Sunday, December 29, 2013

Cargo Culte


Serge Gainsbourg 1971
(I try to translate)
I know of the the magicians who call to jets
In the jungle of New Guinea 
They scan the zenith coveting the guineas
That pillaging the freight would bring them

On the sea of coral in the wake of this
Machine those creatures not deprived
Of reason those Papuans wait for vapour
The wreck of the Viscount and that of the Comet

And as their totem hasn't ever been able to bring down
To their feet either a Boeing or even a DC-4
They dream of hijacks and of bird accidents

Those naive shipwreckers armed with blowguns
Who sacrifice to the cargo cult
By blowing toward the azur and the airplanes.

Where are you Melody and your wrecked body
Is it haunting the archipeligo where the sirens live
Or rather, attatched to the plane whose alarm
Siren has become silent, did you stay

Adrift on the currents have you already touched
Those bright corals of the Guinean coasts
Where those indiginous magicians act in vain
Who still hope for smashed planes

Having nothing more to lose or a God in whom to believe,
So that they give me back my insignificant loves 
I, like them, I prayed to the night cargo planes

And I hold onto that hope of an air
Disaster that would bring Melody back to me
A minor turned away from the gravity of the stars. 



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