For some, water is joy and cleanliness
The nice tingling sound of its droplets
The light and shadows of its stream
Its freshness that make it esteemed

But water is not always what it seems
Behind its tingling I only hear screams
Ancient people for it had great fears
For it hides spirits, demons, gods’ tears

Rivers were snakes, on the land creeping
Rain and torrents were curses of Heaven
Springs deep from the hells were gushing
And in lakes various monsters were hidden

Water is cursed for me; it has a memory
When poured on my head it tells its story
Every single one who drowned in its bosom
Willingly or fatally brought to its bottoms

All those deaths full of fear and despair
Panicking and gasping, searching for air
Have left in water an invisible impression
The souvenirs of their eternal damnation

I feel in their scream a great tragedy
This is the taste of the lacrima mundi
I can hear it everytime in the shower
This is the curse of the running water

Sejanus
Morwajal
1993-07-13/10-06

[ Traduire ]

Note: Again a poem in the form of six quatrains, with rather weak rhymes (this time mostly in the scheme AABB save for the third quatrain which follows ABAB). The stanzas look almost isometric but, in fact, they’re not (it’s heterometric, of course, with a metrical length varying from eight to thirteen syllables, averaging at eleven syllables).

Have you ever wondered what’s hidden in the white noise made by the off channel TV or by running water ?