Thank You Satan! (Léo Ferré)

Léo Ferré : August 24, 1916 – July 14, 1993.

Thank You Satan

Pour la flamme que tu allumes
Au creux d’un lit pauvre ou rupin
Pour le plaisir qui s’y consume
Dans la toile ou dans le satin
Pour les enfants que tu ranimes
Au fond des dortoirs chérubins
Pour leurs pétales anonymes
Comme la rose du matin

Thank you Satan

Pour le voleur que tu recouvres
De ton chandail tendre et rouquin
Pour les portes que tu lui ouvres
Sur la tanière des rupins
Pour le condamné que tu veilles
A l’Abbaye du monte en l’air
Pour le rhum que tu lui conseilles
Et le mégot que tu lui sers

Thank you Satan

Pour les étoiles que tu sèmes
Dans le remords des assassins
Et pour ce c?ur qui bat quand même
Dans la poitrine des putains
Pour les idées que tu maquilles
Dans la tête des citoyens
Pour la prise de la Bastille
Même si ça ne sert à rien

Thank you Satan

Pour le prêtre qui s’exaspère
A retrouver le doux agneau
Pour le pinard élémentaire
Qu’il prend pour du Château Margaux
Pour l’anarchiste à qui tu donnes
Les deux couleurs de ton pays
Le rouge pour naître à Barcelone
Le noir pour mourir à Paris

Thank you Satan

Pour la sépulture anonyme
Que tu fis à Monsieur Mozart
Sans croix ni rien sauf pour la frime
Un chien, croque-mort du hasard
Pour les poètes que tu glisses
Au chevet des adolescents
Quand poussent dans l’ombre complice
Des fleurs du mal de dix-sept ans

Thank you Satan

Pour le péché que tu fais naître
Au sein des plus raides vertus
Et pour l’ennui qui va paraître
Au coin des lits où tu n’es plus
Pour les ballots que tu fais paître
Dans le pré comme des moutons
Pour ton honneur à ne paraître
Jamais à la télévision

Thank you Satan

Pour tout cela et plus encor
Pour la solitude des rois
Le rire des têtes de morts
Le moyen de tourner la loi
Et qu’on ne me fasse point taire
Et que je chante pour ton bien
Dans ce monde où les muselières
Ne sont plus faites pour les chiens…

Thank you Satan!

for the flame that you light
in the small of a poor or swanky bed
for the pleasure that there consumes
in cloth or in satin
for the children that you revive
in the depths of the cherub’s dorms
for their anonymous petals
like the morning rose

thank you satan

for the thief that you cover
with your soft ginger pullover
for the door that you open for him
on the riches’ den
for the convicted over whom you watch
at the abbey of the ascent
for the rum that you recommend
and the butt that you serve him

thank you satan

for the stars that you sow
in the remorse of the assassins
and for the heart that’s still beating
in the whores’ chest
for the ideas that you
disguise in the citizens’ head
for the storming of the Bastille
even if it is useless

thank you satan

for the priest who is exasperated
to find again the gentle lamb
for the elementary booze
he takes for some ‘Château Margaux’
for the anarchist to whom you give
the two colours of his country
the red for being born in Barcelona
the black for dying in Paris

thank you satan

for the anonymous sepulchre
that you made for Monsieur Mozart
no cross nothing except for show
a dog, undertaker of the chance
for the poets that you slip
on the teenagers’ bedhead
when in the conniving shadow
17 year-old fleurs du mal grow

thank you satan

for the sin that you bring
within the stiffest virtues
and for the boredom that will appear
at the corner of the beds where you no longer are
for the fools that you make graze
just like the sheep in the meadow
for your honour in appearing
never on the television

thank you satan

for all that and even more
for the solitude of the kings
the laugh of the death’s heads
the means to divert the law
and nobody dare try to keep me silent
I sing for your own good
in this world where muzzles
are no longer made for dogs…

thank you satan

Emergency rally for Gaza : Stop the Massacre! End the Siege Now!

5pm, Tuesday, 30th December
Victorian State Library
Cnr La Trobe and Swanston St
Melbourne

Over 230 people have been killed and more than 700 wounded (half of them critically) on Saturday, December 27, when the Israeli government launched a series of violent air strikes against the Palestinian civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli airstrikes, which saw 100 tonnes of bombs dropped across the region, took place at 11.30 am (Palestinian time) just as thousands of Palestinian school children were breaking from school to go home, resulting in many of them being killed or seriously injured.

Journalists and human rights activists on the scene at Gaza Hospital are reporting gruesome scenes; shocked families pick through body parts to identify loved ones — amputated bodies are strewn throughout hallways because morgues in the city can no longer accommodate the dead.

The Israeli air strikes against Gaza’s 1.5 million civilian population comes on top of the Israeli imposed siege designed to strangle the life of the Palestinians living there, by denying them adequate fuel, food, medical supplies and power.

The people of Gaza are standing steadfast in the face of these atrocities but we in the international community also need to raise our voices and be heard to demand an immediate end to Israel’s massacre of hundreds of innocent people and for an end to the illegal siege and collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

Join us and others around the world and raise your voices in opposition to Israel’s war crimes and illegal collective punishment of the people of Gaza: Stop the Massacre! End the Siege Now!

Please bring placards and banners…
Organised by Justice for Palestine and Palestinian Community Association…
For more information: 0439 454 375
www.justiceforpalestine.org
email: [email protected]