Une ballade c'est une nouvelle?

Episode 4 de notre série de nouvelles, un poème. Logique non? 

Pire, un poème en anglais... Une ballade c'est un poème non? Je ne suis jamais sure... Et là, je vous présente mes plus plates excuses mais je ne traduirais pas. Je suis une horrible flemmarde et il faut se plaindre à l'auteur pour toute réclamation. (de toute façon je peux bien dire ce que je veux, elle est partie vivre à l'autre bout du monde pour éviter que je ne lui demande une suite) (vous parlez d'une mesure extrême...) (je ne me savais pas si effrayante, mais il faut croire que je cache bien mon jeu) (pardon pour l'anglais donc, j’espère que la majorité d'entre vous y comprendront quand même quelque chose...) (selon les propres dires de l'auteur, "mon prof m’ayant rappelé que j’avais « trouvé mon style » en anglais, je me devais de faire preuve de mes talents d’auteur. C’est pour ça que, bien qu’en décalage avec les quatre autres histoires, cette ballade a toute sa place dans l’ouvrage que nous te présentons (en vrai moi je kiffe les histoires un poco dramatiques donc je me voyais pas faire un truc tout rose bonbon – je cultive ma différence.)". Tout s'explique!)

Il s'agit donc d'une ballade country sur l'air de Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts  de Bob Dylan. 

Ballade nommée Cecelia and the shadow in the corner of her eyes, par Michaela Quinn, femme cowboy, vit dans un ranch au Texas entouré de ses poules et de ses vaches qui la comprennent mieux que personne. Elle a une  licence en « creative writing » à la University of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Elle écrit de nombreuses paroles de chansons pour des grands chanteurs country, comme Bob Dylan, Hannah Montana et Taylor Swift (plus d’un mètre 80). « Cecilia and the shadows in the corner of her eyes » est un premier galop d’essai parfaitement réussi.

She flipped the sign to “CLOSED”, dimmed the lights and beckoned the men to leave,
Macias the cow-boy was here again, that sturdy man no one could deceive
He stood beneath the doorway, with his all-to-weary smile
And no one could devise what brought him to tread those miles
Except maybe Cecelia, and that shadow in the corner of her eyes.

Macias pictured it so clear: Pilar coming home from his daily spree,
From dusk ’til dawn dead drunk, and always as violent as can be
Pilar was no one’s fool, a country-man who only guns could tame,
Who played a dangerous part in the county’s narcotic game -
And his wife Cecelia, bearing it all with that shadow in her eyes.

Rumour had it ‘round town that Macias here was one to take a stand
He could rise against the infamy of Pilar’s iron hand
The first was esteemed throughout the county, the latter only feared,
Despite Macias’ heroic count’nance, nothing to him appeared
More worthy, than gazing into the dark corners of the barmaid’s eyes.

She set off one Sunday with her rattling car and a heart loaded with grief.
To Mexico she drove, her cousin’d died – Cecelia was bereaved.
The burial had passed, but still no sign of her return.
The people of her town were all eager but to learn,
Why three days had gone by with still no sign of those dark saddened eyes.

Macias the hardy cow-boy was riding on his valiant horse that day
He ran upon Cecelia: drugged and dozing in her rattling car she lay.
The Narcos were behind this: hoards of mary-jane in the trunk he found…
And despite her tightly shut lids and dreary, absent mind
He still felt her staring back, from the shadows in the corner of her eyes.

No one knew the circumstances, no one even dared enquire:
The drug snuggling was all too common, the cost of being curious much too dire.
But our dear cow-boy, that one boy who could never be deceived
He knew this was by Pilar and his pernicious gang achieved;
And he saw that the shadows had now spread within Cecelia’s op’ning eyes.

He brought her back on horse to his wild and remote Arizonian ranch,
Once her senses came to life, with shame and awe and fright she came to blench.
“Your husband is a vile, vulgar, vicious fool, he said to her,
A princess the like of you should never such a life endure”.
In silence she sat, the shadows clouding the corners of her eyes.

He spilled his heavy-hearted soul; it had been too much for him to bear:
“We once were friends Pilar and I, one of those inseparable pairs
In his foul deeds and dirty acts I wrongfully took part, said he
And all the while, my carelessness was forbidding me to see
The shadows that were there all along in my poor wife’s drowning eyes.”

For Macias had been married to a county girl in those rash reckless times
Of this world she is no longer - victim of the Narcos’ hateful crimes.
He spoke no word ever since, and a righteous cow-boy he became.
But a promise to himself he made, that never again would he be to blame
For failing to see those shadowed eyes, women’s shadows of despair.”

« My love for you is real, and should not be inconsid’rately dismissed.
Were your fine hands ever tightly held, those soft lips ever kissed?”
Our cow-boy here was begging, he wished for Cecelia to stay
He wished to make her smile, yes he wished to make her gay
Most of all, he wished to see the colours hidden by the shadows in her eyes.

Cecelia was in awe: once a hardy gangster, now so tender.
One of the Narcos in his prime, now a cow-boy with such splendour.
But she could not give her heart to him, though she knew it to be right:
“You’re only shunning off your grief, she said, there’s no such bliss in sight”
But deep down, both had felt her shadowed eyes flicker at the thought of love.

Cecilia left the ranch, she waved goodbye on board her rattling car
Back to her town she drove; the state police was waiting at the bar:
Pilar’d been arrested for six charges of gravity supreme.
Our town girl was now free to mend the pieces of her broken dreams
Free to love, free to dispel those shadows in the corners of her eyes.

She runned back to Macias, our lonely cowboy of the High Plains
“You and me, we’re meant to be” she uttered in the pouring rain.
His stout shoulders, wavy hair and dimples on his smiling face
Seemed perfect to Cecilia as their bodies locked in an embrace.
There was no shadow in the corner of her eyes, no - only light.

Macias the cow-boy lui apprend à monter à cheval
ça s’est passé dans les halles
elle est tombé, ça lui a fait super mal
Mais finalement elle a remis pieds dans l’étrier
Et la vie elle a kiffé.

Comme quoi, dans la vie, même quand tout est dramatique, ça finit bien. La romance, c'est le bien, CQFD. Est-il encore besoin d'en dire plus? 

Bon lundi, 
Chi-Chi