Pauline P. Raybaud
Poetries
This section is a playful gathering of poetical writings drawing alternatively attention to the shaping resulting from the form and dynamic of writing, or rather to movement created by the articulation between sentences, to the sonore echoes of language up to the pure pleasure offered by the simple being and merging of words.
Drawing poetry
Photograph from publication Les Mains Liées, by C. Roded and P. Raybaud
Mai 2017
This is a four hands project in collaboration with C. Roded, inspired by the surrealistic book Les Mains Libres by Paul Eluard and Man Ray.
In the form of a pastiche, this collection is a dynamic dialogue between writing and drawing, illustrating visual poetry with one another's words, melting lines together, for an instantaneous interpretation and a visual translation of the space created by linguistics.
The book can thus be read in different ways, vertically and horizontally, visually and physically in the handling of the book that has to be swift from left to write, from drawing to text, as one part is written in french, the other in hebrew, allowing the white and the black page to successively alternate in the viewer's eye for him to embrace our two worlds, here made as one.
-Download PDF to see the collection of poems-
-printed booklet available on demand-
Poetry For Melody
-Series in progress-
This is an ongoing series of musical poetries and lyrics.
Some are in the linearity of P. Amougou's organic filmic series, meant to evoke a quite mystical atmosphere, and thus aiming for a woody and dramatic language.
Further series will be devoted to the Roots digging project made in Cameroun, for which the 16mm film footages are still in process of development.
Others are intended for musical slang duos with singer Ion, aiming for a more simple and straightforward linguistic impact based on rhythm and sonorities rather than meaning.
Like seeds from the soil,
Growing out of river and sun
Like spikes of light surrounding my breath
Into me the rhythm of my dreads
Don't even try to strangle my roots,
My only ressource.
The entire cosmos crossing through,
Are you sure it's true?
I'm floating so high,
past the cloudy sky
Forgetting the how and why
Searching for a place that could be mine.
Expanding my branches 'til they die
Freeing hands from desire
To grab and hold and fly
A pain taking us higher.
Floating between lines
Looking for your signs
From the roots of my mind an my land
And turning away the wavy sea
Into milk dripping from my hands.
The entire cosmos crossing through,
Are you sure it's true?
Clear and warm you see,
Just like water from Aphrodite
If you know you're still thirsty after it
the only way be
to come inside me
to grow into me
so that you smell and see
what if feels to be me.
C’est pas ça tu comprend pas
Je suis pas triste je pleurs de rage
Tes baisés ils sentent l’amour,
tu me parle d’envol
de courage
oh le bel appât!
Mais t’oublies où j’ai atterri,
regarde moi bien,
mon bec fendu, mon aile cassé,
regarde! regarde!
rah et puis tu ris?
tu te crois déjà vainqueur?
Penche toi sur ce coeur,
ce lambeau,
ce bout de chair que je traine, une pate en l’air l’autre sous terre
tu comprend pas!
je pleure de rage,
je pleure pour tous ceux qui m’ont déjà fait voler, écraser, les ratés, les drogués, les mal nés les mal baisés
ils sont passés tu sais,
oui sur ce corps, oui entre ces ailes,
oui ils m’ont enlacés, oui ils m’ont fait décoller, oui oui mile fois je les ait aimés,
regarde moi bien,
regarde donc cette aile cassée, ce bec fendu, tu le trouve beau? ce bout de chair que je traine là et là
toujours plus lasse
toujours plus vide
toujours plus bas
les gouttes qui perlent sur ce visage brisé, non ce ne sont pas des larmes
ce sont des armes que je me suis taillée à la sueur de la trainée que j’étais,
de l’abusée,
de la délaissée,
de celle qui a trop donné,
trop aimé,
regarde ce lambeau,
regarde! tu le trouves beau
il n’en reste plus qu’une image, ratée, usée, disloquée.
My first bloody Moon
Under the sky of Cameroon
I only dreamt of touching her soil
Now I’m falling under her boys
The mother land I had in mind
Now in my head I make it mine
Childhood images flourishing in my head
Finally rooting up to my feet
And back to the ground to reach its peak
Again I lay in my mother’s bed
refrain
Oh father, father, father look at what you dropped into my veins
This seed is now ready to blow
I know you kept it for later
But no more tomorrow, its time for me to grow
Its a new game, no more blame nor pain
refrain
Yes brother I came back for you
Now look above the sky is blue
and if it rains open your mouth
You two sister for I love you both
Listen to the fuel dripping back into your soul
Back to the moon i'll make it shine
And if its not enough I give you mine
From words to movement
This is an introduction to the concept of performative writing, a type of exercise embracing the moving and rhythm procured by the word's sonorities, dynamics and assimilations to recreate and invent its spacial and corporal translation, its performative counterpart.
And again and again and again and again again again
Everyday same landscape
Forever the same mistake
She stands there defying me
With her eyes of a fury
And a smile more than empty
And again and again again again and
I look back sadly at her
All the lines become a blur
Yet the clock keeps on running
The sound of time repulsing
A mirage of me crying
And again!
Like a loop from my own tape
forever repelling shape
Naked with myself again
Heart beating with the worst pain
better and stronger every tic tac tic tac tic
Again and again and again and and
In the darkness of her voice
I can hear the same old noise
Soon the sound covers the tic
And my pulse follows the tac
tic tac tic tac tic
And again and ag
My hands then enter the dance
My fingers follow the transe
Now holding on the mirror
And the nails scratching with horror
This image I can’t ignore
tic tac
And again and again and again !
Hitting her head against mine
Making sure we are one line
Soon the glass lays at my feet
And our hands drip with the beat
tic tac tic tac tic
And again.
