Democracy – Excerpt from Illuminations

“The flag goes to the filthy landscape, and our patois chokes the drum.
“In the centers we will feed the most cynical prostitution. We will massacre the logical revolts.
“To the peppered and soggy countries! – To the service of the most monstrous industrial or military exploitations.
“Goodbye here, goodbye there. Conscripts of the goodwill, we will have the ferocious philosophy; ignorant for science, cunning for comfort; the flat tire for the world that goes. It is the true march. Forward, road! ”

Note of Intent by Frédéric Pattar

“When Sébastien Boin proposed me to write something for Sirens and midi net, this text of Rimbaud, Democracy, came back to my memory and imposed itself to me like an undeniable evidence. The function of the urban siren, in addition to the sound power that it deploys, announces an imminent catastrophe, it is an association that goes without saying. But it is not quite this kind of danger that Rimbaud speaks about in Democracy. The poet quotes the violent words of what seems to be an armed group. The use of quotation marks on the whole poem leaves no doubt about this distancing. By the title, which can seem enigmatic, one can very well imagine that the mercenaries who express themselves here are the armed, brutal and bloody arm of a democracy…

Even if I wanted this musical moment, derisory and playful, it does not less evoke a fear vis-a-vis a possible drift of our democracy, such as it exists today. “