Jean-Baptiste Cabaud is a poet and writer who was born in 1970 in Savoy. He has lived in Lyons since 1993, working as a graphic designer for twelve years. From 2005 he has devoted his time to poetry, written, spoken, and illustrated. His first collection, Les Mécaniques, appeared in 2008 and his second, Fleurs, was published in 2014. He reads his work regularly in France and at international festivals and venues, conducts writing workshops for children and adults, and has been involved in many cross-discipline collaborations with musicians, dancers, graphic artists, photographers and cinematographers.
Darkness and thought invade the sky And the cloud fields steal the gold of statues The wind turns tempest and will not calm And it all quickens and it’s all cinema A sand-covered bank a sweet fatigue And to sleep an instant on closing your eyes Here there is no nostalgia Half-blind windows look onto blank walls Shepherdesses painted in blue will find their lovers In the midst of the flock, at the foot of the swing Too long a trip in an automobile The radio broken my heart the replacement There where sea charts indicate mountains Carefree ships play at mountaineering Needs must leave again space is so wide To travel on further and time is so long Then to bend the poets from their comet course And search out silence like a winter cloak Shepherdesses painted in blue will find their lovers In the midst of the flock, at the foot of the swing This water is everywhere over frail earth Ravaging healing and never ending But life teaches nothing and man is a dunce a window spirit a heater body Three pennyworth of hope fifteen euros of hell A moon ultra full on a bottle dead empty This morning I bartered my soul of a giant For the heart of a beggar an uncertain love Shepherdesses painted in blue will find their lovers In the midst of the flock, at the foot of the swing Luminaries scintillate shifting invisible As hooked on us as we on them Then heroes march past in a glorious procession But the sound of the trumpets is drowned in the void And the swimming of sperm whales harmonious lovely Hides mysteries from us which seem far too mundane A fairy could certainly know of these questions But fairies are earthly and have no replies Shepherdesses painted in blue will find their lovers In the midst of the flock, at the foot of the swing Rumbling assailing the great waves return Searching out houses commanding the seasons And the chessboard is set out at check and stalemate But the two adversaries have not shaken hands Soon I shall loiter behind on a bench To wait for a meeting in the eerie light A musing old man already resigned A few grams of the past and a faraway glance Shepherdesses painted in blue will find their lovers In the midst of the flock, at the foot of the swing The palm trees are simply stuck onto the sunset the photo’s made child’s play of imagination We have cleaned out the breeches of our rifles Kissed our wives goodbye and then left Sailed over the ocean listened to sirens And we have confused them with manatees The mist is still lingering on today Iridescing the light of strange aureolas Shepherdesses painted in blue will find their lovers In the midst of the flock, at the foot of the swing To love silence with all its charming vanity Like a countryside crossed without choosing to stop But to build ourselves strongholds of books and stones What damnable recklessness! The rain falls straight down onto straight blocks of flats Man too is quite upright so much verticality Chests swelling out are hazardous signs Sigh-sacs of happiness and of ennui
