Unreconciled

by Michel Houellebecq

  As they speak they all create a cacophony in which you can only make out a few masticated syllables, as if torn out by teeth. My God! How difficult it is to reconcile with the world! …

  I have counted. There are twelve of them. Like the Apostles. And is the waiter meant to represent Christ?

  And what if I bought a ‘Jesus’ t-shirt?

  I am difficult to find

  In this café (some evenings, a dance);

  They discuss local affairs,

  Money to lose, people to kill.

  I will take a coffee and the bill;

  We’re not really at Woodstock.

  The bar’s customers have left,

  They’ve finished their Martinis,

  Hee hee!

  NICE

  The Promenade des Anglais is invaded by Black Americans

  Who don’t even have the build of basketball players;

  They meet Japanese supporters of the ‘way of the sword’

  And some semi-Californian joggers

  All at around four in the afternoon,

  In the dying light.

  MODERN ART

  Impression of peace in the courtyard,

  Trafficked videos of the war in Lebanon

  And five Western males

  Discussed social science.

  THE GARDEN OF FERNS

  We had passed through the garden of ferns,

  Existence suddenly seemed light

  On the deserted road we walked at random

  And once we left the gates, the sun became scarce.

  Silent snakes slid through the thick grass,

  Your eyes revealed a gentle distress

  We were in the midst of a vegetal chaos,

  The flowers around us displayed their petals.

  Animals without patience, we wander in our Eden,

  Haunted by suffering and conscious of our cares,

  The idea of fusion persists in our bodies:

  We are, we exist, we still want to be,

  We have nothing to lose. The wretched life of plants

  Brings us back to death, sneaky, invasive.

  In the middle of a garden our bodies decompose,

  Our decomposed bodies will be covered with roses.

  THE GIRL

  The girl with black hair and very thin lips

  Whom we all know without having met

  Outside of our dreams. With a sharp finger she pinches

  The palpitating bowels of our burst bellies.

  VÉRONIQUE

  The house was pink with blue shutters,

  I could see in the night the features of your face

  Dawn was approaching, I was a bit nervous,

  The moon was sinking in a lake of clouds

  And your hands drew an invisible space

  Where I could move and spread out my body

  And I walked towards you, near and inaccessible,

  Like a dying man crawling towards death.

  Suddenly all changed in a white explosion,

  The sun rose on a new kingdom;

  It was almost hot and it was Sunday,

  In the air rose the harmonies of a psalm.

  I could read a strange affection in your eyes

  And I was very happy in my little kennel;

  It was a dream tender and truly bright,

  You were my mistress and I was your poodle.

  A field of constant intensity

  Sweeps away the human particles

  Night sets in, indifferent;

  Sadness invades the plain.

  Where to find the naïve game?

  Where and how? What must we live?

  And what is the point in writing books

  In the distracted desert?

  Snakes slither beneath the sand

  (Always towards the North)

  Nothing in life is repairable,

  Nothing remains after death.

  Each winter has its demand

  And each night, its redemption

  And every age in the world, every age has its suffering,

  Inscribed in the generation.

  Thus, suffering generations,

  Packed like water fleas

  Try to count for nothing

  The sensors of absent life

  And they all fail, without too much fuss,

  Night will soon cover all

  And the monogamous exhaustion

  Of a body sunk into the mud.

  A SUMMER IN DEUIL-LA-BARRE

  Creeping of branches between the solid flowers,

  Drift of the clouds and savour of the void:

  The sound of time fills our bodies and it’s Sunday,

  We completely agree, I put on my white jacket

  Before collapsing on a garden bench

  Where I fall asleep, I awake two hours later.

  A bell chimes in the serene air

  The sky is hot, wine is served,

  The sound of time fills life;

  It’s early evening.

  GREY HOUSE

  The train made its way through the outside world

  I felt very alone on the orange seat

  There were fences, houses and flowers

  And gently the train parted strange air.

  Among the houses there were pastures

  And everything seemed normal except me

  It’s been a long time since I lost all joy

  I live in silence, it slips by in long tracks.

  The sky is still clear, already the earth is dark,

  A fissure in me awakens and grows

  And this evening that falls in Basse-Normandie

  Has an odour of ending, reckoning and number.

  TWILIGHT

  Masses of air blew between the holm oak groves,

  A woman was panting as if in childbirth

  And the sand struck her naked and chalk-white skin,

  Her two legs opened to my lover’s fate.

  The sea retreated beyond miracles

  On black ground where possibilities opened

  I waited for morning, the return of oracles,

  My lips parted with an invisible cry

  And you were the only horizon of my night;

  Knowing the morning, alone in our neighbouring bodies,

  We had passed through, without suffering or sound,

  The superimposed skin of divine presence

  Before penetrating a level plain

  Scattered with bodies lifeless, naked, rigidified;

  We were walking side by side on a narrow road,

  We knew moments of unjustified love.

  EVENING WITHOUT MIST

  When I wander oblivious among the buildings

  I see future sacrifices emerge,

  I would like to adhere to some artifice,

  Rediscover hope through furniture shopping

  Or believe in Islam, feel a very gentle God

  Who would guide my feet, take me on holiday,

  I cannot forget that scent of departure

  Between our brusque words, our unravelling lives.

  The evening process feeds the hours,

  There is no one left to record our complaints;

  Between each stubbed-out cigarette,

  The forgetting process defines happiness.

  Someone has designed the curtains’ fabric

  And someone has thought up the grey blanket

  In whose folds my body goes still;

  I will not know the softness of the grave.

  When torrential rain fell

  On our little house

  We were sheltered from evil,

  Snuggled up against reason.

  Reason is a big tender dog

  The opposite of loss

  There’s nothing left to understand,

  We are given obedience.

  Give me peace, happiness

  Free my heart from hate

  I can no longer live in fear,

  Give me human measure.

&nbs
p; Dawn grows in the softness

  Milk warms up, little flames

  Vibrant and blue, little sisters

  Milk swollen like a woman’s breast

  And the sound of the percolator

  In the silence of the city;

  To the South, the echo of a motor;

  It’s five o’clock, all is tranquil.

  There is a country, or rather a frontier,

  Where light is soft and almost solid

  Human beings exchange fragments of light,

  But haven’t the slightest understanding of the void.

  The parable of desire

  Filled our hands with silence

  And everyone felt himself die,

  Our bodies tingled in your absence.

  We crossed frontiers of chalk

  On the second morning the sun neared

  Something was moving in the sky,

  A gentle beat made the rocks vibrate.

  The droplets of light

  Fell on our wounded bodies

  Like the infinite caress

  Of a divinity – matter.

  THE CONTRACTING OPERATORS

  Near the end of a night, at the ideal moment

  When the blue of the sky noiselessly widens

  I will cross alone, as if unknown to all,

  The inexhaustible and gentle familiarity

  Of the Northern Lights

  Then my feet will slip along a secret path,

  At first sight banal

  That for years has snaked labyrinthine,

  That I will recognise.

  It will be a calm and discreet morning;

  I will walk for a long time, without joy or regret,

  The soft light of winter dawns

  Wrapping my steps with a friendly smile;

  It will be a luminous and secret morning.

  The family refuses to make the slightest comment;

  Monsieur has gone off on a trip.

  In a few days’ time there will surely be war;

  In the East the conflict is spreading.

  THE LONG ROAD TO CLIFDEN

  To the west of Clifden, a headland,

  Where sky turns to water

  Where water turns to memory

  Right at the edge of a new world

  Along the hills of Clifden,

  The green hills of Clifden,

  I will come to leave my cares.

  To accept death it is necessary

  For death to turn to light

  For light to turn to water

  For water to turn to memory.

  The West of all mankind

  Is found on the road to Clifden,

  On the long road to Clifden

  Where man comes to leave his cares

  Between waves and light.

  The enamoured master in a fictional challenge

  Neither affirms nor denies in his invisible centre

  He signifies, making all futures possible

  He establishes, permitting a positive fate.

  Feel in your organs the life of light!

  Breathe carefully, with delight

  The middle path is there, complement to action,

  It is the ghost inscribed in the heart of matter

  And it is the intersection of multiple emotions

  In a core of unspeakable and blueish void

  It is the homage paid to absolute clarity

  The root of love, the apperceptive heart.

  PASSAGE

  I. Rainclouds billow in the mobile air,

  The world is green and grey; it is the reign of the wind.

  And all meaning dissolves save the sense of touch …

  The reflection of lime trees trembles on the pond.

  To slowly rejoin a maritime death,

  We walked across hot, white deserts

  And came close to a dangerous abyss …

  Feline figures were smiling within

  And naked wills refused to die;

  Come from Burma, two companions,

  Features distorted by an awful smile,

  Slipped into the inner orb of the Scorpio.

  Along the austere paths of the Capricorn mountains,

  Their transfixed bodies danced in our brains;

  The dark tracery of the land of Fangorn

  Suddenly engulfed the obsessive image.

  And some reached the last archipelago …

  II. It is an inclined plane surrounded by mist;

  Where the sun’s rays are always oblique

  All seems covered in asphalt and bitumen,

  But now nothing obeys mathematical laws.

  It is the advanced point of individual being;

  Some have crossed the Gate of Clouds.

  Already transfigured by a cruel path,

  They smiled, very calm, at the moment of passage.

  And astral currents irradiate the humble clay

  Born of, dark alchemy, the hard block of willpower

  That blends and unites like a docile current

  With the diffuse mystery of the Great Black Ocean.

  A fine and soft fog crystallises in silence

  In the depths of the universe

  And a thousand destinies unravel and advance,

  The waves of the sea.

  Show yourself, my friend, my double

  My existence is in your hands

  I am not truly human,

  I would like a murky existence

  An existence like a pond, like a sea,

  An existence with seaweed

  And coral, and hopes, and bitter worlds

  Cheated by the purity of the waves.

  Water will run over my corpse

  Like a forgotten comet

  And I will find a haven,

  A dark and protected place.

  Avalanche of false reasons

  In a meaningless universe,

  Evenings full of privation,

  The great walls of decadence.

  Like a filleted sea-fish,

  I gave my organs to the beasts

  My torn out intestines

  Already far from my head.

  Flesh swarms with hope

  Like a decomposed steak,

  There will be wandering moments

  When nothing more will be imposed.

  I am as free as a lorry

  Crossing driverless

  The territories of terror,

  I am as free as passion.

  The colours of madness

  Like an unfinished fetish

  Define new seasons,

  Non-existence fills the summer.

  The sun of the tranquil Buddha

  Moved amidst the clouds

  We had just left the city,

  The sky no longer stormy.

  The road passed in the dawn

  And the windscreen-wipers vibrated,

  I would have liked to see your body again

  Before leaving for ever.

  The beetroot fields conquered by pylons

  Gleamed. We felt strangers to ourselves,

  Serene. Rain fell silently, like alms;

  Our gentle breathing formed obscure emblems

  In the morning sky.

  An uncertain future beat in our chests,

  Like an Annunciation.

  Civilisation was now a mere ruin;

  That, we knew.

  We had taken the fast lane;

  On the bank, big lizards

  Slid their absent eyes

  Over our translucent corpses.

  The network of sensitive nerves

  Survives bodily death

  I believe in Good News,

  In approximate fate.

  Exact self-consciousness

  Disappears in solitude.

  It comes to us, infiniteness;

  We will be gods, we will be kings.

  We were waiting, serene, alone on the white runway;

  A Malian man was packing his few things

  He sou
ght a fate far from his desert

  And I no longer had any desire for revenge.

  The clouds’ indifference

  Returns us to our solitudes

  And suddenly we are ageless,

  We gain altitude.

  When tactile illusions disappear

  We will be alone, friend, and reduced to ourselves;

  With the transition of our bodies towards the extreme,

  We will live moments of still horror.

  The flatness of the sea

  Destroys the will to live;

  Far from the sea, from mystery,

  I will strive to follow you.

  In the mindlessness that takes the place of grace

  I see immobile lawns unfold,

  Blueish buildings and sterile pleasures

  I am the wounded dog, the cleaner

  And I am the lifebelt supporting the dead child,

  The unlaced shoes cracked by the sun

  I am the dark star, the moment of awakening

  I am the present moment, I am the north wind.

  All happens, all is there, and all is phenomenon,

  No event seems justified;

  We would need to attain a pure heart;

  A white curtain falls and covers the stage.

  Contenu

  D’abord j’ai trébuché dans un congélateur

  HYPERMARCHÉ – NOVEMBRE

  APRÈS-MIDI BOULEVARD PASTEUR

  CHÔMAGE

  ‘Le jour monte et grandit’

  RÉPARTITION – CONSOMMATION

  L’AMOUR, L’AMOUR.

  MIDI

  ‘Comme un week-end en autobus’

  JIM

  ‘J’aime les hôpitaux, asiles de souffrance’

  ‘Tant de cœurs ont battu’

  ‘La mort est difficile pour les vieilles dames trop riches’

  ‘Mon père était un con solitaire et barbare’

  FIN DE PARCOURS POSSIBLE

  FIN DE SOIRÉE

  ‘Le lobe de mon oreille droite est gonflé’