poetry

 

Born to freeze

 

Born to freeze

Born to get blacken toes

And red nose

Born to see the night

Even during the day

Born to catch a cold

Born for frozen fingers

And no alcohol

Born to bear a 105 degree fever

By a minus 40 degree day

Born to freeze Like a Popsickle

Born to put ice cream in your coffee

Born to be sick

And tired

Born for the snow and the wind

Like a slap in the face

What have I done wrong?

Born for the open space

And the full-time breeze

Born to freeze like a dog

Outside the supermarket

Making small noises

Born with frozen fingers

And a mouth so full of ice It cant spell any word

Born to grumble and mumble

Born for blasphemy

Born to keep your mouth shut If you dont want your teeth to fall in the snow

Born with a spell

But without spelling

Born to keep your mouth shut

Around the nozzle of a bottle

Born without a country

And only the wind to blame

Born to die and wait outside

For the ground to defreeze

So they can shovel a small room for your ashes

Inside the womb of earth

Three feet below

Where you can stay warm forever

 

Did I ever tell you why

I didnt want to grow old?

 

Did I ever tell you

Why I didnt want to grow old?

 

I dont want to see the skin of my hands

Shrinking

Because, you know, it is the hands that go first, arent they?

Ducks with toenails, thats what we are

A web-footed species

With wrinkles

My creased hands In front of my eyes

While everything else about me cannot be seen

While the rest of my body is trying to flee

While the three quarter empty glass Is slipping from my fingers the tea cup makes a rattles on the saucer even if there is a handle to hold it

Sometimes, before touching my lips

The glass disappears from my fingers

Where is it?

Where has it gone?

Transparent, invisible

While the liquid, the damned liquid is spreading

Among the shattered glass

On the floor, there is blood

There is blood on the kitchen floor

 

They are looking at you

Those who think they are still young

Those who call you elderly

A word that sounds like a sickness Leprosy, syphilis

You are infected by a deadly sickness

No penicillin

No vaccine, did you get your vaccine?

 

Did I tell you

Why I didnt want to grow old?

I dont remember doing so

 

I didnt have a childhood

Why should I be a child again?

I dont want anybody to take care of me

I dont want to have someone holding my arm in the stairways

My God, nobody wants to touch me anymore

And what I see

Through my used eyes

Will never be mine again

 

You havent seen anything, lady

Life is only beginning, my old man

Ok, then, let me tell you something, my child

Death is longer than life

This, one day you will learn

Some way or another

 

Try, try to stand up like a soldier

When you are holding a cane

Try to stand up with a straight back

It is the cane that is holding you

At the tip of its wooden finger

Tapping on the floor

Pointing down its wooden finger

It’s there, it’s there

Thats where you are going

Dont listen to her

She is only talking to herself

 

How can you cry when you dont have a voice anymore?

 

Did I ever tell you why I didnt want to get old?

 

Help! Help me, please!

They are hurting me

My skin is caught in the zipper

My arm is paralyzed

I cannot move it anymore

The water is too hot

The water is too cold

The water is too lukewarm

The water is too wet

I’m dying

 

I dont want to search for my keys anymore

Forget about counting the small change

I’m scared to death at the ATM cash dispenser

Because there is someone yellow

Or someone black waiting

How come he doesnt have his debit card ready

The one who is looking at me when I’m pushing mine too deeply

Into the mechanical wallet of impossible banks

Checks from the government

Retirement plan

And income tax refunds

That you must claim

Because they made some changes in the fiscal law

For the elderly

 

What a poetry, my God!

What an horrible poetry

When you are reading on the first of the month

Your allowance stub

The pension fund check receipt

Old age security

Social security

For the elderly

Security

Security

 

Did you see that guy?

Alert!

Did you see her?

And did you see her arm?

That strange tattoo

A strange character

Showing his prick

Yes, I know it is a penis

The Devils penis, a forked one

And do you know

What she said to me :

“You have beautiful eyes, still”

Why “still”

 

Have I told you why I didnt want to be old?

 

I claim the right to go to the bathroom alone

Or not to go

Think now, think of everything

But theres nothing to be thought of

Only the past comes in easily

“Come in, come on”

This is an old song

 

In my time it always begins that way

In the old days, there were animals in the city

My neighbors used to have chickens in their backyard

And rabbit cages

Not only cats and dogs

And a tweeting bird

 

In my time, in my days

We were going on a short trip

Six of us

Taking the tramway or taking the bus

Or twelve maybe, all packed against each other

We were going to the end of the island

On the other side of the city

And a lot of men were looking at us

Their hats pulled down to their noses

 

There used to be farms around here

Where now there is the metro station Montmorency

A metro tunnel

My God, there are tubes everywhere

To pump us in

To eat us alive

They have installed entrance doors that are impossible to move

Stairways so high that we wont be able to get back to the ground

And look at them looking at us

Looking at the strange character that just came in

Looking at the old guy

The old person

The worn-out fellow

We are used up

They are scared, there are afraid to be contaminated

 

It’s time that contaminates everything

Workers are repairing the ceramics at Laurier Station

There is something black sticking

Like tar

Like vomit

Behind the tiles

My God, how could it get there?

 

Did I tell you

That I dont want to be the last one

When the world will crumble

At the end of the world

When the skyscrapers

Will be falling like rocks from the sky

Used up, worn out

By the inside

Rotting from the interior

And we continue to install new elevators

Inside of slums

The roads are collapsing

The concrete sidewalks is returning to sand

The telephone poles are blackening

And you can put your finger in them

Inside the rotten wood

And the rust

It took me years to understand

This is the ultimate warning

Everything is falling down

Everything will be destroyed

But nobody hears my prophecies

 

Announcing the end of times

Will always be suspect

When your hair is white

 

“Yeah, sure, grandpa

it is the end of the world more precisely,

the end of your world”

Young people dont know how to read anymore

Graffiti on the wall doesn’t mean anything

Back to pictograms

It is a sign for the sake of a sign

A sign for the surprise of seeing a sign

While I am looking for a souvenir

In the drawer, a photograph of my daughter

A message on a strip of paper

Hell will always be a private matter

 

Did I tell you why I didnt want to be old?

Stopped suddenly At the corner of the street

Or

In front of the bathroom door

Not knowing why I

Am here

Why was I going there?

 

Why am I here?

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