Songs of Dawns-Americas
Occult Odysseys that ceaselessly
come to us by snippets
written a thousand years ago
by new men
erased at the pace of waters
by bearded, guardian gods –
Barbarians.
What barbaric words will sing the infinite delicacy of the opossum’s walk, or the cabin boys’ transverse flute? What language can wipe the past slaughters?
I don’t know anymore
I want to write a huge legend
and upholster the wrong side of the forest
with these dead voices
May I tell you that which I couldn’t experience? Which spell to cast as I dive in the copper-colored water of the cove? What was I trying to delete, to wash out from my thighs, the frame of which was troubled by water?
I watch as the flat tints of
the rain season settle
Shamelessly
I pick the acid cherries
brought by December’s damp
fogs
Two drops of the blood of that invincible warrior of my dreams
Two red traces of the kiss of death which I’m just making up
His fear mingled with manioc roots
His black bile on the lips
of the immortal ants
Why should I be cruel? All I am doing is drawing again and again his clumsy profile. He drops his weapons…
I see him tire under the beginning of my story
I begin with his death
I will give his heart to the living
and his name to the dead
which we haven’t forgotten
First sacral victim
I am writing in America.
***
Lunatics shout to the four winds that they will run you through with an iron saber and a bag full of dust
Can one run through the universe with a single arrow?
Lunatics carry a world locked in a box on their back
and they think they can forever conquer your morning smokes
your torrents of steam and wind, barely conceivable
rages of water and humus
geyser machine of the continent
there are only three pictures of it on Earth
Poor fools who will never earn
if only the price for their sweat
barely the crumbs of the shadow of a meal
They write down their tiny names on maps
Nobody hardly reads maps anymore
Alone with their dreams they think they are experiencing what wouldn’t be a distraction for woodlouse
so beautiful and agile
shining in the triumphant night
When they shall cry their fear, that of lost men
the lunatics will not see, above their heads
the squirrel monkeys’ arboreal palace
The lunatics – always them – will look at the trees
puzzled
And then
in the midst of a million lives the names of which
they ignore
they suddenly glimpse
their disaster among epiphytes
the tragedy of life that dies among life
forgotten in the track of a tapir’s droppings
And they will scream
a scream that won’t be anything
but a noise among other deaths and other lives
And those who thought they were at home will die
as children of the ages
covered in humus and ants
that have entered the forest.
***
Spirit
in my troubled memory
The land hasn’t moved since you left
The oxen still share the pen in the field
looking at each other not blinking not dying
seven of them always
seven of them always between here and the neighbor’s
My friend
the earth has not dried up
has not burnt
has not dissolved its veil of hairy grass
and in the savanna plain
forlorn white cranes lay
paper flowers
The earth has not moved
I am still biting the ear of the tall canna lily
that hangs on the side of the path
and the grass gently folds upon itself
languid under my finger
The earth has not moved
I have crushed all the coconuts in the world
on the side of the land
and their white-handed flesh
sprinkled with sacrificial water
has fed your soul
that had been floating around me
(Translated by Alexis Bernaut)
(from “ Anthologie de la Revue Oyapock”,
Atlantiques déchaînés éditeurs, November 2023)
Author’s Bionote :
*Alexandra Cretté: Born in Aubervilliers, France in 1978. Poet and short stories writer. Cultural activist against colonialism, patriarchy ans racism, she has founded the Revue Litteraire Oyapock in 2020. She lives in French Guiana, South America, since 20 years. WPM coordinator in French Guiana since 2022. Recipient of Mention Speciale in 2023 at Balisaille International Poetry Prize (Martinica), for her first collection “Par le regard de ces autres mal nés ”, Atlantiques dechainés éditions. In november 2025, recipient of Kathak Litterary award in Kolkata. She is president of the Festival International de la Revue Oyapock (FIRO) in Cayenne. She was poetical guest in international events: Medellin International Poetry Festival, Colombia (2023), World Poetry Festival of Caracas, Venezuela (2023-2025), Balisaille Mai Poesie, Martinica (2024), ISISAR-International Writers Meet, Kolkata, India (2025).