Let Jackdaw Fly
By Nimue44
It’s curious how the world distorts through glass.
Be it mirror, window, cup…
Or maybe it just clears everything out.
Truth it’s never comfortable, I have no doubt.
Everywhere, crystal malice.
«Curioser and curioser» said Carroll’s Alice.
I said the same, seated in the back of the car.
«What propels us to observe, madam? » the madman asks.
[That’s what I would ask, after completing my revenge and taken off my
mask].
Nothing, in this particular case.
Although, I’m always looking through the window.
As if I expected to find myself staring back.
“What, what did she found?” you’d try to unmask.
I have traveled along this boulevard hundreds of times.
I was reading Bellman & Black.
Everyone was dying. I was mad.
Well, what could I expect from the story of the raven chased man?
[Ah, no. Jackdaws. She left that real clear. Jackdaws, not ravens.]
Tragedies can sometimes become havens.
I looked through the window, half deaf.
I saw a store with a charming name:
The Magic of the Chef.
I slightly bent my head to the other side,
To come face-to-face to a pizzeria with offers already faded,
And everything sold out but one last cheese pizza.
The world had suddenly became jaded.
I had been here hundreds of times,
but I’ve never seen these stores!
I wondered if someone can wake from amnesia.
The mumbling of the radio ended,
The static breathed in my fingers like a predator.
I had become a perplexed spectator.
Everything seemed to be painted in aquarelle,
submerged in the warm vinegar of summer.
I almost tasted the amarelle.
My daydreaming had been plundered.
I had this crazy impulse of detaching the car window as if it was a frame.
Stanzas were coming:
the muses were driving the jets and bombing.
Sarcastically: as if they were to blame.
I panicked.
But it was one of those rushes
-delicious, nitrogen like, frantic.
Before the rain and I had no outlook,
Before the Burning and I had no cinnamon nest,
Before the bombs and I had no notebook.
Inspiration has a cunning way to pencil-zest…
Holy willows, my muse is a voluble one.
If I didn’t write down this one fast,
That mischievous, wicked, cursed creature
Would go and buy the last pizza and my moment outlast.
Within, I thought, “the world is full of stories”.
But, curioser and curioser, my voice whispered without pemission:
“The world is ready for stories”.
Let that be a signal, muse-magician.
I thought again in Bellman & Black,
This piece the first ignition.
In mere disgust,
After reading the first part,
I wrote: “Then everyone died.”
The End.
I thought it was cruel.
A posteriori, I realized I had just written the last lines of the last
act of the world.
I stared at my pencil like a fool.
I stared at my hands, my veins and my moraine wrists,
And I came this close [ ] to drool.
Maybe the hand had been the one of a god.
How logical, how cruel.
I’ve discussed it in my drawer-locked books,
But what happens at the end?
A silken, brief and beautiful black dot?
Only Odin’s ravens know.
Huginn and Muninn.
Thought and Memory.
What makes the gods divine?
There’s your answer.
Forget the bloody shrines.
That is their only beauty.
Because the “he would have liked”
Has spread like powder, like cancer.
Truly, that’s despair’s duty.
When the sun has consumed itself,
What will be left?
[Ashes? Of fire, the chances?]
Of the blood, the sweat,
The songs, the canvasses,
The exoduses, sepulchers,
Seasons, stanzas,
Moonlit kites, sacrilege blitz,
The burnt nenuphars,
The burnt letters, the odes to wits?
Behold the only beauty of the gods.
They would remember.
They will remember.
Forgive this unusual caw,
Birds’ songs are frequently wry.
But please, let the Jackdaw fly.
Author's Note:
This was a really hard translation, but I wanted you to read it and tell me what you think. I had special trouble with the plurals. I would be frustrated if it weren't so fun to write.Comments on "Let Jackdaw Fly"
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A former member wrote:
Immortality must be a tiring thing, stories become rewritten and history writes itself only to be ignored once more. One cannot teach those whom are unaware of the lessons purpose. There is a smug satisfaction to making someone love your characters only to bury them six feet under. Marvelous write, I enjoyed every word.
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On Wednesday, December 31, 2014, TropicalSnowstorm
(1580) wrote:
Very trippy piece! I liked the notion of how glass distorts what you are looking at, and the device of the car ride and looking through the windows. Nice! Ciao, T/S
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On Friday, January 2, 2015, Nimue44
(289) wrote:
Thank you!