Reading: Commotion and storm by Marc Tiefenthal

Marc Tiefenthal (b. ?) is a Belgian, writer, translator and poet. I read an existential poem:

Commotion and storm
The sky as the top solution you must
do so, yes, or
hell as a last refuge.

No, we did not invent this by the way
nor shall it disappear by the same way.

Otherwise, the bustle and the storm,
the roar and the preaches
will be silenced in, right?

And then the blood would flow better
in our veins than coagulate in vain
cut and stink the air stream?

As far let’s end it
once for all

The first line seems to invoke a deity, or at least a divine imperative: “you must / do so” or you will go to hell. Hell as a last refuge, rather than a punishment, indicated the primacy of experience over suffering. Even an afterlife of suffering is worthwhile, when hell is a ‘last refuge’.

We did not invent this. I read this as a reference to our innate urge to believe in a ‘top solution’, that materializes in the man-made Pantheon of gods. This shall not disappear, because it is so essential to the human condition that we couldn’t call ourselves humans without it.

We couldn’t stand the silence. Without the roar and the preaches (le grondement et la prêche) there won’t be the conversation that defines humanity. The blood should flow, rather than coagulate in vain. There is a word play in French:

le sang ferait mieux de couler
dans nos veines que de coaguler en vain
d’une veine coupée pour empester l’air?

The poem ends abruptly and ‘once and for all’. What is ‘it’? The sky as top solution? This poem itself? I believe anything, except the ‘roar and preaches’.