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alain borer<br />
Sleep Log<br />
Derelict thoughts<br />
(scattered over <strong>the</strong> South Pacific)<br />
of one dying in <strong>the</strong> ship’s hold<br />
somewhere between 15– 30 degrees latitude<br />
and 135 – 150 degrees sou<strong>the</strong>rn longitude<br />
at <strong>the</strong> crux of time stretched to its limit.<br />
•<br />
The ocean never finishes in <strong>the</strong> wake of boats.<br />
An unceasing torment infinitely prolonged<br />
that I would not wish on my worst enemy.<br />
Especially since my worst enemy is myself.<br />
I cross <strong>the</strong> South Pacific like a deserted countryside<br />
on a winter’s night: not even a beast in sight.<br />
Reduced to its own insularity, I becomes island.<br />
When seasick <strong>the</strong>re’s no place for Narcissus: one<br />
cannot drink one’s own likeness.<br />
•
In this singular life we can only scout new places.<br />
O<strong>the</strong>r than obligation, what keeps us on this earth<br />
Every day approaches death — some more than o<strong>the</strong>rs.<br />
•<br />
In <strong>the</strong> year 14,000 <strong>the</strong> Sou<strong>the</strong>rn Cross will shine over Paris ...<br />
We will no longer exist, nei<strong>the</strong>r perhaps will Paris ...<br />
But I will be here in a certain manner, if only to know it.<br />
There is no black box or recorder for ships. They disappear completely.<br />
A ship’s black box is called <strong>the</strong> coffin. But <strong>the</strong> only coffins that one<br />
sees on <strong>the</strong> ocean are <strong>the</strong> ships <strong>the</strong>mselves.<br />
There is also a black box within you. It’s <strong>the</strong> frailness of humans;<br />
<strong>the</strong>y wear that fragility on <strong>the</strong> outside — Eros, a child, a book.<br />
For boats, <strong>the</strong>re are packages heavier and not hurried:<br />
I travel like that, a package in order, but a piece of mail.<br />
•<br />
The universe is curved like a banana.
I am an a<strong>the</strong>ist because God does not believe enough in me.<br />
He was so afraid of death that arriving in old age he<br />
felt stupid.<br />
— To search for God without expectation.<br />
•<br />
Life opens, gives and invites you — or it goes to hell.<br />
One must live to write. Our time here is for utterance.<br />
— Sad animal post-cogitum.<br />
•<br />
Linger only with healthy ideas. Salty ones.<br />
Stupor is second nature.<br />
There are those born too soon and those born<br />
too late who preserve with haunting smiles <strong>the</strong> mistakes,<br />
<strong>the</strong> traces. And <strong>the</strong> one born at <strong>the</strong> right moment is<br />
forever vivid, intensely illuminating each instant.
To write is to leave <strong>the</strong> world’s surface, to descend<br />
under <strong>the</strong> sea; <strong>the</strong> smallest pencil is my tuba.<br />
One doesn’t report great things from grand<br />
events, <strong>the</strong> one suffering from depression thinks.<br />
After his world tour, Bougainville extravagantly<br />
gave his name to a flower; <strong>the</strong> botanist La Billardière<br />
gave his name to a type of grass — not bad; and you,<br />
to what — A pail for vomit<br />
Translated from <strong>the</strong> French by Mark Irwin and Alain Borer