Chronicle
(...)
(the islands are the ellipses of a continent,
drifting clods of meaning dislocated
in the storm of passions
bordered by sayings
and where the broken thread
of history never heals,
this exhausted chain,
botched stitches of memory,
of which the implicit fate
is still taboo
but if there's a floating presence
when the conversation is over,
it’s that in this space
between beings,
at once fertile and profane,
snakes a tongue
which was never silent
and when an asthma attack
still shakes the waters,
the mirage of a frontier
rises and falls on the foam,
the invisible erosion
threatens the impossible
then the hesitant word of a wave
becomes a scream
without anger, without noise,
totally unheard,
as if from a mouth
full of earth
carried along by a body
on the brink of exhaustion
whose skin still retains
the aroma of fire
of the country before
like memories drowned
in an opaque smoke,
dulling the radiance
of a cult deprived of traditions,
carry within them
the silent hope
of finally drawing
the new maps
of a place without a reverse side,
a unique place
with fertile defects,
where the promised meeting
between the elsewhere and the ineffable
permits the ardent dream
of a geography without shadows,
and celebrates
the resurrection
of an infinite phrase)
Thomas Bernard
Paris - 2019
Thomas Bernard was born in Libourne in 1980. Art columnist for Fluide Glacial, he is also exhibition curator for La Véranda and artistic co-director for Ferraille Productions of the Formula Bula festival, comics and more.
