Alexandre Ferrere
Bio:
Alexandre Ferrere lives in Cherbourg, France. After a Master's degree in Library Sciences and a Master's degree in English Literature, he is now working on a Ph.D. on American poetry and little magazines. His essays, fictions, interviews and poems have appeared in dozens of magazines online and in print. His first chapbook, handmade by artist Sara Lefsyk, is entitled mono / stitches and available at Ethel Press.
Mind:Map
I wish you’d rest in peace, past—
the eye cuts open the barbed wires better than any government’s pliers. The spicy scents of Lebanon,
drenched by the sea,
die on the beaches crowded with ghosts of sailors sailing exotic boats, now sitting still btw rocks & weeds,
invisible to eyeballs,
sighing at a night “too prompt to fall”,
lurking on universal wounded loves. —eternal dream of watering skies— & Cyprus floats there, hanging btw shades of blue,
full of thin cats sleeping
through consecutive heatwaves, lost among modern ruins—
they smile through the bullet holes
& stuff them with hope. The bright mouths
of lonesome faces crack open a multilingual laugh
in thorny evenings. & the children, they keep on dancing with the kittens, against the dusty light
unaware of traditional fears sweating through oranges & walls— & the moon—is it really the same that had seen through the bloody veil
of mankind before it rained
to cover the cries? The Orthodox bells—the Muslim chants
at dawn, echoing down the heart
of Nicosia where a hurt flame
of hope wanders among
the échoppes of time.
Scènes Attachantes et Détachées
Into cities,
btw walls,
into bedrooms,
btw unbroken bodies
or shattered souls,
Certitudes are abducted, for a while—
hopes are welcomed through branches
through breaches of muddled arms. Je vis à mort in the nightly community. Listen,
those are the sounds of waves; becoming the music of sleeping vocabs— Lost, in the mist of a jungle; words are climbing plants on the walls of imagination— But the thoughts, are being born & are dying too fast,
all at once. You said: “to say is to seize”.
& no matter if it’s too late or too early,
an absent wind pushes behind, & now we have to run. & tomorrow, & tomorrow,
we will have to doze under a lazy, thick sun. “Do you remember the tale?” A man, & a woman, on the Pangaea
felt the harsh soil cracking,
their children heard the ground tearing a/part & another line, astounded, slowly drifted
on the now imagined Panthalassa:
far, far from original links
far far from the first ties
far far from the idea of bridges
further & further through space in time
further & further, heading towards here. & now they’re all crying in buses without any apparent reason,
hurrying to dive deep in beds waiting for a Christ, alone at billions of windows contemplating outer skies in minds
where the noisy shyness of a sole land is finally heard— Let’s take off— The lost Pangaea is only known of ignorant stars.
-Light. A Day
so blue
it loses any interest. Knowledge disappears:
nature, elements grow by chance
here, there,
so perfect it’s unreal. Fields of green to cross
(bent blades) towards
new colors but
find none. I thought of Agamben ( “L’enjambement n’est pas pensable
dans le dernier vers d’un poème”
), & wrote : Sometimes flesh feels
like a turned-off flash-
A Scream( )Underwater
Glimpse
of a drab
slender figure crossing a silver plate
exhibited behind
a dusty antiquarian window— near empty gloves lost on the shelf; (No one knew
how nothing was felt when a “missing” poster
was removed from the bakery’s counter
once the body was found) Two centuries melted & a dog barked at the wind spreading
across the deserted avenue. (I tried to remember
the first time an eyelash fell into the green of my eyes
but could not, but could not) A quick
turn around & the figure swiftly hid to laugh
at the lack of tools
available
to sculpt my will.
A Leak in the Dam Surrounding the International Waters of Imagination
Someone becomes wind. Though still the sea crawls to die at my foot. & now: a thought, which buzzes erratically— ) lonesome fly in the saddest house of the neighborhood where I sit in vain.I understood you existed; something moved within the blackness of the turned-off T.V.; it must be you, someone I know— but it’s only me believing too loud before the screen goes bright again with sun & you disappear in an éclat de verre & le sol s’ouvre sous mes pieds.