Michel Galiana Poems

Dry garden. Stone and thought. And sky and quietness.
Beyond the wall a tree that twists its gnarly trunk.
In me there's no beyond. And all thinks and all weighs.
A point where certainty may reconcile with luck,
...

A coat of screams and yells lines a rug of ember,
Circle surrounding him and mane that at him tears.
When he perceives the pole wrung by his panic fears,
He climbs up to the top and hopes to recover.
...

Your body, mainland that swells and roars over there,
And sends out its doubts, its dreads and its wrinkles,
Filling its mazes of barren chinks and crackles
With tribes whose rumours cause your pallet to shiver.
...

Your love never would have assuaged this hatred
Which cast on me a spell that I could never tame.
Its cry in me soars like, from the torture chamber,
The song that convicts sing to alleviate their pain.
...

No grass. The ground is bare -either stone or gravel-
Strewn with empty bottles, litter, old newspapers.
Trees, deprived of foliage, with no shade but their trunks'.
Hard wooden benches and a few long stone ledges.
...

On the brink of slumber there are sparkling landscapes,
With steep slopes of silence over still, peaceful ponds.
In breathtaking heights fly over those quiet waves
Flocks of waterfowl that glide along in thick bands.
...

I Passed
A carapace harbouring sheer silence,
It smelled of mud and silt, motionless on the path,
A shell where nights gather, if not a cenotaph,
...

Whether the night haunts him or as a mask hides him,
No matter, he knows where prey and fear lie in wait.
Poacher whose skill daylight disregards as base cheat,
But whose widened pupils know not of our chasm.
...

My gift was once a coin to buy wheat and power,
Philtre that caravans carried to trade afar,
Gold hand to enforce the Prince's rule and order,
An invisible, yet ever haunting splendour.
...

I was caught in a whirl, with loud shouts and drum rolls,
Flags streaming in the wind, delirious prophecies,
Squirting blood... Suddenly, from their feasts I was torn
And fell into rest which ignores time and worries.
...