2 Poems by Alexandre Ferrere

A Violet Night

Marina;
Polluted with dreams of bad dreams
& cans,
in need of absolute Horizons.

Half
moon hidden by planes’ thick
trails.
It was here, the sea,
from the beginning;
All these years,
rushing to the shore,
making it new,
until, finally, I,
finally noticed it.

How can I leave you now
Now that I see?

& the sound of fishermen
uncoils in the nuit violette
of songes urbains.

What are the fish thinking of
when kidnapped, out of the sea?

They see the ending credits
of a movie they’ve never seen.

A Dot on the American Fresco
To A. H. & B. S. A.

1st Movement: Traîtrise on Harmony

A cry,
emerging
from silent sculptures :
the birth
of Adam closed-eye mankind
the birth of chaos
in the warm tumult
of lonely tourists
spread on the parvis
stuck btw night&day;
Washington Cathedral—
nails
nails growing backward like deserted flowers among the
Camellias.
Thick dance of fireflies
lightning (storm)
by a soft voice before midnight,
a breeze
melting into the nightly trees
breathing for no one—Blake
his figures
carved on the front
above the gates
of New Testament—closed.
Words are objects / thoughts: thrown
far,
far away through stained glasses, thin colors, sins
colored,
in a whisper, a sigh
like a feather reaching what was hidden
within crystal hours.

&,
one trace after another,
deep into the concrete,
I sign with footsteps
the signature of angels:
“beliefs are forgiven, for now—rest some more”.

2nd movement: Private Opera (from Van Ness Main Street)

The red bricks on the pavement
in Georgetown,
a screech. That was before,
before hearing
“Portrait in Jazz”

from an old-fashioned player
which sleeps on a red carpet
in a woody
Washingtonian apartment
full of artists hanging on the walls;

It takes only two
to dream: endless. Is crossing out
“to live” enough?

A huge fan overlooks the heat wave
overhead.
It spins spins
spins spins
slowly in the ice-cream flavored air—
a siren (police) tears the night
in the howling distance / but the candles,
they keep their flames still (exquisite)—
I feel the night falling
like dark snow
through the mosquito net;
Outside[ a birthday is summoned
with a fire circle
soon killed by a snake hose.
it’s time to go;
to pass near the empty liquor stores
& their lonesome neon
burning the faces of drivers
lost among loveless traffic lights—
empty roads, useless signs, bags on the backseats
a ride & a deer
on the dark dotted path
in the blinking darkness;
it rains,
just enough
so my retina can screen
yesterday’s sun,
until the white of my eyes
is blank again.

3rd Movement: Violets by the Airport’s Windowpanes

Coffees swing fast
in brown & green©; scarce smiles.
Smoking way too much
in narrow room
painted yellow with nicotine
& dirty sighs—
a middle-aged man,
orange jacket,
is not ready to fly tonight:
he sleeps
a sleepless sleep—a fly
enters the over
sized mouth & he talks
unknown vowels
with-out knowing
his knowledge—
& everyone’s alone tonight,
wandering in different time zones;
spacious species.
Amongst the Flags, amongst exotic lounges
(B42, B43, B44)
stand even more “amongsts”.
Except for excerpts of declarations,
4th of July rumbles in high-perched speakers / like a pink tank
& planes head everywhere but here,
but now
the city is far—
humid, I guess,
heavy, I’m sure;
What’s that, a collage?
) a hand with false blood
tears down
ideas—for prestige
of the intellect (that’s all.
Imagine all the package
full of stamped joy
in exchange of a recipe
for what was real
for what was once
fresh
now heads.

[General boarding group 5
scheduled
on time]

Junctures every
where forced
to fill the pits
btw fragments
of accuracy
hovering in time—I.
What’s left unwritten
never happened—Void.
& there stands
a final physical point: ·
In it, sleeps the beast of eternity
which often shoves its bare teeth
of truth in dream-flesh: ·

4th Movement: Afterword in Two Languages

W as it necessorry?
let
me see, je vous en supplease,
un arceau
de cheveux noirs posés
sur la toile étirée
d’un ciel bleu—on which a plane
traces a curved eyelash with white smoke
& I raise a startled eyebrow
at the beautiful mechanics
hidden btw This
& That.

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Alexandre Ferrere is 29 and lives in France. After a Master's degree in Library Sciences and a Master's degree in English Literature, he is now working on a PhD. on American poetry and little magazines. His essays and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Beatdom, Empty Mirror, Rust+Moth, and elsewhere. His first chapbook entitled mono / stitches will be published by Ethel in 2020.