C4 Michel Houellebecq

COLLAPSE IV

173

Michel Houellebecq

Poems1

1

1. Selected from Le sens du combat (Paris: Flammarion, 1996) and La Poursuite du Bonheur (Paris: Flammarion, 1997).

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COLLAPSE IV, ed. R. Mackay (Falmouth: Urbanomic, May 2008) ISBN 978-0-9553087-3-4 http://www.urbanomic.com

COLLAPSE IV

174

A Life, SmALL

I felt old very soon after my birth;Others struggled, desired, sighed;I felt within myself only a vague regret.I never had anything resembling a childhood.

Deep in some woods, on a carpet of moss,Foetid tree trunks survive their leaves;Around them develops an atmosphere of mourning;Their skin filthy and black, mushrooms pushing through it.

I have never been any use for anything or to anyone;A shame – one lives badly when one lives only for oneself.The slightest movement constitutes a problem,One feels unhappy and yet generic.

One is obscurely driven, like an animalcule;Reduced almost to nothing, and yet how one suffers!Carrying along a sort of voidPortable and petty, vaguely ridiculous.

One no longer sees death as a tragic event;Mostly on principle, from time to time, one laughs;One tries vainly to accede to contempt.Then we accept all, and death does the rest.


Houellebecq – Poems

175

I love those hospitals, asylums of sufferingWhere the elderly, forgotten, slowly turn into organsBeneath the gazes, mocking and full of indifferenceOf junior doctors who scratch themselves, eating bananas.

In their hygienic but nonetheless sordid roomsYou can easily divine the nothingness that stalks themEspecially when, in the morning, they sit up, livid,And plead with a whine for their first cigarette.

The old know how to weep with a minimum of sound,They forget thoughts and they forget gesturesThey no longer laugh much, and all that remains of themAt the end of a few months, before the final phase,

Are a few phrases, almost always the same:Thank you I am not hungry my son is coming on Sunday.I can feel my intestines, my son will come all the same.And the son is not there, and their hands almost white.


COLLAPSE IV

176

So many hearts have beaten, already, upon this earthAnd the little objects curled up in their cupboardsRecount the sinister and lamentable storyOf those who had no love upon this earth.

The crockery of old bachelors,The tarnished cutlery of the war-widowMy god! And the handkerchiefs of old spinstersThe insides of cupboards, how cruel life is!

The objects all arranged and life all emptyAnd the evening meals, the grocers’ leftovers TV unwatched, repast without appetite.

Finally illness, making everything more sordid,And the tired body that mingles with the earth,The never-loved body that fades away without mystery.



177

At the age of seventeen, my sister was very ugly,In eighth grade they called her double-fatty.One November morning she jumped in the lake;But they fished her out; the water was yellow and troubled.

Curled up under the bedspread like an great obese rat,She dreamt of a serene and barely-conscious lifeWith no social relations and no hope of a screw,But tranquil, so gentle, almost evanescent.

The next morning she perceived forms,Light and fleeting, on the wall to her right.She said stay with me, I must not sleep;I see a great Jesus, in the distance, he’s limping.

She said I’m a little scared, but it couldn’t be any worse.Do you think he’ll come back? I’ll put on a blouse.I can see little houses, there’s a whole village;It’s so lovely, down there. Is it going to hurt?


COLLAPSE IV

178

Death is so difficult for old ladies who are too richSurrounded by daughters-in-law who call her “sweetie”,Pressing a silken handkerchief to their magnificent eyes,Evaluating the paintings and the antique furniture.

I prefer the death of those old people in the tower-blocksWho still imagine right to the end that they are loved,Awaiting the arrival of hypothetical sonsWho will pay for a coffin in real fir.

The old, too-rich ladies end up in the cemetery,Surrounded by cypresses and plastic shrubsA nice promenade for sexagenarians,The cypresses smell good and keep away the mosquitoes.

The old people in the tower-blocks end up at the crematorium,In a little case with a white label.The building is calm; no-one, even on Sundays,Disturbs the sleep of the very old black janitor.



179

Where is my subtle body? I feel the night coming on,Pricked with needles and electric shocksNoises come from far away into a confined space:The rumbling city, anecdotal machine.

Tomorrow I’ll go out, I’ll leave my room,I’ll walk, worn-out, on a dead boulevard,Summer women, their bodies that arch and curveWill be renewed amidst fastidious decor.

Tomorrow there will be salades auvergnatesIn bustling cafés where managers chew;Today is Sunday. May the splendour of God reign!I just bought myself a rubber doll.

And I see bloody stars flyingI see punctured eyes sliding across the walls;Mary, mother of God, protect my child!The night clambers onto me like an unclean beast.


COLLAPSE IV

180

At the corner of FNAC a crowd simmersVery dense and very cruelA huge dog chews the body of a white pigeon.Further away, in the alley,An old homeless woman curled up into a ballIs spat on by kids without speaking a word.

I was alone, rue de Rennes. Electric signsDirected me along vaguely erotic paths.Hi it’s Amandine.I felt nothing in my prick.A few yobs passed a menacing gazeOver the rich girls and the salacious shows.The managers consume. It is their only function.And you were not there. I love you, Véronique.



181

NAture

I have no time for those pompous imbecilesWho go into ecstasies before bunnies’ burrowsBecause nature is ugly, tedious and hostile;It has no message to transmit to humans.

How pleasant, at the wheel of a powerful Mercedes,To drive through solitary and grandiose places;Subtly manipulating the gearstick.You dominate the hills, the rivers, and all things.

The forests, so close, glitter in the sunAnd seem to reflect ancient knowledges;In the depths of their valleys must lie such marvels,After a few hours you are taken in;

Leaving the car, the irritations begin;You stumble into the middle of a repugnant mess,An abject universe, deprived of all meaningMade of stones and brambles, flies and snakes.

You miss the parking-lots and the smell of petrol,The serene, gentle glint of the nickel counters;It’s too late. It’s too cold. The night begins.The forest enfolds you in its cruel dream.


COLLAPSE IV

182

HypermArket – November

Firstly I stumbled into a freezerI started to cry and I felt a little afraid.Someone grumbled that I was spoiling the atmosphere;To retain an air of normality I carried on.

Commuters, drained, with brutal gazeWalked up and down slowly near the mineral water,A rumour of the circus and of semi-viceMounted from the shelves. My gait was clumsy.

I collapsed at the cheese counter;There were two old ladies carrying sardines.The first turned and said to her neighbour:“It’s really sad, though, a boy of that age.”

And then I saw very broad, circumspect feet;There was a salesman who took measurements.Many seemed surprised by my new shoes;For the last time I was a little on the margins.



183

eNd of tHe eveNiNg

At the end of the evening, the rise of despair is an inevitable phenomenon. There is a kind of timetable of horror. Well, I don’t know; I think so.The expansion of the internal void. That’s what it is. A taking-flight of every possible event. As if you were suspended in the void, equidistant from every real action, by monstrously powerful magnetic forces.Thus suspended, incapable of any concrete grip on the world, the night can seem so long to you. And, indeed, it will be.It will be, however, a protected night; but you will not appreciate this protection. You will only appreciate it later, once you return to the city, once you return to the day, once you return to the world.Around nine’o’clock, the world will already have attained its full level of activity. It will turn smoothly, with a gentle whirring. You will have to take part in it, to jump in – a little as if one jumped onto the footplate of a shuddering train ready to leave the station.You don’t make it. Once more, you await the night – which, however, once more, will bring you exhaustion, uncertainty and horror.And this will happen again, every day, until the end of the world.


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