JACQUES BRAULT
The following is the complete selection from the two poems originally published on pages 62 - 63 of Issue 27.2.
TWO PROSE POEMS
by
Jacques Brault
Translated by David Sobelman
Night falls. No sweat to him, when the sun buggers off behind the fucking horizon. At night, it’s all grey; like lint, like they used to say. Possibly. Hear the night, that one, not the one be-fore, strewn with neon and hollering. Night is for yapping and howling. Here, the whole night is for disappearing. Tennuated. Ghosted. Night touches me. Often I recall the loves fled from all my roads. I meet myself. At night our footloose shadows go on the prowl and they bother no one. Come here, Nobody, and quit trembling; you too, anguish and solitude. We’re going to find a warm and silent place. Night’s falling exactly where there’s no noise, and it’s so blue, all so taut, you’d think there’s no blood under its skin. You feel sheltered from the worst. You forget yourself.
When, still only a child, in the twilight of morning I’d go to work down Saint-Zotique street, I wasn’t brave. The brown paper bag where I kept my lunch swung to the sound of dry leaves. It wasn’t fall, but like now the air was cold. A bedraggled old alley cat fell in step with me. Smelling sorrow, he fled under a porch. This damn street was one lousy road. You could argue, Nobody, it was at least a road. That’s true. Anguish and solitude limped alongside my fear. I had company, why complain? The parings of a life, there’s always plenty of those in the past. I choke them down. You have to chew on bits of yourself to keep going. OK, enough said about the unspeakable. Tomorrow doesn’t exist. It’s a tiny bell tinkling around the neck of the condemned. You try to touch your throat but your hand goes right through