To betray trust, you have to be close to the one you betray like husbands or wives....

"Kiss of Judas", Translation of Pierre Emmanuel's Le Baiser de Judas by T Wignesan


In our century where one sells father and mother
Husband his wife and wife her husband
And who doesn’t with ease dispose the only brother
Gives up yet two scorched by blade and fire

Of course breath comes hard to him who thus
Horribly heartless sacrifices his friend
But efforts turn to Nought before man comes of age
Who without remorse at first is forced to vomit
Disembowelled in one’s own mummified body

No one’s spared by the multitude
Which draws us into it all like an epidemic
Each is smothered in the crowd as in the prison cell
All become lambs : who’s to be betrayed first

Under constant surveillance yet others to victimise
Each spies within the circle surrounding him
His soul lives stuck to the peephole
And if while in their midst they catch him in the act
To punish him they give him up to the Law

Thus every man in the steps of an apostle
Seeking to be approved worships the Law
The great one-eyed lady
The arrogant goddess
Whoever stands for such justice demeans his spirit
And creates in us a vile and villainous heart


In the name of the men of law and the public force
All functionaries like you and I
In this Darkness where Emptiness reigns supreme
I mete justice out to Judas
What he did he did for me
So that I might in turn do the same
Kissing the forehead in good faith
To such as he all over the earth
Every day umpteen times I vow
The mechanical anger
Of the labourers of the Law

(from Pierre Emmanuel’s collection: "Les Jours de la Passion" - The Days of the Passion-)

© T. Wignesan – Paris, October 11, 2014
Copyright © T Wignesan | Year Posted 2014