Litany

Death has a thousand udders to saturate running dogs. Her udders are greatly taken with fangs. Death saturates its dogs with blood.
They run in the night of the world, mastiffs howling, and they uncover their chops in their grins of the powerless. Then they go on the prowl, huge hounds drunk with slaughter, they drive out whatever is weak: hope, love, youth.
So they bark with their mouths wide open, do dogs.

Who whispers, who prays, who remains silent, who sinks, who weeps, who protests, who kneels down, who stands up, who complies but objects, who lives there?

Death is a whore that opens her sex to rifles. Men sell their souls to make death come. Their souls are received by death. They go off to countries of woe, enlisting child warriors, tearing them away from their mothers’ bodies. The very little ones lie in the mud. They ransack happy villages, steal women’s faces and trample on the maimed. They wear the mask of the devil and and yell open-mouthed, do men.

Who whispers, who repents, who weeps, who kneels down, who fails, who gives in, who turns away, who protests, who complies then straightens up, who lives there?

Death has a thousand ways that rip up mother earth. The earth humbly collects the bones of those sacrificed. Death is a dark step-mother.
The children of mother earth follow the ways of death. They no longer see light, move like cattle sold at market. Their skulls are smashed, their bodies pant and dislocate. Sometimes they ape human postures, do children of the Earth.

Who whispers, who rebels, who groans, who gives in, who flees, who recovers, who faces up, who sneaks away, then devotes himself to wrath, who lives there?

Françoise Donadieu
(traduction: Anne Perrier)