3.18.2013

Francois Luong





from Against Architecture


françois luong
 


how to build within
        a dissemination

        of cement    each

slab facing

        an opposite direction
    against the notion

         of a millstone
    or the notion
         of a road


arising from the cutting
            of the soil
those trenches that support
                the word






how words crumble 

in time

         the outline of
        a gate

    gradually losing
        its lattice frame
    until all that remains

describes a quarry 

        an outline
        to be used






la nécessité de plier 

print     le livre
          as enclosure

          a unbuilt roads
away from a constant
     space of appearances

between shadow
     and pigment

passing through a silicate
     matrix     not as impurity
but as light


          le mot du mur







au-delà du concret
             du béton
     we keep on building
               on adding

from ghost of notes
          letters as steps

toward an extension of space
     through poles and lines
     placed here
          and there

or as freely          across
          this expanse

a presence stolen by
     the frame of a doorway







under the condition
     not to end

     the book can only turn
into all that is there

     a house of infinite

walls     doors     windows


windows for an f
     function of an invariable
     frame surrounding


silhouettes     against
          the windowpane
in the margins

a succession of indeterminate
                         articles




photo courtesy of Amy Trachtenberg


Originally from Strasbourg, France, françois luong lives in San Francisco. He has translated the works of Esther Tellermann, François Turcot, and Rémi Froger, as well as other francophone poets from France, Québec and elsewhere. His translations have appeared or are forthcoming in LIT, West Wind Review, Verse, Dandelion (Canada), Aufgabe, and elsewhere.

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