Poems by Vincent Tholomé

Facts and Observations #3

1.

One day, our wishes will be fulfilled. We’ll keep our eyelids from falling shut. We’ll stop showering ourselves with praise. We’ll make our brush strokes precise. We’ll carefully avoid the stages of the laying hen. These dog lives rotting away inside of us.

Everything from the last snow melts in the sun. Everything from the last snow smells like the bottom of a drawer.

That’s a fact. An observation.


2.

My love, this is horrible: a dog’s life is rotting away inside of me. I repeat: a dog’s life is rotting away inside of me. That’s a fact. An observation. I hose my dog down with praise six times. I brush him with precise strokes six times. I hope this way he won’t bark up my tree. Folded into three. Like a cardboard box. Like an old cardboard box. An old cardboard crate. From the last snow. Melting in the sun. Smelling like the bottom of a drawer. That’s a fact. An observation.


3.

Yesterday, I saw a man. Folded into three. He fit in my left hand. He carried broken. Red. Teapots. In his arms. He’s from the last snow. He was melting in the sun. He smelled like the bottom of a drawer.


4.

A cow’s heart only beats once a century.


​

Facts and Observations #8


Morning’s a skelter.
I say: Little Brother, it’s morning it’s a skelter.
I wake you up.
I raise my machete over your head.
I raise my machete over your feet.
I say: Little Brother:
It’s a dog-eat-dog time.
It’s a time for leaving.
We leave at this dog-eat-dog time in the time for leaving.
Once the skelters the dog-eat-dog times the mornings the times for leaving are over how will we leave again how will we leave again?
I say, worried and glaring.
I glare daggers when I say skelter and morning.
In the morning when I say skelter and morning when I say worried and glaring no one recognizes worry or glaring daggers in this face this sweet face suddenly glaring hardly resembles itself.
Then: Yes. You first Little Brother says worried and glaring.
Then: Yes. You first the slugs say worried and glaring.
Then: You first and you first say the worried and glaring things say the ironing boards the soup spoons the cheese forks.
To all of the worried and glaring things I say it’s morning and skelter and time to leave.
Suddenly all of the worried and glaring things all of the very familiar things I say to myself they’re suddenly worried and glaring suddenly hardly resemble themselves.
Suddenly hardly wishing for the skelter the leaving in the dog-eat-dog time in the time for leaving.
All of these familiar things suddenly strangers.

Long list of strange things that are strangers when I say skelter and early morning when I leave at the dog-eat-dog time when it’s time to leave: the bathmats the shaving creams the bowls of rice the sleeper cars the night trains the vultures the volcanos of a country the thimbles.

Long list of things to do in the skelter and the early morning: climb the ditch strip the tree bare crouch wear yourself down get a cold.

Translation by Alex Alex Niemi

   


​

Author, performing artist and literary critic, Vincent Tholomé was born in Namur, in the golden sixties. He is not, however, a golden boy. He works in Belgium and in France and elsewhere.  
As an author, Tholomé has produced a dozen books mixing different genres, at the border between novels and poetry, oral and written language, the real and the imaginary. As a performer, he is a member of several groups utilizing the practices and mediums of reading, writing, music and video in their work.
As a solo, duo, trio, etc., he has been seen in international events (USA, Québec, Canada, Germany, France, Hungary, Russia, etc.). As a literary critic, he frequently works for the Carnet et les Instants, a belgian webmagazine.
His most recent works are KAAPSHLJMURSLIS, a CD/book with the guitarist Xavier Dubois, and MON VOISIN NOUG, a book for the children and the young adults. His current projects include BRÈVE RENCONTRE, a book and a performance with the vocal artist Maja Jantar ; a book written with the french poet Laura Vazquez ; and three ou four other books about love, yes !

​

---

---