Truth

What is truth, is it black and white

Is honesty in deed the best policy?

Are those with the might always right

Does power corrupt us, absolutely?

For the answers do we look to others

In sundry media, assorted opinions.

But do we look under the covers

Are these leaders or merely minions

Who is it tells us what to say and think?

And can we seek the meaning through?

Or is it into conformity we sink?

And what their saying must be true.

The more we probe for candour

The more we cogitate and verify

Awareness we begin to gander

And no more need to clarify.

When told that it is for certain

Black is black no white or brown

If we only glimpse behind the curtain

We see that up is really down

Temps

Au firmament le soleil a brillé
Et pour un court instant s'en est allé

Voici le jour où le monde apparaît
Dans le flot temporel d'un cur qui naît

Du gouffre ténébreux l'aube s’élève
Au sommet du chêne où monte la sève

Solennelle s'épuisant en serments
Et promesses trahies au fil du temps

La vie est courte en sa rude saison
On en ignore le sens la raison

Il est absent à travers tous les âges
Le sauveur de la pluie et des orages

Et nostalgique l'imagination
Refait le monde et la création

Le temps d' une vie le temps d'un mystère
Le soleil illuminera la terre

Pour un instant il la réchauffera
Et comme il est venu il s'en ira

Richard Sage 

Traduction
Jean-Pierre Mallet

Empire and Art

We all recall the enigmatic smile

Of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo

But less the House of Valois know

Or of King Francis his patron’s profile

And the origin of renaissance style.

To him the then people of France bestow

The title “Le Pere de Lettres”  to show

His importance as a bibliophile.

So which one has best stood the test of time?

The philanthropic king and all his deeds

Now at Fontainebleau they pay him no heed

You queue in Paris to see her sublime

 “ La Gioconda” with her vacant gaze.

Art is immortal, empire decays.