XXIV L'ETRANGER

Etranger. Etre le regard qui t'invente.
Le mot dans ta bouche d'ombre. L'Aventin
D'où César contemple la cité mouvante
Devenue fournaise et braise où s'éteint




L'aurore qu'il pensait qu'il fut. Avenue
Caniculaire, sans vent ni chant, le long
D'un mur d'hôpital chaulé, la gorge nue
Perlant de sueurs d'une passante, l'ombre



Etroite, le promeneur traqué qui marche
Au fond d'un silence tellement lourd, tellement 
Dur qu'il en frappe comme un archet
Les cordes invisibles, allant tel



Il allait lorsque retentissaient les cloches 
De Saint Clément, à la mi-août répondant
A Nicolas et aux Frères Nantais proches
Dans une rue endormie, cependant



Qu'en chapeau noir agrémenté de dentelles
Trotte tenant par la ficelle un gâteau
Dominical, la dévote aux immortelles
Qui disparaît vers la place du château-



Mais lui croyait qu'il errait au creux d'un rêve.
(Etre celui qui rêve qu'il est celui
Qu'un rêve tient et sera, lorsque se lèvera
Le rêve, un autre rêve qui fuit)



Cabinet clos de velours et de cretonnes,
Barque tanguant sur la lame d'effroi,
L'esprit glacé vacille, mais l'éclair tonne
Quand le veilleur règne au centre de la croix



Car son regard aux chairs s'arrache, aux peintures-
Brasier des chairs qu'habite la vision-
(Eté flambait quand débuta l'aventure
Des corps évanouis que l'explosion



D'amour éparpilla par sphères et âges
Pour resplendir étoile au ciel des amants)
Et repoussés le sommeil et ses mirages,
Il regagne l'indivisible élément.

Michel Galiana (c) 1990

XXIV THE STRANGER



Stranger. To be the glance that is inventing you.
Word put into your Mouth of Shade. The Aventine
Where Caesar considers the moving city's view
That was turned to glowing ember extinguishing



The dawn he meant to be. And, walking down the road
On that scorching hot day, with no wind, song or shout,
-Along the whitewashed wall of a hospital strode
A girl on whose bosom thick beads of sweat stood out,



Narrow was her shadow- the distraught man will go
Amid silence that is so heavy and so harsh
That he might hit with it, as he would with a bow,
The invisible strings; he will model his march



On his hurrying pace when bells from Saint Clement
On the Assumption Day tried hard to hold in check
Those from Saint Nicholas or from Saint Donatien
Which were looming nearby in some drowsy street, yet...



-There was, trotting along, holding on a ribbon
A Sunday cake, wearing a black hat lace-adorned
And everlasting flowers, a pious old woman
Heading for Castle Square who round the corner turned-



He thought he was roaming in the depths of a dream.
(That in that dream he was the benumbed dreamer,
That when he would awake from this dream he was deemed
To be another dream, vanishing in thin air)



Cabinet covered with velvet and calico,
Barge pitching and tossing on a wave of dismay
The terror struck spirit staggers but waves billow
When the Watchman on the cross over him holds sway



For his glance tears itself from flesh and from pictures-
These bonfires of flesh inhabited by vision-
(Summer was ablaze when began the adventure
Of those vanished bodies that by an explosion

Of love had been scattered over spheres and ages
To become sparkling star in the sky of lovers)
And once slumber is cast out with its mirages
He returns to dwellings where everything must merge.