Henri Michaux

whoever rejects his demons badgers us to death with angels

dwarves are born continually

It soon became clear (from adolescence on) that I had been born to live among monsters

Despite so many efforts in somany directions all through his life to change himself, his bones, without paying any attention to him, blindly follow their familial, racial, Nordic evolution

I met an oaktree: as tall as my finger, and it was suffering.

The fight was over, at least for the day

Then I put myself inside an apple. What peace!..
When I arrived in the apple, I was ice-cold

in this country, they do not use women. when they want pleasure, they go into the water, and then toward them comes a creature rather like an otter, but bigger, even more supple (and have you ever seen an otter go into the water? it slips in like a hand), toward him come these animals and fight over him.

and what if the poor were given pies of stewed ball-bearings?

and your bread turns into a bear demanding its share and ready to kill

People who dream have always seemed to me superficial sleepers. Probably afraid to ‘lose their man.’

Mediocrities, boring women, some brute I could have gotten rid of a hundred time over – I kept them around for the session with the sack.

But the Nonese are patient. God will not stand for this indefinitely, they say. He is waiting for his time to come.
Of course he’s waiting.

The god Mna is the deafest and the greatest. They are sure that is he could only hear them, it would be the end of all their miseries – which are countless

‘do come in,’ said the shark, and he ate him. The shark was a man-eater, but the era was polite.

In Siam they use the tiger’s docility in following his cruel instincts to lure him on to a bleating lamb over a deep ditch in which he will then perish, fuming with rage at having stupidly let himself be found out by little cowardly bastards so inferior to him in every way.

In this century, the phallus is becoming dogmatic.

He who sings in a group will put his brother in prison when asked.

To understand, the intelligence must get itself dirty. Above all, before it even gets dirty, it has to get hurt.

Ono Tozaburo

There
is someone waiting

A white horse walks, hanging its head low
by the evening seashore
where not a soul is seen
across its bare back, the horse carries
a prostrate man in a prison uniform
His dangling hands are tied
almost reaching the ground
the blood dripping along his fingers
falls, dotting the sand
I know not where the horse is going
it just keeps walking down the long, long deserted beach

Roland Penrose

Dragomir Stanescu wants to see you.
He has got the ice with eggs painted
on it, made specially for the peasants.
But he knows that we shall not need
it nor anything else. It will be dark

these crops grow in human blood they
are the finest in Europe

Gisele Prassinos

for the speech of early morning
and its muscular taste of rebirth
even if daylight arriving should choke it
I would open the flowers of poison unaided
and let the last day dawn

I function, fertile
uselessly repeat
cannot offer oblivion

its gone way beyond tears

where are the flowery phrases of yesteryear?

Kostas Ouranis

prayer to god
for all who are unhappy

dear god, now on this mournful winter night, when all
your angels, from their countries of eternal peace,
lean down their lonely balconies to watch the earth
and slowly shower it with petals of white flowers,
the while it turns in silence in the infinite;
dear god, now on this night every fierce wind howls
like low sin laden souls rejected by the grave,
think of all those who lie her in their wretched beds
to sleep and muster their spent strength that they might bear
tomorrow also the same pains borne yesterday

dear god, take on a human heart and think tonight
of those old poets who’ve lived long in bitterness
because stern glory never once knocked on their door;
of those whose destiny, like a malignant wind,
knocks down whatever they have raised with love and toil;
those who rebelled against their lives and would not await
tomorrows, different from others, but that never came;
think of all those at whom the whole world stares and laughs,
those innocent, half looney fools that all men mock;
those who are chronically ill, who die their death each day;
those homely and shy girls who swoon away with love
though no one ever, ever comes to bring them love;
those who toil achingly that other men may rest,
the docile souls, the persecuted, and the good
who cannot shed a tear because they’ve wept so much;
dear god, think of all those who in this world are doomed
to stoop, to suffer, and to drag their heavy steps
yet in your tranquil churches find no consolation
because their wretched voices have long since been cracked
and your celestial throne looms far, far out of reach

dear god, think of all those most wrongfully unhappy,
but do not send them happiness as recompense
for this will not suffice them now for all their pain
but when today they close their weary eyes in sleep
let death come gently, softly to their wretched homes,
most gently and most softly that they may not waken,
and as a sister stooping low, not as a mother,
because a mother’s embrace is strong, her clasp despairing,
kiss them most tenderly on their closed, bitter lips
and in that kissing take away their breath forever.

Dear god, now on this mournful winter night, when all
your angels, from their countries of eternal peace,
lean down their lonely balconies to watch the earth
and slowly shower it with petals of white flowers,
do not chose by your side in paradise among
the chosen place these dead, but let them still lie buried
deep in the bowels of earth so that the foul world’s noise
might never reach their sleep. There let them lie forgotten.

The dead die only when they’re forgotten
(so when I forget the living
they die the death I wish them to die)

useless insects drunk with light

lines from Ekelof

when one has come as far as I in meaninglessness
every word becomes once more interesting

to be equal to each other
to warm each other’s corpse under chastity’s lovely curve in eternity’s white marble
gravestones whose oppressive cold forms over the dream like the smell over remains or a whisper
decay for ages together
defend each other’s corpse against damp and freedom
be two in blessedness, lie still, endure, be still
lick each other’s corpse with kisses slowly like worms creep into the hiding places

Here is the lower world’s smile

Farewell Order!
Welcome Disorder!

I forced the man to his knees
forced my enemy on all fours
I put his wife on his back
and I took her there
before I gave her to the wild cows

my limbs go wandering
my thoughts scatter
without you