Paragraphs & Poems

Meaningful Love

2008-05-22T20:33:00.002-04:00

What the bad news was

became apparent too late

for us to do anything good about it.

I was offered no urgent dreaming,

didn't need a name or anything.

Everything was taken care of.

In the medium-size city of my awareness

voles are building colossi.

The blue room is over there.

He put out no feelers.

The day was all as one to him.

Some days he never leaves his room

and those are the best days,

by far.

There were morose gardens farther down the slope,

anthills that looked like they belonged there.

The sausages were undercooked,

the wine too cold, the bread molten.

Who said to bring sweaters?

The climate's not that dependable.

The Atlantic crawled slowly to the left

pinning a message on the unbound golden hair of sleeping maidens,

a ruse for next time,

where fire and water are rampant in the streets,

the gate closed—no visitors today

or any evident heartbeat.

I got rid of the book of fairy tales,

pawned my old car, bought a ticket to the funhouse,

found myself back here at six o'clock,

pondering "possible side effects."

There was no harm in loving then,

no certain good either. But love was loving servants

or bosses. No straight road issuing from it.

Leaves around the door are penciled losses.

Twenty years to fix it.

Asters bloom one way or another.

~ John Ashberry

The Sun Also Rises

2008-05-22T20:25:00.000-04:00


"No matter how vulgar a hotel is, the" bar is always nice."

"It's odd."

"Bartenders have always been fine."

"You know," Brett said, "it's quite true. He is only nineteen.
Isn't it amazing?"

We touched the two glasses as they stood side by side on the
bar. They were coldly beaded. Outside the curtained window was
the summer heat of Madrid.

"I like an olive in a Martini," I said to the barman.

"Right you are, sir. There you are."

"Thanks."

"I should have asked, you know."

The barman went far enough up the bar so that he would not
hear our conversation. Brett had sipped from the Martini as it
stood, on the wood. Then she picked it up. Her hand was steady
enough to lift it after that first sip.

"It's good. Isn't it a nice bar?"

"They're all nice bars."

"You know I didn't believe it at first. He was born in 1905.
I was in school in Paris, then. Think of that."

"Anything you want me to think about it?"

"Don't be an ass. Would you buy a lady a drink?"

"We'll have two more Martinis."

"As they were before, sir?"

"They were very good," Brett smiled at him.


~ Ernest Hemingway

The Anactoria Poem

2008-05-21T00:56:00.006-04:00

Some there are who say that the fairest thing seen

on the black earth is an array of horsemen;

some, men marching; some would say ships; but I say

         she whom one loves best



is the loveliest. Light were the work to make this

plain to all, since she, who surpassed in beauty

all mortality, Helen, once forsaking

         her lordly husband,



fled away to Troy--land across the water.

Not the thought of child nor beloved parents

was remembered, after the Queen of Cyprus

         won her at first sight.



Since young brides have hearts that can be persuaded

easily, light things, palpitant to passion

as am I, remembering Anaktória

         who has gone from me



and whose lovely walk and the shining pallor

of her face I would rather see before my

eyes than Lydia's chariots in all their glory

         armored for battle.


Edited by Richard Lattimore

~ Sappho

Be Drunk

2008-05-21T00:55:00.006-04:00

Translated by Louis Simpson

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

~ Charles Baudelaire

A Rose For Emily

2008-05-21T00:55:00.005-04:00

The man himself lay in the bed.

For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.

Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.

~ William Faulkner

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

2008-05-21T00:54:00.009-04:00

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.

~ Washington Irving

Chance

2008-05-21T00:54:00.008-04:00

may favor obscure brainy aptitudes in you
and a love of the past so blind you would
venture, always securing permission,
into the back library stacks, without food
or water because you have a mission:
to find yourself, in the regulated light,
holding a volume in your hands as you
yourself might like to be held.  Mostly your life
will be voices and images.  Information.  You
may go a long way alone, and travel much
to open a book to renew your touch.

~ Molly Peacock

The Necklace

2008-05-21T00:54:00.007-04:00

When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly: "Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?" she imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests; she imagined delicate food served in marvellous dishes, murmured gallantries, listened to with an inscrutable smile as one trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of asparagus chicken.

She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved; she felt that she was made for them. She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after.

She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so keenly when she returned home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery.

~ Guy de Maupassant

My Lost Youth

2008-05-16T23:42:00.000-04:00

Often I think of the beautiful town 
 That is seated by the sea; 
Often in thought go up and down 
The pleasant streets of that dear old town, 
 And my youth comes back to me.          
   And a verse of a Lapland song 
   Is haunting my memory still 
   'A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' 

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,           
 And catch, in sudden gleams, 
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas, 
And islands that were the Hesperides 
 Of all my boyish dreams. 
   And the burden of that old song,           
   It murmurs and whispers still: 
   'A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' 

I remember the black wharves and the slips, 
 And the sea-tides tossing free;           
And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 
 And the magic of the sea. 
   And the voice of that wayward song 
   Is singing and saying still:           
   'A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' 

I remember the bulwarks by the shore, 
 And the fort upon the hill; 
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,           
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er, 
 And the bugle wild and shrill. 
   And the music of that old song 
   Throbs in my memory still: 
   'A boy's will is the wind's will,           
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' 

I remember the sea-fight far away, 
 How it thundered o'er the tide! 
And the dead captains, as they lay 
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay           
 Where they in battle died. 
   And the sound of that mournful song 
   Goes through me with a thrill: 
   'A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'           

I can see the breezy dome of groves, 
 The shadows of Deering's Woods; 
And the friendship old and the early loves 
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves 
 In quiet neighborhoods.           
   And the verse of that sweet old song, 
   It flutters and murmurs still: 
   'A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' 

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart           
 Across the school-boy's brain; 
The song and the silence in the heart, 
That in part are prophecies, and in part 
 Are longings wild and vain. 
   And the voice of that fitful song           
   Sings on, and is never still: 
   'A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' 

There are things of which I may not speak; 
 There are dreams that cannot die;           
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak, 
And bring a pallor into the cheek, 
 And a mist before the eye. 
   And the words of that fatal song 
   Come over me like a chill:           
   'A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' 

Strange to me now are the forms I meet 
 When I visit the dear old town; 
But the native air is pure and sweet,           
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street, 
 As they balance up and down, 
   Are singing the beautiful song, 
   Are sighing and whispering still: 
   'A boy's will is the wind's will,           
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' 

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair, 
 And with joy that is almost pain 
My heart goes back to wander there, 
And among the dreams of the days that were,           
 I find my lost youth again. 
   And the strange and beautiful song, 
   The groves are repeating it still: 
   'A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'


~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In the Waiting Room

2008-05-16T23:31:00.000-04:00

Or maybe they’ll run into something comparatively small yet no less astonishing. I was walking to the bus stop one morning and came upon a well-dressed woman lying on the sidewalk in front of an office-supply store. A small crowd had formed, and just as I joined it a fire truck pulled up. In America, if someone dropped to the ground, you’d call an ambulance, but in France it’s the firemen who do most of the rescuing. There were four of them, and, after checking to see that the woman was O.K., one of them returned to the truck and opened the door. I thought he was looking for an aluminum blanket, the type they use for people in shock, but instead he pulled out a goblet. Anywhere else it would have been a cup, made of paper or plastic, but this was glass, and had a stem. I guess they carry it around in the front seat, next to the axes or whatever.

The fireman filled the goblet with bottled water, and then he handed it to the woman, who was sitting up now and running her hand over her hair, the way one might when waking from a nap. It was the lead story in my diary that night, but, no matter how hard I fiddled with it, I felt something was missing. Had I mentioned that it was autumn? Did the leaves on the sidewalk contribute to my sense of utter delight, or was it just the goblet, and the dignity it bespoke: “Yes, you may be on the ground; yes, this drink may be your last—but let’s do it right, shall we?”

~ David Sedaris

O Little Root of a Dream

2008-05-16T23:30:00.001-04:00

Translated by Heather McHugh and Nikolai Popov


O little root of a dream

you hold me here

undermined by blood,

no longer visible to anyone,

property of death.



Curve a face

that there may be speech, of earth,

of ardor, of

things with eyes, even

here, where you read me blind,



even

here,

where you

refute me,

to the letter.


~ Paul Celan

The Private History of a Campaign That Failed

2008-05-16T23:27:00.000-04:00

You have heard from a great many people who did something in the war, is it not fair and right that you listen a little moment to one who started out to do something in it but didn't? Thousands entered the war, got just a taste of it, and then stepped out again permanently. These, by their very numbers, are respectable and therefore entitled to a sort of voice, not a loud one, but a modest one, not a boastful one but an apologetic one. They ought not be allowed much space among better people, people who did something. I grant that, but they ought at least be allowed to state why they didn't do anything and also to explain the process by which they didn't do anything. Surely this kind of light must have some sort of value.

~ Mark Twain

The Promise

2008-05-14T23:30:00.005-04:00

   In the dream I had when he came back not sick
   but whole, and wearing his winter coat,

   he looked at me as though he couldn't speak, as if
   there were a law against it, a membrane he
      couldn't break

   His silence was what he could not
   not do, like our breathing in this world,
     like our living.

   As we do, in time.
   And I told him: I'm reading all this
     Buddhist stuff,

   and listen, we don't die when we die. Death is
     an event,
   a threshold we pass through. We go on and on

   and into light forever.
   And he looked down, and then back up at me.
     It was the look we'd pass

   across the table when Dad was drunk again
     and dangerous,
   the level look that wants to tell you something,

   in a crowded room, something important,
     and can't


~ Marie Howe

The Lottery

2008-05-14T23:30:00.004-04:00

The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o'clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 2th. but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o'clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.

~ Shirley Jackson

O Captain! My Captain!

2008-05-13T23:46:00.007-04:00

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack,

the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up- for you the flag is flung- for

you the bugle trills,
                                

        For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths- for you the shores

            a-crowding,

         For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

            Here Captain! dear father!

              This arm beneath your head!

                It is some dream that on the deck,

                  You've fallen cold and dead.



         My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

         My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

         The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

         From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

              Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

                But I with mournful tread,

                  Walk the deck my Captain lies,

                    Fallen cold and dead.


~ Walt Whitman

The Enchiridion

2008-05-13T23:45:00.001-04:00

1. Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you not be harmed.

Aiming therefore at such great things, remember that you must not allow yourself to be carried, even with a slight tendency, towards the attainment of lesser things. Instead, you must entirely quit some things and for the present postpone the rest. But if you would both have these great things, along with power and riches, then you will not gain even the latter, because you aim at the former too: but you will absolutely fail of the former, by which alone happiness and freedom are achieved.

Work, therefore to be able to say to every harsh appearance, "You are but an appearance, and not absolutely the thing you appear to be." And then examine it by those rules which you have, and first, and chiefly, by this: whether it concerns the things which are in our own control, or those which are not; and, if it concerns anything not in our control, be prepared to say that it is nothing to you.

~ Epictetus

A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London

2008-05-12T20:58:00.002-04:00

Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

The majesty and burning of the child's death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age,
the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.

~ Dylan Thomas

A Room With a View

2008-05-12T20:49:00.003-04:00

He was bewildered. He had nothing to say. He was not even angry, but stood, with a glass of whiskey between his hands, trying to think what had led her to such a conclusion.

She had chosen the moment before bed, when, in accordance with their bourgeois habit, she always dispensed drinks to the men. Freddy and Mr. Floyd were sure to retire with their glasses, while Cecil invariably lingered, sipping at his while she locked up the sideboard.

"I am very sorry about it," she said; "I have carefully thought things over. We are too different. I must ask you to release me, and try to forget that there ever was such a foolish girl."

~ E. M. Forster

My Roomy

2008-05-11T22:49:00.018-04:00

"I don't know and I don't want to know," says Heine; "but if they stick him in there with me again I'll jump to the Federals. To start with, he ain't got no baggage. I ast him where his trunk was and he says he didn't have none. Then I ast him if he didn't have no suitcase, and he says: 'No. What do you care?' I was goin' to lend him some pajamas, but he put on the shirt o' the uniform John give him last night and slept in that. He was asleep when I got up this mornin'. I seen his collar layin' on the dresser and it looked like he had wore it in Pittsburgh every day for a year. So I throwed it out the window and he comes down to breakfast with no collar. I ast him what size collar he wore and he says he didn't want none, because he wasn't goin' out nowheres. After breakfast he beat it up to the room again and put on his uniform. When I got up there he was lookin' in the glass at himself, and he done it all the time I was dressin'."

~ Ring Lardner

Glen Uig

2008-05-11T22:49:00.017-04:00

Believe in this couple this day who come
to picnic in the Faery Glen. They pay rain
no matter, or wind. They spread their picnic
under a gale-stunted rowan. Believe they grew tired
of giants and heroes and know they believe
in wise tiny creatures who live under the rocks.

Believe these odd mounds, the geologic joke
played by those wise tiny creatures far from
the world's pitiful demands: make money, stay sane.
Believe the couple, by now soaked to the skin,
sing their day as if dry, as if sheltered inside
Castle Ewen. Be glad Castle Ewen's only a rock
that looks like a castle. Be glad for no real king.

These wise tiny creatures, you'd better believe,
have lived through it all: the Viking occupation,
clan torturing clan, the Clearances, the World War
II bomber gone down, a fiery boom
on Beinn Edra. They saw it from here. They heard
the sobs of last century's crofters trail off below
where every day the Conon sets out determined for Uig.
They remember the Viking who wandered off course,
under the hazelnut tree hating aloud all he'd done.

Some days dance in the bracken. Some days go out
wide and warm on bad roads to collect the dispossessed
and offer them homes. Some days celebrate addicts
sweet in their dreams and hope to share with them
a personal spectrum. The loch here's only a pond,
the monster is in it small as a wren.

Believe the couple who have finished their picnic
and make wet love in the grass, the tiny wise creatures
cheering them on. Believe in milestones, the day
you left home forever and the cold open way
a world wouldn't let you come in. Believe you
and I are that couple. Believe you and I sing tiny
and wise and could if we had to eat stone and go on.

~ Richard Hugo

There Will Come Soft Rains

2008-05-11T22:49:00.011-04:00

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

~ Sara Teasdale

The Sound and The Fury

2008-05-11T22:49:00.010-04:00

I wasn't crying, but I couldn't stop. I wasn't crying, but the ground wasn't still, and then I was crying. The ground kept sloping up and the cows ran up the hill. T.P. tried to get up. He fell down again and the cows ran down the hill. Quentin held my arm and we went toward the barn. Then the barn wasn't there and we had to wait until it came back. I didn't see it come back. It came behind us and Quentin set me down in the trough where the cows ate. I held on to it. It was going away too, and I held to it. The cows ran down the hill again, across the door. I couldn't stop. Quentin and T.P. came up the hill, fighting. T.P. was falling down the hill and Quentin dragged him up the hill. Quentin hit T.P. I couldn't stop.

~ William Faulkner

Diving Into the Wreck

2008-05-09T18:13:00.001-04:00

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.
There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.
I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.
First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.
And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.
I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed
the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.
This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass
We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

~ Adrienne Rich

The Camel's Back

2008-05-09T16:54:00.000-04:00

The scene that followed will go down forever in the annals of the Tallyho Club. Stout matrons fainted, one hundred per cent Americans swore, wild-eyed dbutantes babbled in lightning groups instantly formed and instantly dissolved, and a great buzz of chatter, virulent yet oddly subdued, hummed through the chaotic ballroom. Feverish youths swore they would kill Perry or Jumbo or themselves or some one, and the Baptis' preacheh was besieged by a tempestuous covey of clamorous amateur lawyers, asking questions, making threats, demanding precedents, ordering the bonds annulled, and especially trying to ferret out any hint of prearrangement in what had occurred.

In the corner Mrs. Townsend was crying softly on the shoulder of Mr. Howard Tate, who was trying vainly to comfort her; they were exchanging "all my fault's" volubly and voluminously. Outside on a snow-covered walk Mr. Cyrus Medill, the Aluminum Man, was being paced slowly up and down between two brawny charioteers, giving vent now to a string of unrepeatables, now to wild pleadings that they'd just let him get at Jumbo. He was facetiously attired for the evening as a wild man of Borneo, and the most exacting stage-manager would have acknowledged any improvement in casting the part to be quite impossible.

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Identity of Images

2008-05-08T20:48:00.001-04:00

Translated by Louis Simpson

I am fighting furiously with animals and bottles

In a short time perhaps ten hours have passed one

  after another

The beautiful swimmer who was afraid of coral wakes

  this morning

Coral crowned with holly knocks on her door

Ah! coal again always coal

I conjure you coal tutelary genius of dreams and my

  solitude let me let me speak again of the beautiful

  swimmer who was afraid of coral

No longer tyrannize this seductive subject of my

  dreams

The beautiful swimmer was reposing in a bed of lace

  and birds

The clothes on a chair at the foot of the bed were

  illuminated by gleams the last gleams of coal

The one that had come from the depths of the sky and

  earth and sea was proud of its coral beak and great

  wings of crape

All night long it had followed divergent funerals toward

  suburban cemeteries

It had been to embassy balls marked white satin gowns with

  its imprint a fern leaf

It had risen terribly before ships and the ships had not

  returned

Now crouched in the chimney it was watching for the

  waking of foam and singing of kettles

Its resounding step had disturbed the silence of nights

  in streets with sonorous pavements

Sonorous coal coal master of dreams coal

Ah tell me where is that beautiful swimmer the swimmer

  who was afraid of coral?

But the swimmer herself has gone back to sleep

And I remain face to face with the fire and shall remain

  through the night interrogating the coal with wings of

  darkness that persists in projecting on my monotonous

  road the shadow of its smoke and the terrible

  reflections of its embers

Sonorous coal coal pitiless coal


~ Robert Desnos