After Voyelles, Arthur Rimbaud.‘A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu : voyelles,
Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes’
When our vowels become little donor birds
flying to all those throats silenced by a reign of terror.
Donor vowels, which, like Liu Xia and Raif Bawadi,
made their way, during long flights, towards gagging,
feed stubbornly on all sorts:
A’s with city breath from evening squares and with bed heat
from just after making love as if new heads rise in the pillowcases,
finally carelessly elementary.
O’s with purification plants in their bellies that sanitise war
into red wine tastings, where you are still blindfolded
for the sake of objectivity.
E’s, pale and frail, or perhaps sharp as a beak
refreshing themselves with the sighing of the sea, in their echo still the rustling of hedgehogs,
taken across the road one by one: saved by one single gesture,
just imagine.
U’s that are actually Ys at ice lolly temperature
that, for soft, ultimate summer, require a season of abstention
from the man with the scythe.
I’s gorging themselves on the clinking of trams from all cities, all lines.
Hear how the journey sounds from Belgrade, Shanghai, Lipetsk blend
with the tinkling of Brussels and Paris.
Hear, Lius, Raifs, how our vowels head,
straight through night cold, morning glory, murmur of thousands
of sequoias, Nasdaq bruhaha. Hear them circling, rising, free from donor birds.
