Bain de Sang

Ivan de Monbrison's poetry, paintings, and sculptures have been displayed widely, in Paris, USA, England, Belgium, Barcelona, and other cities around the world. He has described his ghostly images as "incarnated in the canvas but not fully present." "For me," he writes, "art is the only answer in our modern world to the question of death and the fragility of human nature." Ivan's cover art for Oyster Boy Review 21 2014, "Janus with His Shadow," could as well frame the words of his poem in Bacopa Literary Review 2016 (in French first, then English):

Bain de Sang / Bloodshed

-- In memory of the victims in Paris of November 13, 2015 -- 

  

                            Bain de sang

                                        1

la fatigue

on s'assied

les étoiles dans l'eau

le silence renversé

 on trinque

un verre à la main

mais on ne sait plus à quoi

autour d'une terrasse

           jonchée de cadavres

le sol peint en rouge

entonnoir de demain

un corps coupé en deux

la tête dans les nuages

          et les pieds sur la terre

et ce silence étrange qui a cousu nos lèvres

                 à la paume de nos mains

                                     2

panoplies de nos corps

la nuit taillée

on dresse d'un coup le regard

nuage

cadavre éventré

 où fleurissent des mains

aux balcons des étoiles se posent les oiseaux

rien à dire

un pas de trop

         pour aller nulle part

au bout de cette course nous tombons en

                                                       poussière

citadelles sans créneaux       

           Bloodshed

 

                       1

fatigue

we sit down

stars in the water

silence toppled down

  we toast

a glass in the hand

but we don't know to what

around the terrace

    covered with bodies

the ground painted in red

funnel of tomorrow

a body cut in half

the head in the clouds

           and the feet on the earth

and this odd silence which has sewed our lips

                    to the palms of our hands

                             2

outfit of our bodies

the night cut out

we raise our eyes suddenly

a cloud

a gutted corpse

  where hands are blooming

 birds landing on the balconies of the stars

nothing to say

one step too much

           to get to nowhere

at the end of this race we fall into

                                                        the dust

castles without crenels

November 16 2015 4.39 pm

Marseille

French poet, writer, and artist Ivan de Monbrison lives in Paris and Marseille. His poems and short stories have appeared in literary magazines in France, Italy, Belgium, the UK, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, and the US. His five poetry chapbooks are L'ombre dechiree, Journal, La corde a nu, Ossuaire, and Sur-Faces. He has illustrated his own poem novel, Les Maldormants, published in 2014 by Ressouvenances Publishers, France. Of "Bloodshed" he says, "These poems were written after the killing of more than a hundred innocent people in the streets of Paris, on November 13, 2015, and so in memory of their martyrdom." Follow Ivan de Monbrison on Facebook here and on Twitter here.
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Janus was the Roman two-faced god of beginnings and transitions and thus of gates, doors, doorways, endings, representing the middle ground between barbarity and civilization.