Jeltje Fanoy #33 Non, je ne regrette rien

In those primitive recordings
there was a hardness
to her voice,
telling us to pull
ourselves together,
almost like a military command,
with all that money and fame behind her,
Edith Piaf's booming voice
declared, with flair,
that she regretted nothing,
and she became a fixture
in th fifties, spinning 45rpm
on portable record-players
in people's lounge rooms,
I imagined her fierce,
in control of her life,
determined to sing
in spite of everything,
now, they say, she really
sang about herself,
her unhappy love-affairs
fuelled by narcotics and alcohol,
what mattered, then, was th art, th genius
of her voice, money could be made, here,
if only you didn't regret some things,
appeared on a gigantic stage,
like Edith did, hiding her tragic self
with flair, an inspiration to all
who'd returned from th war,
th concentration camps,
fought in th Resistance,
embracing reality, completely,
in a censored, competitive world
that awaited everyone in th fifties,
at th end of insufferable journeys