User account

Track the clouds

Julien Maret

IN EXTREMIS
(excerpt)

Translated by Jordan Lee Schnee

Published: 12.06.2017

let’s cover our tracks… let’s walk down the fork in the road… along the hedges… the peat… let’s disguise ourselves… in the tangle… let’s trace our silhouettes let’s traffic our bodies… trench coats beneath our eyelids… we must unload unload… let what may come come let’s finish what needs to get done… I throw sand in my face… we get bogged down in each other… evenings indoors next to lamps… next to tables what we ask each other… what we say to each other… each one facing the other… forks knives… plates stuffed into our mouths… our slippers before going inside… each other’s homes… amidst the laurels the sands and we size up our misfortunes… not even our miseries… what else can we tell each other… our upheavals… recount dispersals… our attachments ties… when we pluck airplanes from the sky hold them in our hands… when we… not close not far owl mourning… the areas we refold… we evaluate the territories… the landscapes the mud the stone… owl mourning crazy free dead poet… not enough on our heels… black blouses and falling… ignored lake tears your legs crossed going up to your chest collar limp room… little brown bubbles in our glasses… pieces of ice ruminations about the pack ice… ideas in the sky… among the stars… on other planets… porcelain glass houses… our equipment pale substances containers… ingredients waters airports… the desire that motivates us… which made us volatile and ephemeral… and even more wellspring energy matter… extensions undulations crumpled flipped-over and our sighs… barely touched… the low leather boots of old ladies … towards watering holes… when we put nuclear power plants in children’s bedrooms… and these ones those ones images in our head far-off… the plastic in our aging faces… the things we don’t know…

tombs inside ourselves… chunks of pack ice… of mountain of territory of space… lights grow faint… and we revolt we drown ourselves… they make us distant they separate us… we try on our tip toes… we pass through the fabrics that we cut out… for our waists and our shoulders… materials colors to cover our skin… skin on our skin… plants fruits… our tools injured in the cotton fields… worn to nubs our hands our feet… their hands their feet the ropes… their snares our nets our shadows… we sneak off and move on… far off the melodies of the coming night… and...

My language
English

Selected content
English

Julien Maret

Julien Maret

was born in Fully (Valais), and lives in Geneva. As a graduate of the Institut Littéraire Suisse in Biel/Bienne he received the Prix d’encouragement de l’Etat du Valais for his first novel Rengaine (Ger. Tirade). His second novel, Ameublement, appeared in 2014.