I’m the last one up into the back of the white van
we smile nervously when our eyes meet
Taupe’s face is lit up in yellow by her 3310
de-de-de de-de-de de-de-de
she’s getting a call
that ringtone it’s Mozart’s symphony
Taupe says ok and hangs up
All good the call’s been made Taupe says to no-one in particular
gotta get moving
I look at us with our orange boiler suits
cosmonauts from Guantanamo
We’re a couple of minutes away says Fauteur at the wheel
I desperately need to pee
and my knee is jiggling up and down
Taupe forcefully brings it to a stop
It’ll be fine breathe she tells me
it’s an order not meant to reassure
I breathe
no-one says a word
and we see them far off
the silhouettes
dirty even at night
cooling towers
soft hourglasses
and smoke
always
Taupe’s raising her voice now telling me
Get ready
grab the ladder grab the ladder
everybody has their tool in their hand
she has the grinder
Dédé the flush cutter pliers
Thelma the multi-purpose pliers
Jona the carpet
Fauteur the banner on the seat next to him
he skids to a halt
Get out get out they scream
I open the rear door jump slide the ladder down
Taupe’s bag falls in the process Careful for fuck’s sake
I dig my nails into my thumb it’s bleeding
we have a few minutes to get in
Thelma is starting to panic
that’s the building we’re all agreed yeah that’s it yeah she says
the first fence is scaled with the ladder as planned
we try to balance the carpet on top of the barbed wire
we slide over it
and so
we pick ourselves up like turds on the other side
apart from Dédé who has a hard time getting up it works just fine
we all made it in roughly a minute
the second fence
needs opening
Taupe’s grinder and the pliers on either side
enlarge the hole
like slicing through butter
from now on
each gesture’s lucid
Quick quick quick Taupe says we hear the police sirens
we stuff the carpet into the hole
we climb through
there’s Taupe who’s saying Fuck and keeping an ear out but there’s no
time
Banner the banner move it
we get into position as planned me second between
Taupe and Fauteur
and we unravel it for our drone
GREEN FURY
CHERNOBYL, FUKUSHIMA . . . FICKANGE?
behind us Thelma and Dédé take the rockets out of the backpacks
Thelma has a look of we-shouldn’t-be-here
Jona a face which is all atwitch
and the guys haven’t even caught on to the cops jumping
from their skidding car
the cops know it’s us
Olivier called to warn them
so they ought to know
they’re through the first fence
we’re just three metres from them with our banner
and it’s all going off now over our heads
purple-prune bombs
sea bouquets
blue-green flares
waterfalls
suns
glitter
golden golden golden
it creates
a riot of colour on the grimy facade
and all of that
right next to the fuel pool
crisp explosions then the high notes one after another
sounds so familiar
of candy floss fountains and desperados
a reminder
of summer
at night
even for the cops
and all these stars
reflected on their uniform
and the noise muffling their voices
their gestures
make me laugh
until whack to the back of the head from Taupe
oy Laeti
the cops finally get the first gate open
I start to pee when I see they’re already on to the second
adrenaline
we surrender hands in the air
we’re no cowboys
still they throw themselves upon us
wham head on the ground I finish peeing myself
the last rocket is launched by somebody or other
BOOM the weeping willow
the police officers’ shoulders absorb the shock of sound
at the same time
they dance
the light draws something on their faces
it takes four of them to lift me
My shoe I scream
fuck
I’m missing a shoe
on the ground my shoe I scream
a smack in the mouth / nose
My shoe I whisper
they throw me in the van Shut up they say I’m sitting
like a messed-up pile
and my mates are in messed-up piles next to me I feel them
trembling
on the inside they celebrate
in silence
you’d be hard pushed to feel more alive than this
Thelma has a look of that-wasn’t-a-whole-lot-of-fun
Fauteur is opposite me this time
from one van to the other
we look at each other
his face encourages me
I think
they have the police
we have thick skins
I smile at him
I’m scared
on the way to the police station
it was a beautiful display
*
eczema: left hand reaching middle finger
today it’s my morning shift at The Dump
as I pulled up I ran over
a pigeon
I pictured it with its wing still flapping
Balec’s doing his interview
with the journalist from terrespourtous.fr
he’s with her
standing outside
he points proudly at the sign
makes comments all upbeat
Snowhall of Thermes-les-Bains
Schuss your way to fun
it took us hours of brainstorming
for this sign
in the end we were obliged to choose
the first idea of Balec’s
they’re coming into the hall
Balec hangs around for everyone to see
he must have been up all night going over his key points
I do the welcoming
through the window I glimpse the slope
empty
rocked by artificial snow
I watch him
his arched body flapping about
I catch the odd phrase
Exclusive
hosting an indoor ski slope
Auckland Dubai Madrid La Haye Shanghai Barcelona
620 metres long also
pleased to have constructed the
slag heaps from the blast furnaces
under the snow
the revamping of the region’s image through this
visionary local approach
as well as giving pride of place
to the French alpine ski team who visit
in spite of the unjust accusations which we are
less polluting than a large swimming pool
future of the discipline
he shakes hands with the journalist
comes over to us cheeks flushed
leans casually on the reception desk
aloof
and the arsenic asbestos and lead
the foul air we breathe
you’ll get round to those next time I ask him
he sniffs
Laetitia
ah Laetitia
with his unibrow furrowed like that
it’s looking kind of frizzy
just cut the bullshit won’t you
they’re just rumours aimed at working less
you think that they’d let us work here if there were any arsenic
’s you the arsenic
right let’s get going he says and he makes a move
as I set off after work
the pigeon next to my car door
is now no more than a crêpe
maximum thickness 5 millimetres
*
back at La Cave
listening to Nick Cave
Is it about the wordplay Fauteur had asked me on Signal
Really not I only listen to Nick Cave
at the moment
and I only watch one film
Wild Plants by Nicolas Humbert
over and over and over I had written to him
I hadn’t told him that all this
all this was beauty sans danger
each time for me these images
conjure up Mémou
and her comment on beauty
in all this shit there’s Pépou washing his ride
every evening at 6:30
I yell at him through the basement window
There’s a hosepipe ban in case you hadn’t heard about the heatwave already
he’s so good at not listening
it’s like he doesn’t hear
he carries on rubbing away with his chamois
he’s aged it shows up around his temples
*
it’s months now we’ve been waiting for the sentence
meanwhile
we’re forbidden to see each other
seems that we’re a band
a band of criminals
that the
fireworks would lead to more
worse even
it seems
that I no longer have the right to
make contact with Fauteur
or any of the others
and vice versa
which means since the Fire
we haven’t seen each other
theoretically we have the right to continue to
take action
but how to work out
if someone who I do not have the right to contact
has the intention of participating in the same meeting as me
anyway we have figured a way to attend
the meetings
by checking with a go-between
and by alternating
in two hour slots
so our paths never cross
theoretically
I would have had the right to go to Dédé’s funeral
my friend Dédé
our friend
already at the fireworks he was wasting away
cancer of the pancreas
but who knows which criminal
I might have bumped into
none of us really knows what it takes
in concrete terms
to be a criminal
we’re not born criminal
we become it
those who accuse us don’t know
either really
that’s where the advantage lies
can we stand
on the same pavement
can we breathe
the same air
can we eat
the same food
in the same room
a few hours apart
can we hang out with the same people
take the same anxiolytics
shit in the same toilet
can we read the same books
listen to the same programme on the radio
and what if at night I jump
at the same second Fauteur jumps
if my heart beats
faster when a police car
passes in front of my house
like his does
will my case
escalate
if the creaking on the staircase
makes me grind my teeth
is it suspect
will it be noted down
like the protests
the telephone calls
the SMS
the comings and goings
and the emails
when I was in custody they said
that they knew me
that they knew who I was
the police officer had this look
greedy
finally
to
get to know me
they said that I was pretty easy
to work out
that I had an unstable personality
abnormal narcissistic traits
and that in my manic phases
—the police officer’s fingers draw speech marks—
I displayed a high degree
of aggression
I said nothing
I believe my lawyer spoke on my behalf
with my fingers I signed
fa la fa la fa la fa la fa la fa la with my right hand
la do la do la do la do with my left
Philip Glass
Opening no. 1
at the same time
I was thinking of a
scold’s bridle
a mask of iron
best case scenario
simple frame
worst case mask for a clown
portraying fierce or sheepish traits
equipped with a flap penetrating the mouth
compressing the tongue
or raising it up against the palate
sometimes provided with a spike for those least inclined
to silence
another option
a little bell
so that the shrew being led through the streets
on a lead
by her husband
could be spotted more easily
so that she could be spat at
and insulted
without risking a riposte
I was just wondering what would be better
that
or what awaited me
and I had let out a little laugh
which had earned me a
You find that funny mademoiselle
Madame I had replied
I wonder whether
despite our precautions
they knew that we were preparing
the Fire
whether for them it was just one more
feather
to put in their cap
they added that it was all
very dangerous
that given my fragility
it would be better
for me that I say
who was involved and that I not forget anyone
that it was the only way to save myself
they added that they were monitoring me
twenty four seven that they knew
where I did my shopping
when I went jogging which routes I took
and at what pace
where I bought my underwear
—At Petit Bateau
the same panties as your grandma you know—
they had sniggered
when I think back to it
it’s as if they had both spoken together
with one voice
deadpan
and yet
only one was talking
he said we are
we have
the other one just
batted his eyelids
and I was watching him
a thick-set guy
raised on buttermilk
with a constant look of surprise
I’m conjuring up the portrait of his grandchildren
propped up on his desk
yes sometimes it was me
watching him
they knew
what music I listened to
to whom I sent emails
and even what was written in them
what marks I got for my Bac
—Madame know-it-all—
they also said
that they’d been listening to me for a year
that they’d heard
when I was screwing Fauteur
that I was screwing Balec
a silence had fallen which had brought a smile to their lips
heard too
were the precious words
murmured to Mémou
my rows with The Sister
my silences with Pépou
they said
they could find out everything
that had been written
everything
that had been heard
so of course
they’ve heard
this scene from Wild Plants
the one Mémou and me watched repeatedly
this scene where a young man
stoops and says as he scoops up
This pear
has the taste of a house in ruin
then he continues
one morning he saw some workmen who wanted to
had to
destroy the house and cut down the tree
All I ask is that you taste a pear
he said to them
that evening when he got back from work
the house was no longer there but the tree
was
and so he knew that they had tasted
a pear
the last time
that Mémou and me watched this scene
together
she concluded
before turning her head towards the
wall
Gotta somehow try and see the beauty
in all of this shit
