩ Something like the first line popped up on Facebook, sometime in 2021.

Français

♦
Journée grise, rue Vaugirard

Oui, c’est moi,
Qui marche dans la rue,
Qui rentre chez moi,
Ayant pleurée.

Et toi qui me regardes :
Qui te l’empêche ?
Surtout pas moi,
Trop chargée.

♦
Il n’hache jamais pour toi faxile ?

Il n’hache jamais pour toi faxile ?
Nous entrançons baklava, sous t’appeau sensible,
La phorèse jusque-là, qu’on gravats la cible !
Ta respiration, chérie, dépasse la normile ?

Exoolà ! Mashallah! C’est à toi l’extia !
Comme tous les mais-mi cherchaient ta kiwi !
Enfin Extiatil, la pharmamissile.
Tu sens, mon dauphin, comme maintenant tu feels !

∩ Inspiré par une affiche publicitaire vue dans la vitrine d’une pharmacie. D’après ce que j’ai pu constater, le produit fonctionne le mieux pour décontrôler les excès de poésie.


— Poems and drawing by William Eaton.