Trans-Siberian Railway

Programming / to stage – Poetry

Yes, well, okay, I’m just like everyone else, and I like to walk around here and there too.

But today, what follows is not coming directly from me. It’s the exact consequence of a text I read yesterday on the FartFist ‘s website – which I urge you to go and see, read and love.
The title of his text was Train of Thought – and it has been running through my mind absolutely all day. That’s why I’m sure it’s a great text – because normally I like , but it doesn’t “stay”.

I won’t have the insolence to copy it – go read it, this text, it’s just unbelievable.

I wondered what category I would put this text in, if Altair existed – and I would put it in Poetry – because poetry is the red & wild blood of our souls.

And as a result, I also went into reveries of poetry, trains and strange journeys – after the sea, the land.

So if I were to discuss Altair’s programming one day, I think it could give an immense Focus to these strange journeys.

I’ll invite Kustrica (yes I love Kusturica) – for Unza Unza Time – and I’ll see Mr. FartFist frown and – I hope – smile too, in the end, because he and Kusturica are about as crazy – and therefore realistic.

And then as I am a real French girl cradled by French words, I will be obliged to see on stage The Prose of the Trans-Siberian Railway, river poetry, train poetry by Mister Blaise Cendrars – which takes its readers all the way there to the land of infinite steppes, hardwood files and hallucinating stops, in the middle of nothing, snow and grass, old and wrinkled babushkas whose eyes are no longer visible when they laugh.

You want to read ? This a a serious (I hope so) translation by “Library Yale – education” – the very beginning of the text :

Back then, I was still so young
I was only 16, yet I remembered nothing of my childhood
I was 16,000 leagues from my hometown
I was in Moscow, the city of one thousand and three bell towers and seven stations
But, I hadn’t yet had my fill of those seven stations or the one thousand and three bell towers
For my adolescence had been so ardent and wild
That my heart at every turn burned like the temple of Ephesus or like Red Square
In the setting sun
And my eyes lit up the ancient paths
And I was already such a bad poet
That I didn’t know how to finish anything
The Kremlin was an immense confection
Iced in gold,
With great almond cathedrals all in white
And the honey gold of the bells
An old monk read to me the legend of Novgorod
I was thirsty
And I decoded the cuneiform characters
When suddenly, the pigeons of Saint-Esprit all took flight
And my hands took off as well with the rustling of a bird
That was my last memory of the last day
Of the last voyage
And of the sea.
Yet I was such a bad poet
I never knew how to end anything
I was hungry
All the days and all the women in the cafes and all the wineglasses
I wanted to drink them all and smash them all
All the shop windows and all the streets
All the houses and every single life
All the wheels of the carriages that turned wildly along the cobblestones
I wanted to pitch them all into a fiery furnace
Oh, I would have ground all the bones
And pulled out the tongues
And dissolved every massive body, foreign and naked under the clothes that raised in me a panic . . . I presaged the coming of the great Red Christ of the Russian Revolution ….

A little trip to half my blood? I saw my uncle and my father dancing like this – after a lot of vodka, it’s true.
But vodka means little water, so it’s not a big deal. Then probably not so good – but all the guys were really into it during those parties.

With that, I can’t resist sending Corto Maltese to Siberia – and here is my beautiful Corto bewitched by a Slavic duchess who calls him Cortiouchka – how could he resist that?

Seriously? Wouldn’t that make for some great shows? And besides, poetry comes back on stage, just like that, like a queen – I love the idea.
Thank you sir – it was a real great text.

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Featured Image : Map of the Trans Siberian railway.

I wonder if there is a need for old tires for trains? Maybe for the Trans-Siberian Railway 😀 – je vous embrasse 😀