Poem: "Le Flâneur"
Apr. 5th, 2022 03:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis is today's freebie, inspired by a prompt from nsfwords. It also fills a square in my 4-1-22 card for the Untranslateable Words Bingo fest:
Flâneur (French): Someone who enjoys walking the streets and taking in and appreciating the beauty of what's around them.
"Le Flâneur"
He wanders the dimensions
of the multiverse, looking at
everything but attached to nothing.
He no longer recalls precisely
when he left Paris and passed
into the infinite interplay of realms;
it is no longer particularly important.
He was merely there one moment
and somewhere else the next.
Since all the places have been
interesting, he has no complaints.
He has seen such marvelous things!
Le flâneur has witnessed civilizations
make their first fumbling steps to build
cities and universities and starships.
He has looked upon a metroplex of glass
and a field of green corduroy crops.
He has tasted the cuisines of
fine restaurants and humble carts.
He has listened to languages
changing, evolving, flowing
like musical liquids.
He has watched fish
drag themselves onto
muddy beaches, seen
carnivorous plants learn
how to walk on their roots,
and jellyfish take over a world
with their communal teamwork.
He has observed the birth of stars,
and their death, and how all of that
is a riot of indescribable, exquisite colors.
He has felt fur and feathers and skin,
smelled perfumes and stenches,
scaled mountains and valleys,
farmsteads and municipalities.
He has seen pets and livestock,
wildlife and civilized races in
all shapes and sizes and styles.
There are so many forms of life across
the multiverse, he could never count them.
Le flâneur has seen horrors too, yet he
finds beauty in the unfolding bombs and
the weeds that survive famine and drought.
The shadows that come to fill the hollows
of skeletons are eloquent in how they
highlight the shape of uninhabited bones.
Some worlds are lifeless, and yet they too
have their wonders, skies of flawless velvet
bejeweled with finely faceted stars.
Le flâneur is not a god.
It is easy for other people
to misunderstand this, because
he has traveled so far and
experienced so much.
He feels no desire
to create or to change
anything, only to observe
whatever is already there.
Le flâneur is not a god,
but the opposite of a god:
the audience who wanders
the gallery of the galaxies to
admire the work of the Artist.
* * *
Notes:
Le Flâneur: a Key Symbol of Cultural Appreciation in France
Some religious scholars posit that God wants an audience, wants people to admire and enjoy all of Creation.
nsfwords. It also fills a square in my 4-1-22 card for the Untranslateable Words Bingo fest:Flâneur (French): Someone who enjoys walking the streets and taking in and appreciating the beauty of what's around them.
"Le Flâneur"
He wanders the dimensions
of the multiverse, looking at
everything but attached to nothing.
He no longer recalls precisely
when he left Paris and passed
into the infinite interplay of realms;
it is no longer particularly important.
He was merely there one moment
and somewhere else the next.
Since all the places have been
interesting, he has no complaints.
He has seen such marvelous things!
Le flâneur has witnessed civilizations
make their first fumbling steps to build
cities and universities and starships.
He has looked upon a metroplex of glass
and a field of green corduroy crops.
He has tasted the cuisines of
fine restaurants and humble carts.
He has listened to languages
changing, evolving, flowing
like musical liquids.
He has watched fish
drag themselves onto
muddy beaches, seen
carnivorous plants learn
how to walk on their roots,
and jellyfish take over a world
with their communal teamwork.
He has observed the birth of stars,
and their death, and how all of that
is a riot of indescribable, exquisite colors.
He has felt fur and feathers and skin,
smelled perfumes and stenches,
scaled mountains and valleys,
farmsteads and municipalities.
He has seen pets and livestock,
wildlife and civilized races in
all shapes and sizes and styles.
There are so many forms of life across
the multiverse, he could never count them.
Le flâneur has seen horrors too, yet he
finds beauty in the unfolding bombs and
the weeds that survive famine and drought.
The shadows that come to fill the hollows
of skeletons are eloquent in how they
highlight the shape of uninhabited bones.
Some worlds are lifeless, and yet they too
have their wonders, skies of flawless velvet
bejeweled with finely faceted stars.
Le flâneur is not a god.
It is easy for other people
to misunderstand this, because
he has traveled so far and
experienced so much.
He feels no desire
to create or to change
anything, only to observe
whatever is already there.
Le flâneur is not a god,
but the opposite of a god:
the audience who wanders
the gallery of the galaxies to
admire the work of the Artist.
* * *
Notes:
Le Flâneur: a Key Symbol of Cultural Appreciation in France
Some religious scholars posit that God wants an audience, wants people to admire and enjoy all of Creation.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-04-05 09:09 pm (UTC)Some people say that "God" in the usual sense created humanity because he wanted to be praised outrageously until the end of time. (Why would a god want that?)
Well ...
Date: 2022-04-05 09:17 pm (UTC)It also has positive connotations. People argue over the isness of a word, but there's nothing simple about this one.
>> Some people say that "God" in the usual sense created humanity because he wanted to be praised outrageously until the end of time. (Why would a god want that?) <<
Why does any artist?
Re: Well ...
Date: 2022-04-05 09:41 pm (UTC)Re: Well ...
Date: 2022-04-14 04:17 am (UTC)Re: Well ...
Date: 2022-04-14 08:21 am (UTC)I think the Earth is deserving of outrageous praise, though.
Re: Well ...
Date: 2022-04-16 12:12 pm (UTC)(echo here) Haiiilll
Re: Well ...
Date: 2022-04-16 06:28 pm (UTC)Re: Well ...
Date: 2022-04-16 12:20 pm (UTC)Anyway, <whistling cheerfully, "I Am A Happy Wanderer" - I see the happy wanderer, along his random path..." I think I don't want to continue this. So, I think not.... [[vanishes in a puff of purple glitter]]
Re: Well ...
Date: 2022-04-16 06:31 pm (UTC)There was white, bearded God ... sprawled across his throne, surrounded by beer cans, lobbing thunderbolts through the clouds.
The caption read, "There is no Devil. It's just GOD when he's DRUNK."
Given what I know of Christianity, alcoholism, and dysfunctional families, this explanation covers all the observed data.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-04-05 11:52 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2022-04-06 12:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-04-06 01:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-04-06 09:06 am (UTC)