Franck Garot

Pantuns

Franck Garot — 2016-08-19T17:17:13Z

The train is traveling at high speed
Driving across the sleeping fields.
My sadness will flow far away;
And my verses will sing my friends

Outside on the snowy bench,
The magpie has left a track
Inside on my naked back,
My love ended her embrace.

So where is going the leaf, carried
Here and beyond, by the evil wind
So where is going my poor mind bewitched
By you by him? I loved you both. Indeed.

The snow is falling down in Bucharest
And down on the coffin of the poet.
My sorrow probes what remains, all the rest
After mourning: his words will celebrate.

Best effort on the rhymes.
Thanks to Mariela for her review.

Five haiku

Franck Garot — 2014-10-26T19:08:34Z

I sometimes write haiku directly in English, without translation from French. This is quite rare and I don't really know why this happens. But it happened at least five times. Please find below a set of haiku. The first two ones from my last trip to London and the three other ones were written a while ago in Paris.

London eye
as blue as me
cries down the river

the sleeping castle
is dreaming of you
beneath the electric stars

what a stormwind!
807 butterflies
in my stomach

undressed and frozen
new homeless in the street
Xmas tree

on the hill
your eyes light up
the city

Picture and geolocation for the first haiku.

The Velvet t-shirt

Franck Garot — 2013-11-08T17:30:29Z

What will become
of my Velvet t-shirt
gone threadbare
the banana marred
by the swipe
of an iron
what will become
of my Velvet t-shirt
when I grow old
hard of hearing
and hard to bear
what will become
of my Velvet t-shirt
I'll use it as a rag
to chase the dust
from my illusions

Translation: Rita Smith-Lemaire

Released!

Franck Garot — 2013-09-20T22:00:00Z

Serveral months, dozens of emails, working lunchs in brasseries, ugly diagrams on pieces of paper, but here it is, look! my site is online!

Many thanks to Joachim Séné for the work; the client was a bit demanding, with complicated requests: bilingual site, geolocalisation, one template per project.

I wanted a flexible web site, support for writing (projects Lou Dark and Erik Satie) and thanks to the keyword navigation, link my additions, music and text. I think we succeeded. Feel free to let me know if I'm right, comments are open!

The Doughnut in a Pinch

Franck Garot — 2009-11-04T12:54:00Z

Caryn is looking at me, unless she is Maureen, I can't tell them apart, she glares at me because she doesn't like my answer, although, in any case, she wouldn't have liked any other. My daughters reject and criticize everything I say, incessantly reproaching me for their not having a father – it's my fault. They think that I decided that they wouldn't have a father, while still I don't know how I could have Powdered Donut No. 4 by Abbey Ryan gotten pregnant, and I am not ashamed to say I am convinced that I didn't sleep with anyone at that time, finding myself too fat, boring and therefore too ugly to be of interest to decent boys; and to have, in a moment of weakness, confided this to my daughters, they consider me a nut case, calling me the virgin Mary. Is it possible to have such a relationship with one's mother? When in any case this mother would be incapable of distinguishing the twin girls that she gave birth to and whose father is unknown? A father who, no matter who he is, would he be able to distinguish one from the other, himself? Would he be able to say with any certainty what differentiates the girls since they are continually changing? Because they do change, I am sure of it. I had made note of a beauty mark on the right cheek of Maureen. Today that beauty mark is on the left cheek of Caryn. Caryn was in the habit of tucking behind her left ear, the hair that was always falling in her face. Maureen now has this habit, but with the right ear. Maureen used to like glazed doughnuts unlike Caryn who now likes them. They are planning to drive me crazy. I believe that they are conspiring with the furniture. The armchair in which I am sitting, for example, as I was reading when they came to ask me who knows what. This comfy old chair always greeted me with kindness, that cuddled me very often, and well, it's with them from now on: it now hurts my back, it moves ever so slightly when I leave the room, and it changes color. I'm not saying that it changes from green to orange, no, its change is more nuanced, insidiously, just enough for me to notice it and just too little for me to report it. I forget about the question that my daughter asked and the answer that earned me her glare. She shakes a Dunkin Donuts bag under my nose. Maybe she's upset with me for not ordering the variety she wanted? So, Caryn looks at me. Unless she's Maureen. It's of little importance since they are both in front of me. The one who isn't looking at me is staring at her feet. Initially, it was Maureen who was the most shy, now I'm sure of nothing. The only thing of which I am certain today is that they both despise me maniacally. My daughter gives up glaring at me, I now find some irony in the way she looks at me, and I await something treacherous as I sink down into my armchair which pushes me away gently but firmly. I tell you, that chair is on their side.
She declares “Your brain looks like a doughnut – with a big hole in the middle”. I don't get where she is coming or going with this doughnut metaphor. So, I opt for indifference, which disappoints her. She announces “We've found Dad. He lives in Manhattan.” Then she tells me that they met him six months ago, and that they've been seeing him regularly since – that he has become someone important on Wall Street; that he has never been able to tolerate that I hid their birth from him; that he would have married me; that we would have been a family, but it's too late now, he no longer wants to see me, but he does want to see his girls.

She stops to analyze the effect of their words by the look on my face. Many seconds pass. She seems satisfied with the result. She says to me “Mom, we are 15, we have the right to decide, and we want to live with him, and he is OK with it.” My eyes fill with tears and I scream out “be quiet!” I am not screaming because they want to leave, but because I still have no idea who they could be talking about. Who is it? Who is your father? I was too fat and too ugly to have slept with anyone. How can I make you understand, Caryn?
Unless you're Maureen.

Translation by Sharon Bardfield-Phillips.
Published 4 November 2009 in Vers minuit