I was on Venus
We drank only milk
Water was acid rain
There was no outside
Only structures
Protecting us from elements
Then 1 Day the 1st man went outside
It was me
Unaffected by the heat
A walking Lord
I stepped outside
Then all life changed
They used me to understand
Then we decided to build
And
Here we are
A planet away
On earth
Only drinking water
Life is not what you are taught
It is a mere illusion
Of places unheard of
People unknown
The beginning
Our origins

I orbit like a planet banished from its path,
carrying cosmic dust in my pockets and the world’s secrets dangling like dead stars.
I did not know who I was… but they knew I read the screams of the nebula.
I know everything… yet I do not know when I was born, or why moons shatter when I breathe!

I am the forgotten library that holds the end of all books.
My pages fall like meteors, each leaf crying out:
“Who will rearrange the idea before it collapses into a black hole?”
I carried the names of infinities on a school trip,
and when asked about myself, I gasped for a lost answer trapped between my ribs.

I speak the language of the impossible,
translate the silence of stars into trembling rays,
hear the dialogues of power and annihilation at a table of tangled timelines.
They say, “He knows the hour of mountains’ collapse before they crumble!”
But I cannot stop a tear as it falls from my eye.

I dance with spectral equations in night’s laboratory,
mix pain and galaxies in a vial,
search for the meaning of “I” between an equation slipping from my memory
and a blurred childhood image swarming with asteroids.
Even the map I drew of myself unravels into planetary chaos—
each time I point to a place, I whisper, “Here I was… or here I will be!”

The universe mocks me in its way,
sends coded messages in nebula hues:
“When will you learn you’re just an echo of a sound never uttered?”
I answer with a scream fossilized in space:
“I am the one who wrote the questions before answers were born!”

I discover I exist only when I am lost.
Each time I near the riddle’s end, a thousand new labyrinths bloom.
I walk a road of shattered pasts, only to reach a future
wearing the same question’s altered face:
“Are you the hero, the author, or a stray letter in eternity’s novel?”

At the chapter’s end…
I wear the universe’s skin like a threadbare coat,
let my questions hang like drowning stars,
and vow tomorrow I’ll tear off every mask.
But…
who can shed their own self twice?

Le sourire d'une femme au printemps est plus joli
Que le reflet dansant des tulipes jaunes de l'étang
Comme a dit l'autre: son visage est enjolivé et poli
Avec du sirop de miel. Elle a vraiment un sourire charmant.

Oh! Printemps, la plus belle des quatre saisons
Cela fait grand plaisir de la voir coiffée en jaune
Couleur de l'espoir, jolie couleur de la moisson
Les pétales pétillent dans l'air et les cloches chantonnent.

Non, ce n'est pas un rêve, elle est vraiment magnifique
Elle est vêtue d'un sourire qui inspire et qui fait soupirer
Les hommes qui aiment tout ce qui est beau et classique.

Cette femme a les mains entrelacées sur sa cuisse droite
Comme un mannequin qu'on applaudit sur la piste réservée
Pour les plus belles femmes de l'histoire de notre planète.

P.S. Translation of 'The Radiant Smile Of A Woman' in French.

Copyright © May 2018, Hébert Logerie, Tous droits réservés
Hébert Logerie est l'auteur de plusieurs livres de poésie.

~
In the days of Jupiter
during the age of
lovely intimate things

the abundant rain giving life
to a lactating mother

bloodletting
cloudburst

her magic ocean
and incipient seabright moon
together at the center of creation
~