Tag: poetry

about

~ Catherine ~ 2 Comments

This is a space for writing, listening, and noticing.

For words that arrive slowly and stay.
For poems, reflections, and the quiet connections between them.
For thoughts that do not always fit into neat categories, but find their place here.

My name is Catherine (Cathy).
I am a writer and poet based in Luxembourg. I have been keeping this space since 2012, slowly building an archive of language, memory, and attention. What began as a place to put words has become a library of them.

I write every day. Not always to publish, but always to understand.

Much of what you’ll find here is prose and poetry, often shaped by music, by listening, by small moments that open into something larger. I write about music as a way of thinking, not reviewing — about how sound connects to memory, language, and feeling. Listening is part of my writing practice.

Language

I am fluent in Luxembourgish, French, and German, and I write primarily in English, the language where my inner voice feels most precise.
Occasionally, poems and fragments appear in other languages when English cannot hold them. This, too, is part of the work.

How to read this site

This is not a feed.
It’s a collection.

You can start anywhere:

  • follow the menus
  • search for a word
  • open an archive
  • move sideways instead of forward

Reading here is meant to be slow.

A little context

When I am not writing, I work in early childhood education. I spend my days with small humans, and that way of looking at the world has a way of slipping into the writing, whether I intend it or not.

Some of my words have found their way into books. You can find them here.

Elsewhere

This blog is where most of my writing lives.
Occasionally, words travel further:

Collaborations & contact

I collaborate with musicians and visual artists, working where language meets sound and image.
If you think my writing could be part of something you are making, you can reach me at:

cathy@boom.lu

A note

All words on this site are mine, unless stated otherwise.
Stories are fictional, even when they feel close to the bone.
Poems are truth, even when they are not mine alone.

Please do not copy, repost, or republish without permission.

© 2012–2026 micqu.org

December 21st. Happy 13th blog anniversary.

~ Catherine ~ 1 Comment

December 21st, 2012 was supposed to be the end of everything. That’s what people said back then, anyway. The end of the world, the end of a cycle, something final. I remember the mood around it, that strange mix of unease and freedom. And I remember thinking that if everything really was about to end, then I didn’t have much to lose. That was the thought that led me to start this blog on that exact day.

I didn’t know what it would become. I didn’t even know what I wanted from it. I just knew I needed a place. Somewhere words could land without being rushed. Somewhere I could return to, again and again, without having to explain myself.

Over the years I tried other platforms. Some I left because they got too loud, some because they stopped feeling right, some because I simply lost interest. This one stayed. I never really questioned that. It feels strange to even write it now, but it’s true.

I was curious today. I always loo at the stats on the anniversary of the blog. And what stood out was music. Song reviews, album notes, listening posts. Those were the things that surfaced first this year.
(If you’re curious: Antimatter, Sivert Høyem, Weather Systems.)

That sent me back to the beginning. Because it started like that. Mostly music. Things I listened to obsessively. Notes written quickly, without much distance. Those early posts aren’t here anymore, but the rhythm is. Music first. Words following.

There is a lot of poetry on this blog now. Probably more than anything else. It almost overfills the place at times. But the music is scattered. Tucked in between. And that still seems to be how people arrive. They come for a song, an album, a listening note, and then sometimes they wander off somewhere else. Or they stay. I don’t always know which, and I don’t mind not knowing. That’s a lie, I would love to know, but as I said yesterday, the blog doesn’t invite comments or thoughts, not by design or desire, but because the posts don’t demand anything from the readers. I consider myself to be a poet, a writer if you will. The fact that not one poem appears in the top 10 most read posts this year feels weird, at the same time it tells me that what I share about music is just as valuable if not more, than the poems, the opinions or the short stories. And there are also the pages people keep opening every year, discreetly. I notice that. I like noticing that.
(about me • books)

And somehow, all of the above keeps circling back to the day it began on. Going back to the start.

December 21st is the shortest day of the year. Winter solstice. The darkest day. And the turning point. Nothing changes visibly, and yet from here on, the light comes back. Slowly. I never noticed how true it is for me too. I don’t believe in coincidences. It had to be this way.

The blog changed. I changed. The voice shifted, the urgency softened. The staying didn’t. Thirteen years is a long time to keep showing up to the same place. I only really notice that when I stop showing up or when I question myself too much.

Thank you for reading, for finding this space, for following a song or a sentence and letting it lead you somewhere else.

For we are all listening to the sun.

remembrance

~ Catherine ~ 2 Comments

I came across your blog today. It’s frozen in time. Your last post was published Nov. 27th 2020. A few short weeks later you left us forever. I clicked the link because I longed for your voice. It was always like a warm hug, even when you were terminally ill. There was humour and sarcasm and not everyone got it. Some people are easily offended. You always knew that I wasn’t one of them. That’s why I got to read your mature pieces too.

You were my mentor. I don’t easily attribute that role to anyone, but for you it was true. When I was ready to disappear and give everything up in 2018, you hunted me down and found me on FB. You convinced me to keep writing, to persevere. You helped me find my voice and be okay with sitting in my niche. I don’t write modern poetry, never did. I write from the soul and you understood that before I did. I remember how I tried to fight it and to tell you that I was just another young bored housewife, but you didn’t allow me to celebrate my pity party. You stood up for me, for my voice when I couldn’t. I could never forget that and I will be grateful. Always and forever.

I’d like to believe that you are proud of me, of my writing, but also of the woman I became. You once said you love every inch of me. It was not meant to be suggestive, not really. What you meant was that you liked my mind, my way of thinking, even when I was overthinking. And I loved you back just as much.

I came across your blog today because I wanted to see how many are inactive. Too many to count. I unsubscribed from them all. But I cannot and will not unsubscribe from yours. I was wrapped in a blacket of grief that was completely unexpected. I think about you often, always with a smile. The smile is there now too, but so is the hole you left that will never be filled. No one was and no one will ever be like you Robert. Next week you will be gone for 5 years.

Thank you Batman

Caged Butterflies

~ Catherine ~ 2 Comments

Ce silence étendu qui pèse sur les papillons dans la neige
Enrobés de glaciers,
menottés à des millions d’étincelles qui brûlent derrière des yeux fermés.
Il est où, ce phare sauveur ?
Il est où, le jour qui chatouille le soleil ?
S’ils pouvaient seulement s’envoler,
semer des étoiles dans des vagues de nuages.
Mais le silence est une cage fermée à double clé.
On n’y peut jamais échapper.

###

(Translation)

This long silence settles on the butterflies in the snow,
wrapped in glaciers,
handcuffed to millions of sparks burning behind closed eyes.
Where is that saving lighthouse?
Where is the day that tickles the sun?
If only they could fly away,
scattering stars into waves of clouds.
But silence is a cage that no key can open.
There is never a way out.

two frequencies

~ Catherine ~ Leave a comment

She is a rainbow
He, a monochrome arc.
She breaks light open,
he carries its edges.
She follows storms,
he rests in calm.


She moves in certainty,
the promise after thunder.
He lingers in shades
where colour dares not bloom.
Yet somehow
they meet
where the sky forgets itself.


She glows,
he holds.
Two frequencies,
one horizon.
Different worlds,
same gravity.


She reaches through silence,
he answers without sound.
Their orbits collide
for a heartbeat,
then drift to distance.


She dreams in colour,
he sleeps in grey.
Each night
they find each other
in the space
between dark and day.

###

For my calm and constant. For the one who steadies my light. ❤️

Dreamt by eternity

~ Catherine ~ Leave a comment

She rises through veils of starlight,
half-formed, half-remembered,
a dream whispering itself awake.


Galaxies ripple at her passing,
their edges bending soft as fabric,
their fire trembling in her shadow.


She is the silence between moons,
the breath that unravels comets,
the mirror in which time forgets its face.


Every step dissolves into light,
every gesture fractures into colour.
She is
a secret the universe cannot hold,
a vision dreamt by eternity.

The August Current is here

~ Catherine ~ 1 Comment

Today is release day.


My tenth collection, The August Current, is out in the world.

If you’ve been following along, you already know how this one came together. Ninety poems written by hand during the August wave; one after the other, without pause, without much thought beyond letting them happen. They’re not arranged or polished into a structure. They stand in the exact order they fell out of my fingers.
Typing them up was the only step. The current itself decided the flow.

This collection feels raw, immediate, maybe even fragile, but that’s what it was, and that’s what I wanted to keep.

It’s strange to think this is book number ten. A small celebration, a milestone I never planned for, but one that feels quietly important.

Each book is a trace of who I was in that moment and somehow, together, they form a line I can look back on with a mix of disbelief and pride. I did that. I wrote all those words. Some are deeply personal, while others are from borrowed feelings and emotions, but they are all written in my own voice.


Thank you for reading, for being here, for carrying these words in ways I’ll never fully know.


The August Current is available now.

amazon.com

amazon.co.uk

http://paypal.me/micqu to support me directly and get a signed copy. 16.99USD (≈ 15.50 EUR / 13.20 GBP) Shipping included. ❤️

Thank you 🌊💜

C’est quoi l’amour ? (original French poem + English translation)

~ Catherine ~ Leave a comment

I don’t often write in French, but now and then the words arrive in that language, and I let them stay. It’s been happening a little more often lately. This is one of those poems. I kept the French version first, with the English translation below.

💜💜💜

C’est quoi l’amour
quand je m’envole au quai des anges,
dans des nuages lourds de pluie,
lourds de paix ?

C’est quoi l’amour ?
si l’arc-en-ciel n’a qu’une ombre
et que je brûle mes mains
au soleil couchant ?

C’est quoi l’amour
quand tu oublies d’aimer,
laissant derrière toi
les fantômes du passé ?

C’est quoi l’amour ?
Je te demande :
c’est quoi l’amour,
si aucun de nous deux
n’existe pour toujours ?

On se retrouvera.
Une étincelle dans le noir,
une chandelle fragile au vent.

C’est ça l’amour.
Un rêve qui tremble à l’aube,
un clin d’œil d’éternité.
C’est ça l’amour.

💜💜💜

What is love?


What is love
when I rise at the quay of angels,
through clouds heavy with rain,
heavy with peace?

What is love?
if I see only the shadow of the rainbow
at sunset.

What is love
if you forget to love
the ghosts of the past?

What is love?
I ask you:
what is love,
if neither of us
exists forever?

We will meet again,
a spark in the dark,
the glow of a candle.

That is love.
A dream at the break of day,
a glance of eternity.
That is love.

ghosts in my mind

~ Catherine ~ Leave a comment

I chose myself
in a garden of secrets,
walking out through doors,
returning through windows.

Whispers swayed
like leaves exhaling
a silence never meant
to be heard in storms.

Truths clung
to the soles of my bare feet,
a shadow I stepped into
and still can’t shake.

A ghost rests inside my mind,
quietly holding
the words we never said.

I became an almost-everything,
felt, not seen,
with each breath,
each step,

like the slow rise of the sun
after a long, cold winter’s night.

Starrain

~ Catherine ~ Leave a comment

Fireworks are bleeding
from the sky
sleeping petals in the dark,
explosions of emotions,
wounds waiting to be healed.

And in the midst of
this midnight rain,
we are dancing
on the wings of memories,
colourful secrets
written in the stars,
unseen in daylight.

###

Possibly the best of today’s batch. I mentioned that I filled two notebooks, but the truth is, they are thin. And as of today, I wrote 75 poems since August 2nd. It’s a lot and there are a handful of fillers. Wait… I said that yesterday, didn’t I? Either way… Thank you for being in this with me. ❤️💜❤️

Invisible but seen

~ Catherine ~ Leave a comment

The last time I posted was five days ago. Two poems I shared that day. Before that, I experienced a bit of a poetical drought. And something unexpected happened during that time: it didn’t feel bad. It didn’t feel like writer’s block. It wasn’t dramatic. And it didn’t feel as if I was letting anyone down. Not even me. Instead, it just was. A moment to breathe and a moment to focus on other things.
Mainly work. As the school year comes to a close, there are many meetings and day trips. They need to be organized and reports need to be written. It’s nothing earth-shattering but it needs to be done and it takes time. As it should. I can’t really believe that my second year as a preschool teacher is almost over. Time flies. And that is okay.

During the last week of June, my beloved ukulele broke. I’m not sure what exactly happened, but it wasn’t salvageable, and I invested in a new instrument which arrived last Tuesday. And I am completely obsessed with it. It looks beautiful and has a rich sound that invites you to play and play and play. And I’ve been playing for hours without aching fingertips. It sounds lovely too, and to top it off, I wrote a song. My first ever. It’s called Linger, and I wrote the music, the vocal melody, and of course, the words too. It’s not ready to share and it is very, very short, but it felt like an accomplishment. It’s easy to judge or to look down on it, but making music is not as easy as all those talented people out there make it look.

I have written three poems today. Back to back. I think it’s a little like going back to my roots. I used to write with pen and paper, but somehow, in recent years, I switched to writing on my phone. I always have it with me and there is a built-in autocorrect. Writing with pen and paper gives the poetry I write a different edge though. It’s less polished or maybe that is just a subjective feeling because it looks neater when typed. The emotions are clearly visible on the page, not only in the words, but also in my handwriting (which is hard to read at times). I’m not ready to post them here yet, which is unusual, because most often poems come directly out of my fingers onto your screen. Weird, huh?

Restraint. Is that a sign of my age?

Lately, I’ve had the pleasure of hearing a lot of wonderful and unreleased music through private SoundCloud links. I think I mentioned that in a different blogpost not long ago. It’s nice being part of something, even if it is, or if I am, invisible to the world. It makes me feel as if I belong, as if I’m part of something. That’s very nice indeed. Invisible but seen.

I am still in a good place and phase. Still serene and still at peace. Why do I mention it? Simple. Because moments like this often fade quickly, and I cherish them all the more. I know that I am volatile, that my moods are unpredictable, and that my thoughts often descend into the obscure. So this positive streak is worth mentioning.

I will keep posting, don’t worry about that. All of this still matters and it will always matter to me. This blog is my home. A safe space for all my thoughts. I love that you check in with me. Thank you.

In a tower (new poem)

~ Catherine ~ Leave a comment

In a tower
In a tower
In a tower
without windows

High above
High above
High above
touching the clouds

No way out
No way out
No way out
tears in my hands

But then you came
You came
You came
and saw

The walls
The walls
The walls
hiding my light

And brick by brick
And brick by brick
And brick by brick
you set me free

Free
Free
Free
We are birds that fly.

###

(inspired by a song that was for the ears of a chosen few ❤️💜❤️💜)

Skybound

~ Catherine ~ Leave a comment

Hold still.
Don’t look down.
Breathe in.
Stay steady.
I’ll hold your hand on this ledge.
Don’t look down.

The sky is closer than it seems
when fear grows heavy in your limbs.
The wind does not want you to fall,
just feel the feathers on your skin.

Trust the whisper between our hearts,
the silent pact of breath and bone.
This is not the edge of the world,
just the place where wings are grown.

Hold still.
Don’t look down.
Let go of what was never ground.
We are more than this trembling;
we are the leap.

Skybound.
Starrise.