PUT A VOICE TO HER PROSE Poem by Pierre Alféri

Put
A date to this face
A price on this memory
They're floating in the indirect
Light of communication
They are euphemisms
A dream
We only saw
The smoke, too late to put a word
To the Thing
Hostage of litotes.


Put a voice to her prose
Said the ad. You'd have called it
A spoonerism. The tarty blond image
Goes neither with the second noun
Nor with the first. But the invite's cunning
Even when you know that this body, these mass-typed
Promises, this organ ready to make you pay
With loving words early as six A.M.
On your credit card belong to at least
Three different people. The game
Is in the countess's album fit a head
On a chest, legs into typografolkloresque costumes
And all the cards turn over. Put
A date to this face, to see, a code
On this account, a price on this memory.
And if you give the same answer - the same
As what? - the same statistically you'll have
Won - what? - the bag of answers in the epistolary
Chain. The caricature also hits on the mean
Deadens interference, effaces failed shots
All free. Just now at the end of the line
She's asking why the supervisory staff
Never ever marry aurally challenged
Physically disabled colored cleaners.
This morning the passers-by have chins stuck
With shaving cream, eyes half open, their step
Slightly slowed. They're floating in the indirect
Light of communication. Perhaps
Because you slept badly their words were
Translated several times by machines
Before ending up in this cul-de-sac. They too
Are euphemisms and won't help at all
In gathering up the nights scraps of hemp, the bits
Of dry tobacco already in the Rizla + roller:
At the beginning you always take too much, the morsels
Tender at first block it up
Heard voices closed eyes metallize
Run on empty. Don't imitate speech
When writing, don't put your drenched boots back on
They said. Not really a metaphor: a dream
And this other one: History rising drowned everything
Leaving only a few names and bells above water, plus some divers
Writing a thesis on dustbins. - But what is
That baby doing on the roof? How did it get there?
You who are interested in voices you say
It's a question of finding a name for it. I leave
That job to Noah when he passes
With the dustmen. Duty calls: to retrace
The cloudy submarine story that explains nothing
But makes the link. It happened between two shadows
Beneath the dark line of contrast. The dancer
On the blue pack of tobacco should have guessed
That you don't hunt for a screwed up bill expecting to get away with it
In the flickering light thrown by that sort of film.
Steps resound, stop, resound
And the crime takes place off-screen. We only saw
The smoke. Too late to put a word
To the Thing responsible and the victim carries
Her stage name with her into sleep. Mine
Was therefore produced by Val Lewton. Is she
Still on the line, the hostage of litotes?
The reply she gets is sorry but the call cannot
Be put through yet please hold the
Line. She prefers to call back later.

Translation: 2012, Kate Campbell