“ The Other Side ” – of nowhere –

                                                 Listen to audio

“ The Other Side ”

             – of nowhere –

It’s a state of mind

Where the place to be,

Is a paradise uncharted

That sanity infers,

Is a situate must see

While so far it seems,

Getting there does mean

One need travel,

If but a gift for dreaming

On the other side of nowhere…

Doubt may at times

Discern ye be afraid,

Clouds so our mind

Yet fails to dissuade,

Of new worlds define

Be humanly worthy,

Said majority’s kind

So unlike parasitical,

Precursor to the blind

Seen perilous politicals,

Since inept left behind …

Hence I daren’t hesitate

With this bold escapade,

Want readily participate

In what leads to souls aid,

Facing a world, in decline

Not iniquitous charade,                                                                      

Held be set state of mind

If ye should opt to believe,

Can so resolve to soon find,

The other side of nowhere!

 

                     ov written in Montreal in 2001                        

                                            © Jean-Jacques Fournier

Music, The Journey Before Dawn – by Natura Silentia

Paintings include, Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Fall and Expulsion from the Garden of Eden and William Blake, Illustration to Dante’s Inferno, Dante and Virgil at the Gates of Hell.

Photos by/par, MD

“ Beginnings ” – goal not forever –

                                                 Listen to audio

“ Beginnings ”

            – goal not forever –

 

In the beginning

Declared be alive,

Tho not forever

We’re to survive,

Save a few clever

Perhaps the wiser,

Saw worth persist

Held more aware,

Said of beginnings

As life finds decide,

What be goal’s fare

If one bids to abide…

 

So be of mans mind

To begin with sway,

With resolve to find

Aims fashion to play,

Seeks incite revision

In road of life’s way,

Want alter its vision

Holds be a short stay,

The while not eternal

And goals not forever,

Would sidestep its end

As man aches to suspend!

 

                         an ode to man’s ludicrous dream…

                 © Jean-Jacques Fournier

Music, Stranger by Aerocity   

        

 

“ Body In Motion ” – a composition –

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“ Body In Motion ”

                        – a composition –

I watch beguiled

The body move,

At mesmeric pace

In perfect groove,

Be the beauty

Of her grace,

A striking figure

Neath satin skin,

Of golden colour

Rippling so within,

Be sensual power

Tautly glistening,

As her steps tower

Ever provoking,

A terpsichore

Held of a dance,

That undulates

And counteracts,

To elongate

A composition,

Finds articulate

As body in motion,

Wants speak of life…

Hence as she soars

Like the god of Jove,

Wouldst thus express

The splendour she wove,     

In that alluring motility

Said be her body in motion!

                        © Jean-Jacques Fournier

Photo, excerpt of Body In Motion, by Tono Stano…

 Line Drawings, excerpts – by my daughter, Nicole Fournier…

Eco – Performance Artist…

Music – exerpt of Body and Soul, by Woody Herman…

Theo Jansen – and his Strandbeesten (Dutch for “beach beasts”) art in motion –

                                                 Listen to audio

Theo Jansen

– and his Strandbeesten

(Dutch for “beach beasts”) art in motion –

About art… one never ceases to be astonished !

As said by my dear friend Louise F. – The ingenuity of this artist,
 is a marvel, and his museum is simply … the beach.

À propos d’art… on ne cesse pas d’être étonné!

Pour citer ma chère amie Louise F. – L’ingéniosité de cet artiste,
 est une merveille! Et son musée est tout simplement… la plage.

SINCE 1990 JASEN HAS BEEN CREATING
A NEW FORM OF ART IN MOTION
THAT LIVES ON THE BEACH

Jansen is a planar leg mechanism designed by the kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen to generate a smooth walking motion. Jansen has used his mechanism in a variety of kinetic sculptures which are known as Strandbeesten (Dutch for “beach beasts”). Jansen’s linkage bears artistic as well as mechanical merit for its simulation of organic walking motion using a simple rotary input. These leg mechanisms have applications in mobile robotics and in gait analysis.

“ Men of The Sea ” – obdurate beings –

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“ Men of The Sea ”

                  – obdurate beings –

On steel hull ships

In days of old,

Sail hardened men

The story told,

Of rusty hearts

And tempers short,

Whose tired grunts

Would find exhort,

Spoke fitful streams

Of words bone thin…

With guarded eyes  

And gnarled limbs,

They navigate

The lonely seas,

From dust to dawn

To burn or freeze,

Despite their brawn

Will find to cower,

As Lucifer spawns

Upon their superstitions…

In life replete

With boding myths,

And nightly demons

Who so disrupt,

The tattered dreams

Said heard compose,

The damning screams

Of obdurate beings,

That be men of the sea!  

                                  © Jean-Jacques Fournier                                               

                              written in Vence, Fr                                                                                         

.                                            January 20, 2002      

 Painting, Brager, by Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand                             

“ A Distant Presence ” – stored in old memories –

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“ A Distant Presence ”

            – stored in old memories –

 

I feel a presence

Ever distant,

Lurking

In my memory,

Probing

Unrelentingly,                                                                             

To surface

Above reticence,

Ne’er forgotten

Be one’s musings,

Despite a dying voice

Caught in the shadows,

Of a haunting choice

Stays a distant presence,

Stored in old memories…

 

I feel its existence

Lamenting regret,

Of relic adolescence

Did tend to forget,

One’s life so harried

Time be left scattered,

Yet held little matter

Amid memory’s embers,

Despite imploring pleas

Woefully entreating time,

On symbolic knees

Ought allow to remind,

Before the while be no more

Than a haunting memory…

 

Tho still I hear whispers

Of a lingering voice,

Must be the patient soul

In its life’s awoken choice,

Holds stored in old memories

That of a distant presence! 

           

                        © Jean-Jacques Fournier  

                                           July 12, 2020             

            Music, Chet Baker – Almost Blue –

“ Stop The World ” – I want to get off – revisited –

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“ Stop The World ”

            – I want to get off –

Stop the world,

I want to get off,

Its lethal whirl

I’ve had enough,

Held toxic while

Man efforts cure,

To anew beguile

Alters not lure,

Of endless excess

Or denied blame,

Nor will it redress

Its damage insane,

Man culls confess

Of liable fed game,

To play you along

Be without shame,

Of what suits best

For his world cast,

That yet but infests

So increasingly fast,

And gives not a rest

Despite beg antics daft,

With now barely time left!

                                           Ode to voices of empty rhetoric

                                                                    © Jean-Jacques Fournier

                                                                                         July 10, 2020

             Music – Stravinsky’s, The Rite of Spring

 

 

“ A Day In A Life ” – to live as tho twice –

                 Listen to audio

“ A Day In A Life ”

         – to live as tho twice –

If I could but live

A day in a life,

Fate chose to give

Be without strife,

One might feel free

To hence display

The whole that I be,

For today I’d not wept

Holds a day of all days

With euphoria I’ve kept,

Fix this day as a guide

So that I now can see,

All my life till I died…

Such a day in a life

Would be held rule,

Thus to fix the way

Would purge redicule,

And learn to let go

As to feel what you see,

Be the birth of it all

Like a bursting of buds,

On a flowering tree

As spring yawns away,

And dawn’s early hours

Sets sight towards May,

To a first summer’s day…

Yet all of the while

You’ve but time

The gods lend,

Hence a day in a life

From beginning to end

You must live as tho twice,

For that may be all

You’d be given of life!

                                          © Jean-Jacques Fournier    

                          Originally written in Vence, Fr.

Pictures – Public and private collection …

Music – exerpt of Orfeu Negro, Brazil …

“ When Memory Fails ” – held in time will –

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“ When Memory Fails ”

                  – held in time will –

When memory fails

As held in time will,

You’ll find it pales

Said ‘tis all but still,

Tho we’ll so falter

Must find to bide,

In kindly shelter

Until subsides,

Its weary burden

As one tries hide,

Ways it’ll worsen

In destined slide,

Of a dying mind

Be receding use,

Far beyond find

Now so abstruse,

While shy of time

As recall hides,

In its seclusion

Tho one is to abide,

When memory fails

In its retched mental prison,

Time wants tell to say goodbye!

 

                               ode to victims of failed memory…

                                                   © Jean-Jacques Fournier

       Music, of Erik Satie – Gnossienne 1, by Otto Tolonen, guitar