Société des écrivains des Nations Unies à Genève United Nations Society of Writers, Geneva Sociedad de escritores de las Naciones Unidas

Opaline

Avant que tes pas s’arrêtent sur mon chemin, mon navire errait dans un océan infini. Une mer privée de lumière où régnait la nuit dans toute la splendeur de son arrogance.

Tu es venue imposer ta présence fugitive, l’éclat de ton sourire enfantin, ce culte du départ qui t’habite, qui te hante, qui signifie blessure qui ne se dilue jamais avec le temps. /…

Mon navire trouvait refuge dans ton regard, ce don imprévisible qui rendait à l’océan sa couleur et à la brise sa fraîcheur.

Même le matin n’osait dévoiler sa lumière avant d’emprunter ton silence et flirter avec la rosée qui scellait tes paupières et couvrait tes joues d’un voile de mystère étonné. Inédit-Extrait du "Temps perpétuel"

Noffert

Naît le soleil,

De ton souffle,

Coule mon être,

Dictait mon ancêtre,

Enivré par son empreinte

Sur des barbares …devenus,

Par revirement de fortune,

Et déboires de l’Histoire,

Bâtisseurs d’absurde,

Et seigneurs d’apocalypse.

Impassible à l’appel

Du néant,

Et cultures de l’éphémère,

Je greffe ton nom,

Je greffe ton nom,

Frêle bouquet d’espoir,

Aux cotés de celle

Dont le regard signifiait le soleil,

Et le rire l’éternité.

Je m'étais toujours pris

pour un petit.

Et puis la vie

m'a mis

vis-à-vis,

des gens

que je prenais

pour des grands:

des stars

dans les arts

ou le brio bavard

d'éminents savants –

des références

fort capables

dans leurs respectives

et parfois respectables

sciences;

les visages les plus chics

de la vie politique,

militaire, économique

pouvoir

des têtes à éclats,

des chefs d'état –

tu vois,

des gens comme ça,

quoi...
Et petit à petit

le petit a compris

que les grands d'ici-bas

n'étaient pas

si grands que ça,

que sa petitesse à lui

n'était qu'un repli,

une vue de l'esprit.
Le perroquet

qui va se limiter

à imiter
son entourage,

en dépit de sa taille

reste petit.
Mais le perroquet

qui s'approprie

sa voix à lui,

ses silences

ses cris,

ce perroquet-là

n'est pas

petit.

sa stature

grandeur

nature.
David Walters, formerly UNOG

my compost heap

displacing half-rotted lettuce stems

and russeting leaves from my apple tree.

Our gazes meet

– at least I think they do.

Can he see me? Can I see him (or her)?

"What are you doing here?" my eyes enquire.

"And what about you?" the tiny eyes blink back.

David Walters, formerly UNOG

AND WHO SHALL WATCH OVER THE SHEPHERDS ?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Juvenal

keeping watch

over their flocks by night..."
And today the neighbourhood paper,

two thousand years later,

inserted six inconspicuous lines

on what had befallen a family of six,

a family of shepherds

in wintery Algeria.

no multitude of the heavenly host...

They were brutally de-bedded,

then more brutally beheaded

by a band of assassins

acting in the service

of a certain brand of Islam.
So what can we hope from the readership?

A grimace to grace a sickened shrug

before flipping the page for the eyes to graze

on sports results

and obituaries nearer home?
Or the leadership,

the dealership?

those six anonymous blobs of blood,

lost on the red-splattered blackdrop of the planet?

Those humble folk with nothing to their name

but their coverings and their blood,

in slumber nigh their sheep by night

in the bleakness of the 'bled'?

And what hope from those still seeking to grope

at the floating wreckage of fellowship?

Still seeking to master

the uniquely human art

of keeping some connexion

'twixt head, hand and heart?
What are such as these to make

of tidings of this type -

when shepherds' throats are sliced by night,

with no star guiding,

no angel coming down?

We fellows of our fellows

and of brethren labelled lesser,

who see in sheep a creation beyond

purveyors of mutton and wool?

Who see in shepherds milllenia

of watchful humility,

hand-hewn flutes...?

to harbour a soft spot for shepherds!

Your ideals don't have to be lofty

to prefer human heads on their shoulders!

And not only Christians

detest crucifixions,

nor anarchists the cant

of official fictions!

in this whirl of a world,

a world of dread

that has lost its head

in the screech of credos,

in the murk o'er the lands,

in the service

of all brands

of Mammon?!

David Walters, formerly UNOG

UNDER THE GROUND
A tremor passes through the crowd

as the door closes

locking us in

under the earth.

The mouth of the cave: a former foxhole.

The belly of the cave: a wonderland.

the youngest spelunker asks.

says his brother.

A drip from the ceiling rolls down a nose.

- Don't stand still...You'll turn into rock!

Young calcite is light; old is yellow.

Young equals tens of thousands of years.

All is relative.

Pigs' ears...

A ship's prow...

A candelabra gallery...

A strange lamplit cast of subterranean actors

in perpetual Odyssey...

Rectilinear tites join curvilinear mites

to form monolithic columns.

New formations grow in cavelets.

There the cave bear clawed the wall.

There Cro Magnon built a fire, performed devotions.

Bisons, mammoths...

The pregnant belly of a horse, swollen over nodules:

a profound celebration of Mother Earth...

From out of the flint walls, a summons:

beneath the fertile crust

to the distant rumbling mountains -

to the children who've been hurled

that won’t soothe, as Ziggie shuffles newspapers, laments

a death, saying here we go again, right up

an impasse, the world that is, says Ziggie.

Just look at those fat cats – so hungry

they’d eat your guts for lunch. And the politicos

who follow you around with scotch and soda eyes. And

the poor old subway slobs who can’t stop working can’t stop

working can’t stop, then suddenly they stop because they’re dead,

goes Ziggie. And the warming,

global, that is, says Ziggie, the warming. And this you call

a world?

It takes two not to talk and I’m no good at monologues.

If I talk, you feel me encroaching,

If you talk, I breathe again.

I could be won over into lightness,

easy as a mood swing, grey to silver.

But your eyes are ciphers, your humors coded,

and I’m your loving illiterate.
You ride the subway,

go to work,

pay your own rent,

spend your own nights,

drink morning coffee with the Manhattan skyline,

still my little boy.

hang

h

r

a

d

bl-

as

and weave away

hours…………
Memory

the w

r

p

the

f o r e v e r

what might be

my wiser self.

Alexa Intrator, UNSW/SENU

SUNDAY IN LITTLE ITALY, NEW YORK

Sunday morning

embracing the Sunday Times

a cruel spring spell downtown.

bird-like clockwork swift small steps

skinny Minnie Mouse calves

swaying to church.

if I grow old here

on Sundays?
Tiny mechanical toys of the Lord

spooky pirates of detergent seas

crochet lessons from the Fates

small souls of cold chamomile tea.

pasta wisdom and madonna thorns

your children strong and grown

are having more children

for the wealth of God.
Not a queen bee in a spaghetti kingdom,

what will I do

if I grow old here

on Sundays

if the printed noise of the world

did not interest me anymore

Blue-beard hadn’t turned into the handsome prince

my snow-white skin wrinkled

my riding-hood, wrinkled

your fairy tale, Lord

wrinkled.
What will I do?

(my wolf-skin shrinking

uncovering my sheepish wrinkling heart)
Your generation of little widows I envy

dressed-in-black worn-out Italian hearts

who could buzz into His ear

and suck pollen from His mouth.

-its water has been boiling for years

but the chamomile is still cold—

my Lord

I am your arrow

grow for me a target

a church-like new something

to go to

old

Never mind, friends

as long as we are poets

we’re just fine.

a world

solid

carved, edged, engraved

these flames

consolidating

consoling

from life’s
wreck-less-ness. Peter Auer, ILO
Beerfly

The fly in my beer

I fear,

Is dead

is surely dying

instead of flying.
So for this fly

How scary-

My pint became

A cemetery.

Hingegeben

An die Nacht.

Roses at dusk
Crimson

Surrendered

To the night.
Roses au crépuscule
Ecarlate

cédante