Récits de la Guerre | Stories of the War

Récits de la Guerre

 

Cri

Le corps. L’enlacé. Un autre corps. Des et des corps. Semblables villes littorales. Pleines de lumières. Pleines de sable. Même par volets clos. Grande fièvre tournant dans les chambres. Paysages aux chemins poudreux. Aux forêts d’eucalyptus. Aux jardins rouges et blancs. Aux exotismes. Des martinets dont seul le cri.


Bleu

Depuis la rencontre amoureuse. Depuis les lilas blancs. Depuis les mimosas de février. Toujours un corps. Long comme une ligne. Est-Ouest qu’il traverse. Table d’orientation. Son vaste dos. Sa voix dans la pierre. Son ombre acérée. Et le jour. Crépitant. Jette son bleu froissé


Stries

S’effaçant un peu plus. Corps. Même désiré. Ouvert. Les oiseaux dessus. Qui creusent leurs nids. Dans l’infini des yeux. Et dans le paroxysme des bouches. Cécité. Stries noires. Vert de Grèce. Couchant. Sienne. Couleurs comme des îles. Et des îles. L’une derrière l’autre. Ingénuité puis elles. S’estompent


Décor

Au-delà des corps. Au-delà du plaisir. Sur le chemin douanier. A l’aplomb de la mer. C’est là. Déjà tant de corps. Les uns sur les autres. A former tertre recouvert par sable et schiste. Beau paysage activé. Arbres qui montent. Grincent. Mouettes qui tournent. Histoire qui enfouit. Charnier qui descend ses seaux. Utopie de l’oubli. De l’amour. Le soupir dans l’étreinte. La plage et le paréo. Décor pour l’ensablement. Mimosas de l’ultime saison. Branche en fleur. Glaciale. Et courte


Jour / ombre

Ne subsistent. Résineux. Odeur violente. S’élancent au-dessus du vide. Reflets faisant monter l’eau. Et ces pommes de pin. Accrochées. Dansent. Dansent. La vie. La vive. Gibet court. Laconique. Comme des coups de feu. Entendre. Qui étincellent. Fruits tombés. Corps ligneux. Frénésie. Corps. Autre corps. Les corps. Un peu d’oiseau. Et d’ombre. Et de couple. Et de jour

 

Stories of the War

 

Cry

A body. The intertwined. Another body. Bodies and bodies. Littoral cities all alike. Full of lights. Full of sand. Even through closed shutters. High fever slouching in bedrooms. Powdery paths through landscapes. With eucalyptus forests. With red and white gardens. With exoticisms. Silence but for the cry of swifts.


Blue

Since the love encounter. Since the white lilacs. Since February’s wattle. Always a body. Long as a line. East-West that its crosses. Viewpoint indicator. Its huge back. Its voice in the stone. It sharp shadow. And daylight. Crackling. Throws away its crumpled blue


Streaks

Erasing itself a bit more. Body. Even wanted. Open. Birds on it. Digging their nests. In the eyes’ infinite. And in the mouths’ paroxysm of mouths. Blindness. Black lines. Greek green. Going down. Sienna. Colours like islands. And Islands. One behind the other. Ingenuity then they. Fade


Scenery

Beyond bodies. Beyond pleasure. On the customs officer’s path. Overlooking the sea. It’s there. So many bodies already. One upon each other. Forming a mound decked with sand and schist. Beautiful activated landscape. Trees towering. Squeaking. Seabirds swooping. History that buries. Mass grave that lowers down its buckets. Utopia of forgetting. Of love. The sigh in the embrace. The beach and the pareo. Scenery for silting-up. Wattle of the last season. Branch with blooms. Freezing. And short


Daylight / Shade

Left only. Coniferous trees. Powerful smell. Shoot up above the void. Reflections make the water go up. And these pine cones. Suspended. Dance. Dance. Life. Life. Short gallows. Laconic. Like gun shots. To listen. That sparkle. Fallen fruit. Woody body. Frenzy. Body. Other body. Bodies. A bit of bird. And of shadow. And of couple. And of daylight

Bio

Author of more than twenty works, Chantal Danjou lives and works in the Var district of Provence after a long Parisian sojourn. She gained her doctorate in 1985 from La Sorbonne on the lonely woman in Colette and Katherine Mansfield. She taught in that field for many years, nowadays supervising projects specifically focused on the experience of creative reading and writing. Since 1989, she contributes to the field of contemporary poetry and poetics through the organisation La Roue Traversière [The Transverse Wheel] which she co-founded. Her activities involve presenting authors, organising round tables with editors, and fostering interdisciplinary links, including those between poets and translators.

Amongst her more recent publications in poetry are, for example, Malgré le bleu [Despite the Blue] (Paris: Éditions du Nouvel Athanor, 2005) and L’Oreille coupée [The Sliced Ear] (Colomiers: Éditions Encres Vives, 2012) and the novels Les Amants de glaise [The Clay Lovers] (Auxerre: Éditions Rhubarbe, 2009) and Les Cueilleurs de pommes [The Apple Pickers] (Paris: Éditions Orizons, 2015). Her website is:http://www.sgdl-auteurs.org/chantal-danjou/index.php/pages/Biographie

Notes

Published with permission here is an excerpt from Formes, an unpublished text by Chantal Danjou, translated by Dominique Hecq.