Yekta (France)

​Of dark descent
 
I was born in the dive of a plane that crashed
      forty-seven seconds after take-off
I was born in skids in off-road slides
      in spins and somersaults and pile-ups
I was born in black tides
      in gas escapes
in backfires
      and ricocheting bullets
I was born on a toxic sofa
      and on collapsing terraces
in the melting of fuses
      and chemical fires
with a headlong satellite
      a toppling crane
the derailing of trains
      the subsiding of grounds
the folding of goalposts
      the cracking of pipes
and on the balconies detached from the top of a skyscraper
      in the cart that comes adrift in full flight from the merry-go-round
the scaffolding that collapses
               the lift that plummets to earth
I came into this world through a fault in the points
      a mistake in punctuation in assembly instructions
a programming error
      a delayed indication
I am the heir to disasters
      and the spirit of adversity has shaped me
a pure product of dark reveries
      that crowd into the brain of a town
I was born in a loss of balance
      a sudden problem
I was born in the dance of faulty machines
      the metallic blunders of death
forming the end of the sinister purr
      of those civilisations that in their arms
squeeze all the breath out of us
      like the granddad addicted to morphine or the possessive mother

(Translation by Roger Little)
“Heir to disasters” (Extracts)

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