Poems by Claude Ber
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What remains
What sometimes remains I call a poem as each time a poem is only what remains once after before or nothing remains what memory remains in the body and what words remain to say once the racing words which listen to themselves are silenced – by default maybe but it is the word that remains – like from here where I write without knowing what will remain or even if it will remain like for instance once deserted and unpeopled – at last – the name what remains is only what remains after subtraction – when to write is to subtract and in that withdrawal grasp – it may sometimes be what remains of poetry As to what remains of a poem or whether anything remains at all, I sometimes feel concerned, as though my death were spoken although I know both speech and my death are indifferent. I feel concerned in spasms of body and consciousness, but otherwise never. Otherwise anger sweeps me as though I were under threat from the asphyxia generated by systems with their orthodoxies and anathemas. Unfair as this may be, who cares. I have preferred mystics to the devout and silence to dogma. Thus I speak few words and cross them out immediately until nothing is left or next to nothing. The laceration of much that I would say and the pain are what remains of my past with philosophy. Some fragments of Wittgenstein’s notebooks and Spinoza’s definition of good as an increase in being and evil as a decrease in being, is what remains with a poem with a poem especially like a highly difficult highly cautious attempt at reconciliation as I so fear what is said of and what is said about like an attempt at speech which ceases to and the cessation what remains once the tyranny of speech is over is what I call a poem Anyhow, what remains I can hear, those who remain listen to your death in words which removes speech from speech and what remains when you are among those who remain and yourself what remains is such nothingness of speech lack of language in the absence that language already is hole within a hole that the words which speak the emptiness and lack fill it like shovelfuls of earth fill a grave and the remaining words fill my mouth like earth fills yours What remains of you for instance your feet so stiff we couldn’t slip on your shoes I remember those ill-fitting shoes and it worries me that I couldn’t straighten your ill-fitting shoes like you needed to walk like you were walking yet your arms and hands were warm and soft two days later even and I arranged them like you wanted such is my memory of which nothing will remain What remains may be too much too silent and too prolix for a mouth what remains is not silent it’s mute and the sky travels the sky motionlessly What remains of the dead is also the cleaning-up of the dead after father’s lonely death I cleaned up clothes linen crockery papers things sort toss out take tidy away the cleaning-up of death I then did for more distant relatives: the same with the linen, clothes, furniture and even for a very old dead lady who had died unexpectedly of a heart attack in mid-July and was removed by the fire brigade two days later, cleaning up the first maggots: fat white maggots scurrying on the tiles where the body had been the same linen, crockery, furniture, papers now the cleaning-up of you so unthinkable and the same for what remained of you and of all your, our... linen clothes papers books a whole year it took the cleaning-up of your death emptying bag after bag myself emptied also bag after bag and now that we should sell the house where the remains of the dead were left and I’m emptying everything it’s like having to do the cleaning-up after my own death Poems also remain of you and I believe triumphant: once the cleaning-up of the dead is over, poems are what remain for those who remain and I sort fragments and debris of poems in old wrinkled folders, yours, mine I reread crossed-out phrases, still legible – this is to erase, truly erase all traces and so that nothing remains you and I both overwrite them with a thick black line and it’s also so that nothing remains that I write directly on the computer as much as possible, no more crossings-out, no traces, nothing, death smooth, the illusion of eternity intact ultimately, nothing – But what remains, these unfulfilled scraps of text and even those that are fulfilled, these remains I gather it’s like collecting mortal remains and what might have been emotional, the traces of what we are, or celebratory, the traces of the remains on birthday tables or in the sheets of intimate celebration, all of this sinks with the rest and what remains is death In what remains, I hear those who remain and I remain with the inventory of what remains of you of us, memory a prolific game-bag though filled with dead birds so much remains remains remains that I wish I could say all that remains out of my mouth armfuls of ribbons doves hares embers scarves in unimaginable quantities unbelievable what remains of a life the hugeness in memory I wish I could say all the hugeness subtracted I must say all this actually no words are made obscene by death what remains belongs to me who half belong to death and what remains of my life at this point is your death I hear those who remain to whom I belong nevertheless you are the one who remains on this date when you end your life and remain for good whereas I go on advancing towards death and that the unknown distance between your death and mine remains to be crossed and your death has me living backwards joining you while you remain where I started from and I walk backwards towards death and what is left to me of life is caught between two deaths I hear those who remain and I hear nothing more What remains of you I cannot imagine cannot imagine your face, your eyes, your mouth without their flesh or your rotting flesh or your eyes – your eyes with their extreme and inexhaustible gaze – their pupils burst by fermentation gases I know, can see even but I cannot hear I cannot hear the words they sound blank I cannot understand them they are written words yet impossible speech I hear those who remain in what remains and in this ploughing of lines which turn over my words I hear suddenly lines like maggots or I read remains and the word goes missing until only sound remains and I hear renames or ream hay nuts or how far language unravels until I no longer understand what I’m saying the way it’s hard for me to say “you are no longer” youaredeadoralivebutyouremainsomethingnolongertobeisnottobetobedeadistobedeadandnolongeraliverightbutiftobedeadistobenothingmorethennolongertobehasnomeaningespeciallynottowantand for hours on end and the murmur under the words which crumbles them is also your death But for you since lonelier in death than I here with not even as I tears and mourning with nothing whatsoever or then where and in what company you? that rainy spring day on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne with the pigeons the purple clover blossoms do you remember the dieresis on the Bienvenüe in Montparnasse which for us isolated the whole word welcoming us and my four-leaved clovers you called rabbit feed the clovers in their tape envelopes I give them to you just in case remained currency of our soul like the small change of a happiness slips through my fingers a happiness which died for you for which nothing remains in death and not even the knowing and feeling of death or else but the else is too immoderate for the fabric of a soul worn by hurt for you since devoid of eyes which offer what my eyes see in the drizzle which is washing the horizon the house above the harbour such as the one we would have lived in like a lover’s word or gesture like the way we would have gazed together at the periwinkle sky of the south on the grey sea and would have found them beautiful in their present state without expecting more and the cool air which causes shoulder slightly to shiver in the scent of eucalyptus and iodine there is no proof but skin requires none neither do the clouds in the yellow dawn of the separate sea remains only a line at the sky’s curved end from you to me a line about to sink Extract of Death is never like Translated by Anne Talvaz |
Claude Ber is a French poet, essayist and playwright with a dozen books to her name, the latest of which, Epître Langue Louve, was published in 2015, Il y a des choses que non in 2017. She has also contributed to various art books and anthologies. Her collection La mort n’est jamais comme won the ‘Prix international de poésie francophone Yvan-Goll’ in 2004. She has taught at French universities including Science Po in Paris, and is an active participant in a number of international conferences and festivals. Her books have been translated into several languages.
Her poetry books are : Il y a des choses que non, Editions Bruno Doucey, Paris, 2017 ; Paysages de cerveau, text Claude Ber, photography Adrienne Arth, Editions Fidel Anthelme, Marseille, 2015 ; Epitre Langue Louve, Editions de l’Amandier, Paris, 2015 ; La Mort n’est jamais comme, International prize of poetry Yvan Goll 2004, Editions de l’Amandier, Paris, 2011 ; Méditations de lieux, photography Adrienne Arth, text C. Ber, J. Gardes, A. Arth, Editions de l’Amandier, Paris, 2010 ; Vues de vaches, text Claude Ber, photography de Cyrille Derouineau, Éditions de l’Amourier, Paris, 2009 ; Le nombre le nom, poésie, illustrations Claire Laporte, Editions Ficelles, Paris, 2009 ; Sinon la Transparence, 1996, Editions de l’Amandier, Paris, 2008 ; Alphabêtes, (children’s literature), Editions Lo Pais d'Enfance, Marseille, 1999 ; Lieu des Epars, Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1979. |
