the world as obstacle (le monde comme obstacle)

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    The World As Obstacle

    By Franois CharronTranslated from French by

    Meagan Maguire

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    Insoncscient thought enters into this space with a single step.The seconds go to sleep in my memory.

    "ome li!ing people act out the comedy.

    "ome curious ones !enture out onto the roofs.

    A ghost does not disappear.

    The night is filled with shadows.

    There are still a million stars possible.

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    The stones are blind.The room is deserted.

    The situation worsens.

    The days drift on.

    One knows !ery few things.

    One still knows nothing.

    #ature is mistaken.

    $ertain difficulties remain tenacious.ittle by little the situation calms down.

    A glimmer li!es in the body.

    The plants breathe.

    One takes the temperature of water.

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    "omeone has empty hands."omeone lowers their eyes.

    We think she might miss us.

    Absentmindedly we fidget with our fingers.

    A line is drawn on the ground.

    The same person lifts their head three times.

    It is another thing that calls upon us.

    %ere the lea!es co!er the ground.The line will ne!er mo!e.

    Time seems to sleep.

    #othing mo!ed closer.

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    A ball rolls on the ground.A glass is o!erturned.

    A car splatters a pedestiran.

    In this place obstacles are in the way.

    In the same place a balloon floats.

    A witness heard things said.

    There are little black eyes that twinkle.

    %e knocks on a door.%e waits to see if someone is coming.

    A neighbor throws his flowers into a basket.

    The flowers reappear at the moment of a meal.

    The truth lights up on their faces.

    #o one recogni&es it.

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    A black s uare on the brown earth.An empty room near a star.

    "omeone makes knots in a cord.

    Ideas slowly tear themsel!es to shreds.

    (aking the decision to abandon e!erything.

    A sword lies at the bottom of the pond.

    The grass barely grows.

    A circumstance like this one is not natural.The landscape is not natural.

    It is only through action that one succeeds at something.

    $rying next to an empty room.

    The sword will not go any further.

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    )y chance you must cross the road.A portrait follows us e!erywhere.

    We stop and are stunned.

    We stop and we start again.

    There is rain on the sidewalks.

    The sidewalks seem deserted.

    The sidewalks remain free in front of us.

    %ere a human starts talking again.*motions mix with the breath of the lea!es.

    We are obli!ious to what makes us tremble.

    The air looks to pass by.

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    A hardened dreamer stretches and lies down.*!erywhere he goes people ask him uestions.

    %e remembers a dark hallway.

    %e remembers a hallway without heat and without flame.

    %e in!ents words in a foreign city.

    +ou don't know right away what will happen.

    rns are dropped off in the middle of a room.

    A memory finished by erasing itself.There is a poster glued to a wall.

    A ring is left in its box.

    The time we see disappears.

    Time makes no noise.

    The lightbulbs will soon burn out.

    The situation will last only a few moments.

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    "orrows uickly heal.The face changes and modifies itself.

    I wear a big black coat.

    The fortress is an image that sleeps.

    We wait for more in life.

    We hope for more in life.

    ookouts stop me from lea!ing.

    Time passes too uickly.A failed war de!ours us.

    I place myself behind a chair.

    The fortress li!es without thinking.

    One must go ouside again.

    The moon ignores desire.

    The moon is something that resembles an e!ent.

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    The crowd gi!es up because of a rain shower.Transporting a coffin to a train station.

    A heap of memories assails me.

    As soon as I lea!e my house the world suffers.

    -eelings infiltrate the depths of my soul.

    I know one can lo!e another person.

    I know that lo!ing can shine up a body.

    A machine cannot experience any feelings.The crowd disbands near the edge of a fountain.

    Two weeks ha!e flown by since then.

    I remember all of this !ery distinctly

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    Time pro!es itself to be long and empty.The uni!erse does not recogni&e me.

    +ou gi!e a name to a child.

    The next day you don't think about that anymore.

    It seems to me that when you get rid of dust.

    A figure seems to want to become clear.

    ust mocks me.

    I can do nothing for anyone else.It's me alone who torments me.

    I stay here and I see an empty &one.

    #o !ehicule comes here.

    A light post is co!ered in posters.

    I want to say something.

    I want to make some gesture.

    This is a moment of extreme indecision.I crumple up a page on which I had written something.

    I don't know what.

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    At the beginning the place is deserted.Then a rain shower resonates on the roofs.

    The riddle faints on my table.

    I am not afraid of eternal &ero.

    There are dangers that we reduce.

    The most beautiful things contain nothing.

    $hildhood is endless.

    $hildhood lasts only three seconds."now spreads out o!er the surface of a flag.

    A column becomes in!isible.

    An unknown prayer lies under my heart.

    They came to rummage through my room.

    (arbles roll in the shadowy corners.

    The idea of a single world is an imperfect idea.

    A pro/ectile could make us dead.

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    We struggle against the cold which persists.We struggle against separation, misfortune.

    What we know dies in the month of ecember.

    0lanks free&e on the surface of lake.

    We are afraid that a sensation lea!e us.

    We are afraid that a sensation betrays our will.

    (aking se!eral steps to reach the armchair.

    "ur!eying a room with arms behind the back.(inutes ha!e as much importance as hours.

    When you find yourself alone, you understand ob/ects better.

    It is natural that !ery few things happen.

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    A blindfold is forgotten on the bed.$louds make shadows on the paupers.

    #oises are buried in the room.

    Armors rot in the room.

    -og wants to take o!er the bed.

    1agged pieces crash into the ground.

    A messanger takes a paper and mo!es on.

    A messanger dips his fingers into the mud.An old man does the math in order to write up his final wishes.

    The blindfold is stained with mud.

    There is no moon to contemplate.

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    The simplicity of fire enters into us.A child is left alone behind a door.

    The stories we heard encircle us from e!erywhere.

    0edestrians walk slowly.

    "igns fade.

    ong flames lick our destiny.

    Our faces are co!ered with sweat.

    To be here is stranger than desire.Arrows disperse and ne!er return.

    Arrows bite animals who are infinitely fragile.

    A pedestrian throws himself into the arms of a friend.

    *!ents do not play out like we thought they would.

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    A few steps more and our sentences e!aporate.We dread the disappearence of our words.

    We often want to change places.

    "ilences camoflage us in the name that they carry.

    A woman lea!es us with eyes so sad.

    -rom where comes a woman with eyes so sad2

    A feeling can function for a long time.

    All names slide along opposite of us.Animals drift away through the tall grasses.

    There are large fissures that run on top of the ground.

    "omeone promises to pick herself up all the same.

    One always arri!es somewhere.

    A mistake protects us.

    #o one tells us why.

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    A s uare is gi!en to the earth.A smokestack pierces the hori&on.

    -ar away something seems to dissol!e.

    All that was lies underground.

    All that was becomes lamentable.

    All that was is !omited up by the mouth.

    An indi!idual has a duty to continue to li!e.

    It pro!es to be important to continue to li!e.A portrait is copied and lo!ed.

    A candle trembles at the break of dawn.

    This will be remembered until the end.

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    Someone who sings on a forlorn path.Stepped over logs on a forlorn path.

    Season without age and without wrinkles.

    Calm season liberated season.

    !ain down tremendously as a response to everything.

    "hite #oy that erases with sweetness.

    Shadow of flowers already wilting.

    $ature never wants anything.Clear movemement flowers% shadows.

    -ire outside of water fore!er.

    A car bypasses the road.

    Warehouses are !isited by strangers.seless signs are drawn in the air.

    A silhouette sweetly bends o!er.

    *!erything plays out in extreme precarity.

    The ground becomes softer and softer.

    We ask where went the paths of those we lo!e2

    We ask who we are for those we lo!e.

    The fortress remains intact each time.The future is worrisome all the same.

    We are always a little tired.

    We go to bed thinking of this.

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    A stranger carries a package under his arm.The situation obliges us to lea!e alone.

    -ragments inhabit the world of winters.

    There are not sufficient indications.

    *!ents draw closer from their scheduled date.

    0utting away the /ewelry of a dead person in a safe.

    Winters stay silent.

    Will offers us up to forces.A stranger settles into a corner.

    The stranger begins to count his money.

    The full moon has risen already.

    0ro/ects bring us the most benefit.

    A presence becomes irreplaceable.

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    An easterly wind disturbs the trees.0assersby are confused.

    (echanical belts are put out of order.

    $abins stand out from afar.

    The site of in/ury is concealed.

    The hero has a face splattered with blood.

    %is blood belongs to us.

    %is blood de!astates us.The hero lies down in his tomb.

    A sort of beatitude touches us.

    A metal pla ue becomes cold in time.

    This day ends the same as the last one.

    The truck makes a stop at the border."eeing mud splattered on my pants.

    *!erything proceeds normally.

    One cannot pass the afternoon locked up in a room.

    ust clouds fly !ery high towards the sky.

    There is a lot of space to wander in.

    I again fell under the charm of a silent landscape.

    The forest symboli&es a nostalgic desire."eeing the ashes escape from our hands.

    A beginning holds us back.

    Animals remain far away from buildings.

    The sound of a motor attracts attention.

    It cannot be otherwise.

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    Any handful of dust scatters on its own.

    Any handful of dust is easily bigger than us.

    A dying person poses an untenable uestion to us.A rose from time immemorial ne!er begins to exist.

    That which must happen does not happen.

    We hope for tran uility and we do not sleep.

    There is always a final word to deli!er.

    %istory is an image that sunk into the ground.

    "now co!ers my /acket.

    A plastic bag rolls around outside.istances must be respected.

    I abandon my birth in me.

    I am the source of sources leans o!er me.

    I ha!e nothing and I am not here.

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    The tra!eller, she asks me to lea!e.At midnight, pastures become transparent.

    ines do not exist in nature.

    An obser!er could ha!e been tricked.

    1e!erberations suddenly illuminate.

    0utting a talisman in a !alise.

    A sensation is no longer the same.

    The tra!eller can only think of lea!ing.The tra!eller brushed past me on a street corner.

    -oilage remains apart from me.

    -oilage is nothing more than a word.

    0utting a band3aid o!er a mouth.

    "uch an obstacle might fade.

    The space seems bigger.

    It will ne!er e!en begin.

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    #ight hides in night.A nocturnal burglar opened a gra!e.

    A white sheet of paper weighs almost nothing.

    (y mo!ement is profound like the night.

    "ometimes the clouds don't want to return.

    We want to know what the gra!e has to tell us.

    Well water is left to itself.

    I saw a lost or buried ladder again.I wished there was a ramp.

    I wished there was a hallway.

    It is difficult to renounce an image.

    One must wait for the apparition of an image.

    Images withdraw one by one.

    At the end, there are no more images of any !alue.

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    -ran4ois $harron 5b. 6789: is a poet born ongueuil, ;uebec, a suburb of

    (ontreal where I once got lost in a snow storm. %e has released se!eral

    books of poetry including and