Flux

Aurélien Barrau

Volume Two, Issue Two, “Senses,” Poetry

The air was slow. 

The world was settling, broken down.

Dead water touched the sky.  The heavy logorrhea

of defeated lethargy spewed slowly on the cracks of a

reality it created as it spread.

An immense drowsiness—wild and muffled—came

over the emaciated pores of the space-skin. The

spectral coat’s thick layers went numb in the soft

enclave as if blood-sobbed with scaly remnants. 

Here the numbness began to unfurl.


There was something there. 

There was wind, life, and collapse.  There were

rings of mist, there was rain. There was storm and

violence. There was death and its smiles. 

There was evil. There was evil. 

There was something there. 

There was speed, there was a race. There

was fear. 

There was violence. There was evil.

There were the cries of a dying animal.

There was chance. 


There was the bitter taste of saliva saturated with blood. 

The dazzling beauty of inertial failure. 

 

Flux 

L'air était lent. 

Le monde s'encalminait en rade d'ailleurs. 

Les eaux mortes touchaient ciel. La logorrhée

pâteuse des léthargies défaites se vomissait

doucement sur les craquelures d'un réel qu'elle

inventait en s'épandant.


Une immense torpeur – fauve et sourde –

gagnait les pores émaciés de l'espace-peau. Les

strates épaisses du manteau spectral

s’ankylosaient dans l'enclave douce et comme

ensanglotée des rémanences squameuses.

L'engourdi gagnait l'ici d'en ça. 


Il y avait quelque chose. 

Il y avait le vent, la vie et la chute. Il y avait

les volutes, il y avait la pluie. Il y avait l'orage et

la violence. Il y avait la mort et ses sourires.

Il y avait le mal. Il y avait le mal. 

Il y avait quelque chose. 

Il y avait la vitesse, il y avait la course. Il y

avait la peur. 

Il y avait la violence. Il y avait le mal. 

Il y avait les cris d'un animal mourant. 

Il y avait la contingence. 


Il y avait le goût amer de la salive gorgée
de sans. 


Éblouissante beauté de l'échec inertiel. 



From Météorites (Meterorites) by Aurélien Barrau (Editions Michel Lafon, 2020). Translated from French by Stephanie Papa.


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Aurélien Barrau is an astrophysicist specializing in astroparticle physics, cosmology, and black holes. He works at the subatomic physics and cosmology laboratory in Grenoble. A researcher and professor committed to ecological activism, he is an honorary member of the Institut Universitaire de France. Barrau also holds a doctorate in philosophy. He is the author of numerous scientific books and articles related to his research.