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PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL (FLOWER OF KENT) by Béatrice Machet

 

 Answering, or rather echoing Kit Kelen’s poem    #510 — edge-phobe’s (things fall off)        ( The DailyKit)

 

[after an older version posted on 365+1 project ]

 

Adam's Apples: Flower of Kent *  PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL

 

It’s no myth. Flower of Kent is an apple. It could have been a name for the Full Moon if Newton had been a poet. Poets, but not only, see attraction as the ability of falling. Thus, call it collision, gravitation, or not, living on earth one must accept that it entails the process of falling. Alive or not, “things” and people fall.

It’s no surprise. It’s always possible. The phenomenon repeats itself billion and more trillion times a day. This rule is said to be universal.

Logs fall and it’s a matter of sleeping.

Breads fall for butter’s sake.

Stones fall which weigh depend on rage rather than decay (-decline  -degradation  -downturn  -disfavor -disgrace … won’t be studied here).

Fallen people may be lying and resting in a tomb—from the French noun tombe itself being  derived from a verb: tomber. Meaning to fall. Whatever -diving               -stumbling   -tripping up or over is performed. Whatever -blow  -bomb  -imbalance    or  -shot    is the cause.   (delete as appropriate).

 

You fall  -at  -away   -back   -behind   -below   -beneath   -between   -by   -flat   -for   -from   -heads over heels   -into   -off   -on   -out   -outside   -over   -prey to   -short    -through   -to   -toward   -under …   -within…

It might concern -hurdle   -holes   -traps   -cracks   -stools   -wayside   -bonds  -job  -hook   -line   -sinker   -grace   -love   -heir   -heap   -line   -illness   -power                             -clutches   -disuse   -place   -hands   -eyes   -clouds   -trucks   -laps   -map  -wagon  -sword   -ground   -feet   -knees   -hard   -times   -face   -bed   -favor   -spell   -bits and   -pieces … -floor …

It’s important to have it free.

Never forget: the bigger they come the harder they fall.

Provided you can read I don’t mind this to fall on deaf ears.

 

PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL (FLOWER OF KENT) by Béatrice Machet Read More »

CALL IT -THING (L’appeler -chose)

 

After a drawing by Anny Pelouze which title is 

         « Eclats de temps »  ( splinters of time)

 

 

            Call it -thing 

 

Before there was any thing

there must have been some thing.

It might have been a mere only thing

 an essential thing

not a whatever thing

 

Some call it Motion

others call it Energy     … Love       God …

 

I will name it Wind.

Made of so many fluctuations it shapes an entire universe

with its so many vortices   whirlpools    

ending up with Wind as Mind

which allows me to become co-creator

of my living something.

Inward the fire winds and minds feed

inside what is called my body.

 

            L‘appeler    – chose

 

Avant que toute chose soit

il doit y avoir eu quelque chose.

Peut-être une simple et unique chose

une chose essentielle

pas n’importe quelle chose

 

Certains l’appellent Mouvement

d’autres l’appellent Energie    … Amour        Dieu …

 

Je le nommerai Vent

fait de tant de fluctuations qu’il compose un univers entier

avec ses nombreux vortex    tourbillons

qui finissent à partir du Ventà forger un Ment(al)

et je deviens cocréateur

de mon quelque chose vivant.

Dans son intime le feu que vents et mentaux nourrissent

à l’intérieur de ce qui est appelé mon corps

 

CALL IT -THING (L’appeler -chose) Read More »

KING OF THE WORLD – ROI DU MONDE

 

Responding to Carol Archer’s Sandstone Walk

 

(don’k ask me how this « story » came to my mind !! I guess it’s a mix of testimonies and readings I’ve stored somewhere in my memory and consciousness…)

 

Delivered on the shoulder of the road

you tumble down a landfill

to end up in a lukewarm puddle of water

 

It’s summer

you have been spending two weeks in jail

 

By now the gibbous moon slides out of a stormy cloud

 

Even though treated as a burglar

while you’re just a beggar

trying to get out of the slum you were born into

you feel in the mood for dancing

 

It has been months since a single drop of rain

fell from the sky

it has been months during which flames

by the thousands

have devoured ground and forests

 

it’s a time for celebration

and heartfelt gratitude

it’s a time for ashes to slip from memory

and desperation

 

At this very moment

you’re the king of the world

wading in his golden bathtub(e)

 

Déposé sur le bord de la route

tu dévales un talus

pour atterrir dans une flaque d’eau tiède

 

C’est l’été

tu viens de passer deux semaines en prison

 

maintenant la lune gibbeuse se glisse hors d’un nuage orageux

 

Bien que traité comme un cambrioleur

alors que tu n’es qu’un mendiant

essayant de se sortir du taudis dans lequel tu es né

tu es pris d’une envie de danser
 

Il s’est passé des mois sans qu’une goutte de pluie

 

soit tombée à terre

il s’est passé des mois entiers pendant lesquels

des flammes par milliers

ont dévoré sols et forêts

 

c’est le moment de fêter

c’est le moment de gratitude sincère

c’est le moment pour les cendres de s’échapper de la mémoire

et du désespoir

 

À ce moment précis

tu es le roi du monde

en train de barbotter dans sa baignoire en or

KING OF THE WORLD – ROI DU MONDE Read More »

BE-FORE — AVANT

 

 Responding to Brian Purcell’s in a time of lockdown”

 

Before                                                              by Béatrice Machet

 when it doesn’t mean in front

when it doesn’t show ahead

when it looks back towards  earlier

these « before » times

were they more happy

 

the before masks

the before

not only perinatal and neonatal asphyxia

but also before

premature

and globalized suffocation

 

before main streets were emptied

before roses and princes lived apart

on faraway locked down planets

because of covid zones

 

before half of the population was turned into beggars…

 

 

Before

belonging to the past

it points out bewilderedness caused by constant belligerencies

beyong believability

 

before loneliness is the norm

these « before » times

were they more free

 

Not being owlish but nevertheless aware enough

                                                                                              I assume

before  human kind becomes wise

simultaneous bewitchments and benevolences will constitute

the « between » times

before an harmonious now begins

so we can simply be

 

 

Avant

quand cela ne signifie pas devant

quand cela ne montre pas l’en-avant

quand il regarde en arrière vers plus tôt

ces temps « d’avant »

étaient-ils plus heureux

 

l’avant les masques

l’avant

pas seulement de l’asphyxie péri ou néonatale

mais aussi avant

une suffocation prématurée

et mondialisée

 

avant que les rues aient été vidées

avant que roses et princes  soient séparés

sur des planètes lointaines confinées

à cause des zones covid

 

avant que la moitié de la population ne devienne mendiante …

 

Avant

appartenant au passé

il souligne la stupéfaction due aux  constantes belligérances

au-delà du crédible

 

avant que la solitude devienne la norme  

ces temps « d’avant »

étaient-ils plus libres

 

N’étant pas devin mais cependant consciente assez

                                                                                              je présume

qu’avant que le genre humain ne devienne sage

les sorcelleries et les bienveillances constitueront

les temps « de l’entre »

avant qu’un maintenant harmonieux ne commence

pour enfin seulement être

BE-FORE — AVANT Read More »

Beatrice Machet — Short poems written on two collages

Short poems written on two collages

une usure fertile

la profusion crépusculaire

dans les vastes étendues s’affaire

jusqu’à polir des joyaux

bijoux du temps

déposés sur la friche

a fertile wearing off

the twilight profusion

busies itself in vast spaces

till it polishes gems

time jewels

laid down on fallow field


 

fenêtre sur un lac intérieur

plongée verticale sur un champ de vue

lumière profondément

intensément étale

Narcisse dans un coin de mémoire

soi au milieu du miroir

a window on an inner lake

vertical swoop on a field of vision

the light profoundly

intensely still

Narcissus in a corner of memory

the self in the middle of the mirror


et si           au-devant des yeux

se tenait la matière du regard

on n’y voit plus d’horizon

l’intemporel y flotte

aussi limpide qu’une eau

inondée de lumière

what about       having ahead of eyes

the gaze-matter

one doesn’t see the horizon anymore

timelessness is floating there

as crystal-clear as water

flooded with light


au creux des nuages

que l’éclaircie déchire

bien au-dessus de soi

où l’on place le rêve

au-delà de ses paysages

les métamorphoses

in a hollow of clouds

shredded by a sunny spell

far higher than yourself

where dream is placed

beyond its landscapes

metamorphosis


Beatrice Machet — Short poems written on two collages Read More »

Chris Mansell

There are two characters in this new collection from Flying Islands: the fox, and the farmer. They are opposed but share an existential problem. The more charismatic figure is the fox (female, only once owning ‘vixen’) who is trying to understand her environment, the role of the farmer, the singing fences, the farmer. The farmer is a solitary figure walking with a gun, trying to get things right. Each have their own good intentions; neither of them entirely comfortable where they are.

What came before

Somewhere between Daylesford and Castlemaine in Victoria, Australia, they have a fox problem. Australia in general has a ‘fox problem’. Foxes are not indigenous to the continent, and they are predators of the kind that small marsupials were unaccustomed to resisting. Foxes, along with feral cats, and various other creatures which took up ecological niches, took a great toll on the wildlife. 

It is also thought, believed strongly, that foxes attack livestock, often taking only the most delectable parts of an animal. They are not beloved by farmers. There are three ways of expressing their relationship to foxes: traps, guns, poison (1080). Savage traps are not legal, cage traps are ok – except now you have a fox in a trap; 1080 is often used but seen as unnecessarily cruel by some; and then there is the direct honesty of a gun, though less efficient.

Nevertheless, they are beautiful, alien animals; independent, foxy. In the wild they live for about three years (in captivity, much more), and their social structure depends on the conditions encountered. In some conditions there is only one breeding pair, in others all the females breed. 

They are invaders, but have made the country their own. They know nothing else. The farmer of foreign heritage and the fox are not different in that respect.

Somewhere between Daylesford and Castlemaine there is the foxline: about 200 dead and scalped foxes hung from their heels on a fence by the roadway. So beautiful in the sun.

Read Magdalena Ball‘s review at Compulsive Reader and listen to her interview

Jean Kent did a great launch speech at Anna Couani‘s The Shop Gallery in February. As always, Kent is insightful and generous. You can read her words at Rochford St Review here 

 

Who and what

This year saw two publications that are especially important to me: Foxline from the invincible Flying Islands, and 101 Quads from a new conjunction of publishers Puncher & Wattmann and Thorny Devil Press.  

Among  a dozen or so previous books are  Spine Lingo (from Kardoorair) and a collection of short prose fiction, Schadenvale Road (from Interactive Press). Seven Stations was published by Wellsprung Productions. This is the text of a song cycle (music by Andrew Batt-Rawden) that premiered at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and was subsequently released on CD by Hospital Hill.

I work  in a number of poetic forms, much of it experimental and in the alternative, or in unusual physical forms.

Some other  titles include: Letters  and The View from a Beach , Love Poems , The Fickle Brat (text + audio CD), Day Easy Sunlight Fine  and Mortifications & Lies  and some smaller publications and non-fiction. I have also published a children’s book, written a number of plays. I am publisher at PressPress and been a mentor to several Australian poets.

I won the Queensland Premier’s Award for Poetry and have been short-listed for the National Book Council Award and the NSW Premier’s Award and won the Amelia Chapbook Award (USA) and the Meanjin Dorothy Porter Poetry Prize.

There is more information on my site at www.chrismansell.com

Chris Mansell Read More »

Greg McLaren

I’m a poet whose work has been published almost widely. After Han Shan, my Flying Islands book, is from way back in 2012. Other books include The Kurri Kurri Book of the DeadAustralian ravens and Windfall (Puncher & Wattmann). 

Valley

 After Louise Crisp

 The yards and droughts, they went on forever.

The hills baring themselves from our shame.

Skeletal fruit trees, their juiceless husks, tiny desiccated bats.

Topsoil sloughed and carved off, earth and its wealth found under dug up,

prised out, words slashed through the insides of houses given up on.

A small black dog in the shed outside, something jumping on its roof.

Was that me? The trees behind, between us and the moon-slick rail,

wiping the sky’s underside.

                                          My daughter, a few specks of her glitter

lit on these pages, on a sick day.

                                                  I thought I was free to wander.

Greg McLaren Read More »

Chrysogonus Siddha Malilang

Chrysogonus Siddha Malilang was a nomad writer and translator before finally settling in in Southern Sweden. He started writing professionally – as a journalist – at an early age of 12, mainly motivated by an innocent wish of seeing his name printed in newspaper. After writing a number of short stories for various newspapers, he published two novels in 2006. 

In 2013, he got involved with Flying Islands and started translating Iman Budhi Santosa’s poems (Faces of Java) into English. He was then granted Indonesian government funding for a poetry translation project in 2015. His own collection of bilingual poems, Encounters: Never Random, was published in 2017 by Flying Islands

He is currently teaching Creative Writing in Malmö University, Sweden and at the same time trying to get back to a poet mode. His latest works, translations of three children’s books from Danish to Indonesian, are coming in March 2021. 

watching fado in Macao

old fortress
under moon that blooms

gentle sea breeze
of a humid October night

husky contralto
belting the ballad out

from her throat
deep the waves

in which we swim
ears least perhaps

this is rhythm
all in the chest

where memory
is found

because of the words
all out of language

because as the singer says
this is heart’s translation 

Chrysogonus Siddha Malilang Read More »

Béatrice MACHET

GREETINGS FROM FRANCE…. Salut aux amis de la communauté FLYING ISLANDS !

BIO

Béatrice (Anne-Marie, Marie-Jeanne) Machet is a French born poet, living between France and the USA, whose dance lessons as a child influenced and still influence her writing. As a teen she learned a lot from the Native American point of view about Native American history and Native cultures, until she felt impregnated with them. After having been involved in the French science-fiction milieu, flirting with cartoons and magazines such as Actuel, Charlie Hebdo, Fluide Glacial, she met Jean-Hughes Malineau, a Gallimard editor, who encouraged her to begin a career as a poet. From this initial meeting, each published poetry book of hers will testify to an evolution in her writing practice. Since 2016, she is an active member of the sound poetry group Ecrits Studio (ecritsstudio.fr). At her credit some 15 books and 30 chapbooks of poetry (three of them in English) plus 7 Native American poets’ collections she translated into French, and four anthologies gathering 40 Native American contemporary poets whom works she translated into French.

She is used to collaborating with artists from all kinds of disciplines such as painters, sculptors, musicians, composers, video-makers, dancers and choreographers, and with whom she performs her poetry. She is on editorial boards of French poetry magazines such as Recours au poème, Sur le dos de la tortueLes cahiers d’Eucharis.

She is regularly granted writer residences, is regularly invited in international poetry festivals in France and abroad. She leads creative writing workshops, is called for teaching and performing in schools and colleges. She gives lectures and conferences about contemporary Native American literature. She also launched and created Radio cultural programs, poetry oriented, from 1984 to 1986 and from 2018 to nowdays. She is responsible of and produces a monthly radio program (Radio Agora, Grasse) dedicated to contemporary poetry.

Partial Bibliography- poetry exclusively

– Dire, éditions Clapas, 1998, forewords by Patrick Joquel
–Tunkashila unshimala yé ( imprégnation peau-rouge ) 1999, éditions Clapas (recorded and performed on an original music by composer Jacques Dudon) ,
– J …., éditions L’Amourier (poetry) 1999
– Eye-liner, 1999, éditions Clapas, with afterwords by Armand Olivennes
– Dyptique, 2000, éditions Clapas with forwords by Alain Jégou
– De quoi s’étonner encore de vivre, 2000, éditions Encres Vives
– Aspects de la poésie contemporaine des Indiens d’Amérique du nord, 2001, L’Amourier 2001
– Dans l’atelier d’Henri Baviera, 2001, Le Garage (MDLC 2 place Auriol 83510 Lorgues.)
– Dédicace, 2002, éditions La porte
– Canku (the way in Lakota language) with painter Gérard Serée, 2002, atelier Gestes et Traces 2002
– Muer, 2003, poetry, éditions L’Amourier
– Passage au méridien, 2003, éditions I.H.V
– L’essor et l’écart,2004, atelier Tactiles with painter Corine Léridon
– La sentinelle, 2004, atelier Tactiles with painter Corine Léridon
– DVD- painter Violette Adjimanand poet Beatrice Machet, 2004, centre d’art SEBASTIEN (LB productions)
– Tribus, 2005, Atelier Gestes et Traces with painter Gérard Serée
– Retentir, 2006, with painter Youl
– Lumières, 2007, with painter Youl
– Le felo va parler, 2007, bilingual chapbook, Amastra-n-Gallar (Galicia España)
– Lacérer, 2007, éditions La Porte
– Der de Dre, 2008, éditions Voix
– Possible, 2008, with painter Youl
– Ouest-Nord-LAZA-Est-Sud, 2009, bilingual chapbook, Amastra-n-galar)
– Une poire pour William, 2009, with painter Youl
– Marge, 2009, éditions IHV
– Melisma, 2010, éditions SD with painter Sylvie Deparis
– Venus rising (poetry anthology 2009, The Bass Press, R and R editors,

– Hadziin, 2010 (The one Who Speaks in Apache Language), CD, poetry spoken words  with composer Michel Chaupin
– ACCOM(plissements), 2011, CD,  poetry performance recorded while granted a writer residency at « la maison de la poésie transjurassienne ».  
– Le livre M, 2013, crafted book exhibited at la maison de l’artisanat d’art in Marseille and in la maison Carré in Nîmes.

– Macao, A Grey Epic (bilingual), 2014, ASM Press
– Les Gens-pierre, 2014, with painter Henri Baviera
– Les Lacets, 2014, atelier Gestes et Traces, with painter Gérard Serée
– Rupture en quatre leçons, 2014, éditions Approches
– For Unity (bilingual), 2015, Pocket Book, ASM Press
– Salse sans pareille, 2016, éditions Le petit véhicule
– Du dernier souffle, 2017, éditions du Frau
– Les mots fendre, 2017, éditions Lieux Dits

– Der de Dre addendum, 2017, éditions Voix

–Jamais le dernier souffle, 2018, éditions Peycervier, with Painter Henri Baviera

– Tirage(s) de Tête(s), 2019, éditions les Lieux Dits

– Crypto, 2019, bilingual, with poet Dominique Hecq, Pocket Book-ASM Press

After Gertrude Stein, coming out date April 2021, Dancing Girl Press

***************************************

NEW WORK – (in progress, just a beginning) 

QUEST-ION(ing)S OF TIME

1 )

Was it a-

       or b-

              fore….

                           thus I hit the slopes of the alphabet

a true bare-footed race

with faux-pas on slippy pebbles

the very one I spitted

after having practised

tongue-twisters

and breathing exercises …

there followed a free ride

a screeching slalom

between letter-poles

a super-giant choreography

as if a baited tale was told

in the tracks of caged slides 

as if a vision

could heal sounds and meanings

through a world record expression

2 )

« One exerts power

                       over time

when one masters distance »

very well then

deciding to keep its distances

staying away from ticking and stopwatch

my tongue exerts power.
But are words manageable

as for language

… when is it fully realized ?
when is it born

with its flow of blood and tears

from a womb called self ?
and how the speed factor

gives a voice its energy… ?
Relatively intruder enough

flesh

in the form of larynx and palate

is the poem made power

sung

and blown out like a mushroom cloud.

3 )

this is a tiny here

this is a vast now

on a crest of wavy time when

every second is sup-

posed to up-

sidedown your mind-will

which is swallow-

ed sliding and plunging in-

to an ocean of enzymes and acid

so that every protein of it is broken down

     when your lop-

     sided stomach is digesting prim-

     al scream till it is dis-

     mantled and pour-

     ed down the guts
a creepy wreckage stuck

in what will be its last curly den

     and then …

Béatrice MACHET Read More »