8 Poems
by Gabriel and Marcel Piqueray
translated by Robert Archambeau and Jean-Luc Garneau

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Professionals

Having scaled the wall, they leapt over the bristling shards of broken glass, hoping to land softly in the slop-pile left over from last year’s meager scrapings.
As they fell endlessly, they came to the conclusion that they must have picked the wrong wall. Growing used to the void, they started to think of other things.

Tout Chez (Touché)

To gallop
All alone
As an official personality
I don’t understand

Delerium’s Kingdom

In the distant, snow-choked valley sits the blonde, entirely naked, her hands clutching her knees tightly to her chest.
A city-suited man stands before her, his flapping scarf masking his face as he holds his arms outspread, as if to embrace her.
Little by little, first her legs, then her naked torso, and at last even her forehead and her fingers begin to blush with a glowing red. It is achingly beautiful: a color born of crackling woodfires.
For the man, now, there is nothing but the translucent nakedness of the woman, her closed eyes inventing the sky.
Snow is an aristocrat.

However a Note in The Margin

Self-referential sheets of vellum
Belonging to rare moments –
However, a note in the margin…

Hierarchy: A Night

“Can you see anything?” shouted Danour.  He raised the faint and flickering lantern to his face.  His squinting features showed his worry.
“I think this road winds on down the mountain,” Lora answered. “Too bad it’s so dark tonight. No time to be stuck on the summit, with all this wind – it’s not going to be comfortable.”
Danour laughed. “To hell with comfort” he said. “The important thing is for us to get down to the valley.” The words had hardly left his mouth when he stubbed his toe against a human body. It moved. A voice spoke.
“I don’t want to butt in here, but let me tell you this: you’d better not try to go down there.”  The speaker struggled to sit up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Danour brought his lantern over to have a look at this unexpected dispenser of wisdom. It was a man, about forty, with a big moustache and a bowler hat. As the man stood up he went on explaining: “You see,” he said, “at first the summit was covered with lost couples and young families. The brave ones, though, were able to find their way down into the valley. The rest followed.  By now they’ve worked out a system: every family’s got its place, packed in side by side from the top on down. You and the missus here will be the final link – you can settle down right here.”
“Now, he added, “let me get some sleep.  I’m really tired. Good night.”
Down in the valley, it sounded like someone got a foot tangled up in the strings of a harp, then became overly-apologetic, making careful and elaborate excuses.

The Affective Distance Game

"Vendôme..." sighed the Marquise, leaning from the battlements of her turret.
"My jewel!" the Duke cried from the foot of the tower. He pulled a few ivy leaves from the wall and pressed them against his lips, tasting their bitterness. Faint voices came to them from far off in the splendid summer evening.
Some said, "Limousin! Golden Age! Rocamadour!" Others called out gently, "The Princes of the Blood! Saint-Amant-Roche-Savine! Ribérac!" Still others asked, “Blois? Marie-Adelaïde? Milady?”
"No, no, this is awful!" cried the Marquise, in answer. A great commotion was heard from up above. Then, suddenly, nothing.
Thinking this must be some kind of a joke, the Duke raised his eyes toward the turret’s battlements, and took a few impatient steps toward the moat. He laughed heartily:
"Bridgit! – What’s she up to? Oh, she's in for it now!”
But still silence reigned.
From the distant woods he could hear the faint sound of young ladies dancing.  Then came new voices, with an echo like the omen of a terrible sorrow.
It was a group of lords, rounding the bend with a little band of armed men. They bore the corpse of a young man.
Seeing this, the Duke turned abruptly back to face the castle, its battlements now shining violently in the moonlight.
“He played the game,” the armed men explained, “And fell dead the moment the Marquise sobbed out her last answer.”
But the Duke was no longer listening. He had stepped lightly to one side. “Good God,” he murmured, “I could have sworn they didn’t love each other that much…"
Striding up to the tower, he stepped on a square of blue silk, spotted with a little blood: it was a woman's handkerchief. He quickened his pace.
Arriving at the summit of the turret, he found all the players gathered there. He went straight to the little knot of princesses.  In their arms they held the corpse of the Marquise, her dead face bathed in the purest light.

The Hungarian

I’ve got to fill my glass.  Absolutely.
Over by the carafe, the radio warms up, crackling with static.
 The lodger from the next room says it's a power surge, that the air is too muggy.  Where does he get off talking like that around me? What’s his logic here?
The landlady comes in crying, says that war has been declared.
So it’s off to join our regiments.
As I head out, I notice that my glass, has, conveniently, been filled.

Flowing Water

At twilight, the rain spurs the taut flank of the water.

Ardente lounges in the pond’s shallows, eyes turned to the sky, elbows leaning on the dark and mossy bank.
Nearby, the sheen of her sand-yellow handbag, all chrome and leather, brings to mind old bison, steam engines, dumb-bells lifted by viril men in large, empty rooms.
Ardente rummages through it, pulls out some cyclamen lipstick, applies it carefully to her parted lips, then blots them over and over.
She rises from the water and makes her way into a grove of trees, from which then comes a sudden laughter, a child's laughter, a jerky laughter that grows louder and louder, then stops abruptly.
Night falls with the rain.
The leather bag still shines in the grass, its soggy strap sagging there.