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Frenchback JOSUÉ GUÉBO
translation from French by Todd Fredson
from Think of Lampedusa
I will tell you for the last time
my history, my wave
I have dreamed of you
as one dreams of an eye
without an eyelid
A story alive within these nights
where I rest with my eyes peeled
The roadsides
dead-end hope
I dreamed about you
like one dreams simply
of a hand
or of day
Light Dreamed
of morning
where the day relies
on the raft’s flame
a flame in agreement
with all these hearts proceeding
under venetian blinds
that have faded with the discord
~
Even what the blinds delete
will rethread itself
into rays of accord
Newly recomposed
the day and the night
sometimes the morning
will last by just a flame
but this dawn would be everything
It broadcasts the celebratory evenings
the nights in joy
morning on its way
I would confess to this dawn a hundred times
the shaky lines of this decision
the arabesque of my flight
the field of my exhausted signs
I am on the sea brushing
against those that the noise
of the waves consoles!
Those grown from the clay of palms
~
And I would light neither
mourning candle
nor candle for clarity
upon the eyes of the ocean
And in no water would I
gripe about the hardship
that has caused my tears
to reverberate
There is much worse than a raft
adrift
The earth that would wreck it
The dry soil of a once-brotherly conscience
The ocean of stories
that are tragically scraped away
There is much worse than a raft
in death throes
The earth
forgetting it’s a source of life
~
The earth’s mood
split by the same old insults
And the crying smile of an eye
that can’t take in any more
its humanity damned
And us, skinned
by the blow of words
scored bitterly
into our delirious bodies
And stranded in quarrels
which of the castaways speaks up?
Who explains the total loss?
Even for those who will leave tomorrow
there is much worse than a raft
adrift
This our forgetful earth
would edge out the view of immense
seaweed tangles
like lashes at the water’s edge
~
The earth’s dour mood
this uncouth scene
whole clusters cut clean off
ten a minute wiped away
lines of life swiped
from hopeful hands
But these men would never be simple winds
and their words
and their deaf prayers
Silence where his last prayer would float
Man
all of the men
what he has left to offer
is folded desperately
a single swig
on the back of that raft
I would be wind over
the ministry walls
breath murmuring beneath the tapestries
that line the hallways
~
I’d say happy birthday
woman-of-my-dreams
muse-of-my-awakenings
For you this bouquet of accents
bent under the weight of
crystals from my jewelry boxes
And the wave would no longer keep its shape
And the shore would no longer be sand
but electricity
Phosphorescent all the phosphor
from the zenith to its plainest angle
Optimal Geometry
This geometry of the senses
is rewritten in the length of just one of
your eyelashes
But you’d no longer understand me
And by the wish of a boat-
become-bier
shouldered in an unexpected welcome
I’d be the wind
~
Sometime, with my sketching pencil
I’d like to whisper into her ear
what the morning breeze says
to the coastal sand
Words from the street,
simple and soothing but strong
Invigorating . . .
Words made of island sand
Words that have known the pottery of the sea
Words rolling in
that whisper what the morning breeze
would say to the coast winds
And my land
our land
would laugh from shore to shore at my aspirations
My land would laugh
at this dream of fresh air
~
My fantasy
dashed a hundred times
in fate’s spiraling eye
The winds like people meeting
then racing in tandem
bending the angle of each corner
Farandoles fan out in alleys
And evening’s moorings loosen
The dream is dispersed in the winds
like people spread and sewn into the planet
One becomes a tempest
while others make a small headwind
Farewells sometimes celebrated like weddings
nervous joy on the docks
And people would blow would gather
would grow in resemblance
No riddle
Nature would make consonance with itself
~
Free of my land
then I’d exclaim innocence
an innocence made of oxygen
I afford it to myself unconditionally
to avoid vertigo
Nobody will keep me from my morality
Innocence will perform
on an embankment that slopes away endlessly
Plied by my thirst I’d hurry there
at whim’s rhythm
without likeness
without worry
without the slightest concern for elegance
I’d reimagine that fire in the ship’s hold
the seasonal suicide epidemic
I’d say happy the castaways
they will be naturalized
Happy absentees
the toasts they’ll receive
Haven’t they lifted the elbow of that anchor
drank to the bubbles of this dream
or disinterred for us those nauseous Greek arts
the blasphemous infections
of the salacious little songs
~
And we’d rise on that seasick
echo
Echo where all of the secular angers
sleep off their drunkenness
The storm lodged in the ovary
of a sinking boat
We don’t want
words with sores at the corners
The false requiem
no thank you
Who wants sympathies after the fact
those plaster smiles on the rescuers
of already-lost causes
We’d refuse even the caresses
that languish in the memories of those we’ve deserted
We’d avoid the warm hand
in a morning so blatantly cold
~
And the art of antiquity
would rise toward us from the bottom of the ship
Blasphemous infections
salacious little songs
And we’d rise on the echo
of the sickening sea
Echo
where the secular angers
are sleeping off their drunkenness
But where in the hollow of one’s
self could this hope be reborn
That the White would not infinitely be worth
two Black as
if clefs pinned onto musical staves 
Contributor’s notes: Josué Guébo
Contributor’s notes: Todd Fredson
The Most Dangerous Crossing: Reconstituting
Nationality in Josué Guébo’s Songe à Lampedusa