__Écrits (excerpt)
(from the Spanish)
Pablo Picasso
published in Pablo Picasso, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz & other poems, edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris (Providence: Exact Change, 2004)
Sunday 5 January XXXVI
more than of honey the aftertaste if her gaze shoots the perfume of her caress and rides and sings her excursion of delights nothing else recalls the color fanning her temple when the flower presses its lips against the edge of the glass
6 January XXXVI
around the well in the plaza the pins of the cries are sticking the butterflies of the mouths upon the Magi’s cake and the arm of the heat gathers in its fist twenty sacks worth from the mountain of wheat and spreads it out and paints on each grain a face which in front the garden of thoughts repeats in its mirrors and the corroded clock melts drunkenly from its fire and spills the pleasure that drenches the afternoon on its lips the sand that rises the dry mouth showing the tongue where the eyes come to fill their pitchers and the solitary orange climbs up along the invisible spiderweb and remains suspended in the air until the plate comes out that gathers it from behind the roof on the left and catches fire in the tinder of the trumpet which clawing the naked breast of the sky makes it pour into the arena’s throat the milk which thirsty on its knees the body thrown back head touching feet demands and which desire writhing in the clarion like a fool who with his notes makes the rocket of his love rise up as high as the skirt of the balcony between the legs of his loge wrapped in the freshness of silk of the rose dressed with the weight of gold the hand of the white wing of a dove takes off from the arm and flies to his brow and wipes his sweat with his fingertips and makes it jump sardine in the skillet at the touch of the feather that passes the arrow of his smile outlined in the aroma of the carnation by his nose at the bullpen that begins to unwind the ball of silence from his rags of fear and anguish model hearing a child cry in her cradle in the desperate afternoon mother-of-pearl and conch shell while the wheat makes its bread in the painter’s palette who prepares his bath and perfumes it with the smell of the shower of his well-flexed rainbow and launches and smears on his arrow the spree of color measuring each step that leads to the breaking or binding line leaving not a single loose end chastising the light that bares itself makes a date and flees running at the slightest movement that the wind picking up its skirts among the rows carries off and tosses the worms from the cheese into the lower tiers and accelerates the hour’s movement in the village clock which explodes in the red flags it prefers while the cristal piece of music shrieks shattering its front in a thousand bits from the blow dealt against the sky that burns the afternoon sizzling in the oven stuffed with horses dressed in sadness in purple and silver stripes and in apple green and jet black which swallowing saliva bites the cheek of the sun till blood gushes forth which keeps in its cocoon the diamond bull made of all the love of the loves of the blood flag shaken by the olés from the bunch of hearts flapping their wings at the snout showing its beauty through the blind spot of its prison
7 January XXXVI
where thousands of lightning rods end at the well that is the bull where acrobats climb a thousand loves that are going to receive the clouds from hands that would like to caress it touch its hair and kiss it on the brow
9 January XXXVI
to make it virgin since it’s under the glass where bees go around making the hive of their piccolos waiting for the pigeon to see that the coming hour is about to explode and the buzz of the opening bread shouts its applause even more in love faints and goes to pieces in the arms of the afternoon the kiss that pricks the chain in the thick of the neck and makes it dance until its colors bleed and the ribbons of the fingers end up white on the hand that hangs and starts rubbing over the hair the dancing and sticky game of life that kicks up a racket and cuts it when the moment falls biting the bells shaken by the stab that the swift delivers into thin air
10 January XXXVI
and in the tiers of wheat I’ll break the silence on the embers of the trumpets since today I’m going to write you a corrida you’ll lick your fingers if you care to listen to me until the end when the lone ant in the middle of the arena sees the night penetrate and stretch out its hand and run its palm over the wounds and then apply it to the face of the ring and ascend the deck of spangles to the top and shake them around the plate of asbestos turning the wheel of night at a gallop tossing its rags out the window to see them break the line of the arrow’s journey into a thousand pieces of dream and tie the ends and weave the basket where the bunch of games of spider threads will spring forth that get mathematically entangled with the rope from the well and pull the best and the worst from the ball or if not at any rate everything we imagine to be true which is already something to open the door of the pen and let the butterflies escape so that they’ll go tell it all furtively in the corner that hides its nose beneath the wing abandoned on the stirrup of the gate when the arena lifts its shadow and tears it out and fear carries it away and passes its knife through the open neck of the lamb opening its eye wide and leaving its gaze nailed to the point of the blade which laughs sticking out past the eaves of the roof if the dew drop tickles it turns over in its bed and bites its lips but for a voice to pass its fingers through the crack in the door and the cricket will climb on its legs uphill the abandoned piece from the cracking of the forest and the smell of fried codfish will say its prayer before the pepper that swells its pride in the heat of the coals that roast it and the biting teeth clenched tight between the two knees
11 January XXXVI
the nightfrets two twenty thirty-two six forty twenty-seven seventeen eighteen forty-five and ten at two-thirty in the morning he wakes up smells the fresh scent of watermelon on the pier which sways gazing at the stars trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling lightens lightens lightens lighter lightens the rose that comes out of the pale blue light blue light pale blue blue from its darkest blue if the pale rose colors its rose with rose that is paler still and the rose rosens with rose in the rosiest rose yet of the rose rose rosing its rose rose rose rose in the rosiest the rose that catches fire in the thirst for drinking in the gold that sprinkles its enflamed rose in the fire of the gold that burns its cheeks blazing from its incandescent rose which the gold melted in the white red burns if the plate grows swells increases and climbs the eye of the partridge of the lark of the quail of the blackbird of the goldfinch of the sparrow hawk of the ringdove and other spangles catching fire in the throat of its cries marzipan of nougat of rooster and roast leg of lamb color of dry straw thyme between the teeth of the square root of such an amusing aubade stretching its arms passing its fingers among the trees pissing the streams of flowers and shaking its sheets warm still in the smell from the window her attractive body entangled in the clear perfume of the silk of the morning that’s washed in the gaze lost in the distance of the rosy pompon cloud hiding its light behind the bed of the cloud nine times minus four repeated in the bell of the hour’s flight that opens its lips jumps on a horse with its wings and climbs like a rocket above its song to make holes in the tip of the blue of the ball of the poor washerwoman of the drawing spread out to dry on the copper plate of the etching of roses and jasmine today anniversary of this love that is my life now that it’s four little minutes past six on the eleventh of January in the year XXXVI I write and smell the flowers that are in front of me to the right but seated in front of the table in such a way that the line going from the left angle where my elbow rests cuts the waste basket in two and what do I care about the bull and its fight at this hour now that the piano is eating slowly swallowing serpents and toads and skinning frogs with the sound of its silly mouse music but the perfumed fan of its memory which will carry me away on its leaf rowing seaward
12 January XXXVI
along the filthy spoon of this Sunday here in Paris raining with its hands the song of cotton of its pearl but what can you do that’s how it is and you have to let each one drag the old rag we inherit a little higher so worn out from so much rubbing along the clouds cleaning greasy casseroles pierced and gnawed by the broken bones of the rabbit made into easter and customhouse of the rubber that not even its rage chews anymore in the hatred mill affectionately licks the crystal of the wound to see the mute dance at the back of the room and the silence blowing in the trumpet and suffocating the musician with its deleterious perfume and dressing him with visiting cards and placing him on top of the discobolus and laughing at him undo his seams and then carrying him off to roast in the pan where the monkey’s ears are frying which is depicted in the horn of the phonograph if the gray sweeps the shirt from the port in the wheel of the disc of castanets the stridence of its pair of banderillas touches him in the pocket where he keeps his summer in Barcelona the beautiful and the list where I left so many things hanging on the altar of joy that I mix now with a bit of the color of the neck of the pigeon of melancholy
14 January XXXVI
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 0 2 32 1 0 4 32 1 2 0 2 3 4 2 0 2 1 do re mi fa sol la ti do do ti la sol fa mi re do sings Spanish fly its hard-boiled egg color of sermon of Lent trained flea and grudging whip of the transparent alabaster of the wings that the breadroll clutched to the little bitch that’s no longer a bitch or anything that licks the ream of eyes nailed to the mirror of the suit of lights of Bengal shakes in the morning when the serpent wets its lit candle in the gaze of the horse that waits to be able to open its belly to the light black sauce chest casket and writing desk hiding the fright and rancor in the cigarette smoke breast of laurel leaves and crown inserted into the embroidery of the drawing of the cape of soot adorned with onions peppers and tomatoes the eggplant and garlic painted lifelike with their smell and their sayings and manner of dress which in the wish to imitate the narcissus flower will burn their wings in the flame which the tip of the horn of their key will snatch the bolt from the curtains that cover the touch of silence of entrails that swell and overflow from the bed of the trunk that broke its straps exploding the sound of reveille of death with its gala outfit head crowned with keyrings full of complicated little keys of the drawing of its twisted snail curiosities of biscuit and Malagan churro and its necklaces of bunches of anchovies and over its net tunic made from the guts of squinting cats wears tied around its waist the rope from the well that threads sixteen sea bream heads through the eyes and each end retains with a knot the dried skin of an angler holding between its teeth on the tongue sticking out a Sevillian nickel one and the other a cigarette butt as for its feet it wears galoshes and above each one tied with some green ribbons a handkerchief with the Spanish colors painted on its four edges and in each corner the portrait of a bullfighter Costillares Pedro Romero Conejito and el Chico del Pandero who are singing and playing guitar doing somersaults juggling the pears of the elm tree when the machine starts to move and the steam hides it behind the shadow carried on their shoulders by the matador’s entire team who are coming out of the boardinghouse now carrying in their throat the weight of unseeing eyes and the metal taste of the cry of the ball of cotton that scratches their ear with worry the slap of street breath collecting garbage in the gold and indigo silk plate the plum red and the black compressed in green by the silver embroidery that celebrates it and by the ivory white
16 January XXXVI
writes on the jawbone of the balcony with the smell of fried eggs and potatoes the landlady’s paper which in French in the text tells the true story of the strange event that took place suddenly in the Jewish quarter in Avignon and says la fille du marchand entortillée au doigt de la pâle chimère secoue son édredon taillé dans du cristal de roche with the sneaky sneak of the street informers the flood of pennants and the panting of the color of the flags with the sole intention of harvesting organ pipes that play such a bullfighting march with its music of eyes in measure and time to the hour that digs its spurs if the rooster dressed in its tomato and pepper has left in the skirmish besides many illusions its bones which the cigar lit in the pealing of the clocktower bell that forces its way amid the cymbals and bass drum erases the shadow which the fall of the clapper caused in the brow of the silence and the car flies more than it runs and grows intoxicated with its heat with its smell with its gestures with its desire the faun the colt and mounts it and its thighs squeeze it tight burning its skin the wave that the sea carries off and draws at the bottom a heart with two open wings and two bull’s horns and between the teeth of the mouth an arrow and if the ace of diamonds doesn’t come out first when he tosses the cards from the deck through the clouds he takes the bow and arrows and starts piercing all the cards one by one until they fall dead upon the roof
17 January XXXVI
which if the mother-of-pearl why go looking so far at the bottom of the mine what the stream still sings in the hand of the flower face to face the breeze blows shaking its fringes tells me the truth straight out covers its nose and hides between the folds of the reflection that the passing of its hand through the sun’s ray that blows out the crack on the inner left side of the refuge and decomposes its bounds that the clockmaker with the first lash he delivers will cause to leap wings together beneath the wheels that weave light on the grain of sand that the slipper carries off embedded in the left edge the arena opens its belly wide and sees in the horn the key that splits it and sets it dry raisin on the cane that goes fishing for the needlepoint that the color wipes the plate clean of the potato omelette heart grasshopper heart laughs open-mouthed heart is content crust of bread sprinkled with olive oil rubbed in the flying gurnard’s eye Pandora’s box tambourine accompanying the chimes of the feet hanging in the tree made by the pieces torn from the afternoon that rubs its nose in the arm that a lily’s sigh reclining at the edge of the creaking and the flavor that in the bull’s eye the cinnamon lifts onto the tip of the blue nailing it with bayonets hammering on the nape of the neck the stool where seated he is writing his vile garrote story of the bull explodes at four in the afternoon the fiesta
18 January XXXVI
and the song of songs appears inside the crystal clear cup of the bullfighters who are full of thousands of rainbow castanets of guitars of silk of hearts bells of fires of Bengal and of rockets of butterflies of lips flowers that dancing singing clapping and exploding and flying go in against the crystal to break the breakwater of olés that applaud their forms upon the sail that swells pregnant in the twisted panting that receives from the thousands and thousands of concentric circles made all around by the thousands and thousands of mouths that start nailing above their bodies the sound that awakens against the crystal the kiss of the design that embroiders the gold or silver that will dress the capes boleros and bags that coat bullfighters and toreadors cooked in the heat of the threads of the coffin of the clever worm dyed as the stellar specter that the colored wings that hold up in the air like the mules that the tickles that the bells season mince with their vinegar throw a net over the body stretched out in the sun and haul the seine of the miraculous fish that shows amid its mesh the monkey’s leaps and mischief and the matador’s team appears in the world dragging behind them the centaurs centurions
19 January XXXVI
and from the table of flames from the bonfire of music the cloud of transparent locusts rises precious stones that fly through out of their machinegunning necessity to possess the key to the main problem central point and eye of the needle beacon rain of stars whip drill and taste of hate in the mouth bird beribboned arrow comes to peck in mid-flight from the burning rose of death that the purple and almond green gauze of the light of its wax in the plate gathers the venom that the swan scorpion will sing now so twisted at the fluttering of the silk against the face of the air that laughs at the saying he drops his head rolling to the bitter shore of the aloe of the color given by the punch of the sun that has gone away fugitive from the night from the bed where with a bicycle in a house of ill repute in Barcelona he leaped with the lance and thrust banderillas sitting in a chair which now that the monkey the parrot the drumsticks the saw the hammer the sickle the scarf and the thistle the trumpet the clarion the jetstone the cry the light and the curl the feather and the smell under his arm cook together in the cauldron the light the feather the cheese the rice the breadcrusts and the ice the chirping of the swifts at the bottom of the blue soup tureen and the tra la la la la they shoot the necessary shots and the omissions that drown in the ink and the blind man sees his image portrayed in the foam of the few pieces of silence that fly strung along on the threads of the air and entangle the pale skein that stops and waits and halts its silence and stops for a moment the clock that turns such a pale yellow faints and bleeds its hours from the unhealthy sorrow learned by every school and wakes up egg sun brighter than the sun made into a man bull host surrounded by twenty-six white eagle wings wrapped in iris circles that keep growing larger as others appear and grow infinitely and since infinitely others and others that appear grow larger as well over the India ink of the infinite which comical as it may be the accuracy of what was said it shows its bit of irony and smiles at the written page because the truth is laughter which in a pure guffaw quarrels with such a funny chimera and water under the bridge since it’s time to come out now for the first tough surly black bull wild-haired muddy dapple-gray cowardly and outlined clockmaker and bearded affection blood-drenched carnation pipes of Pan and slice with its sardine in marinade on top and northern arch passing its finger along the edge of the scythe shuts the bolt and turning it twice like a goat chaste satyr unaware of love even by sight sun within his sun and I laugh knowing what he is climbing the mountains uphill setting himself like a flag on the highest peak shaking it drunk with joy choking in its folds the birds that later at night belly up dead will keep counting their pesetas and playing to see which will toss them the furthest from the vertigo that makes it fling from the crate the dark ball of the bullpen that gives off the smell of love cuckoo bird which by the handful cherubs and chubby angels with no backsides accompany and fan with their wings the jingle and perfume they offer to the indigo blue of the clarion with their farts which in the water of the fountain that fills the crystal glass already described ascend in a balloon the basket filled with the bunch of the most insipid jokes and flatteries so high that the baba made with eau-de-vie flour anisette sugar and olive oil kneaded a long time the dough cut into square pieces and folded twice fried in hot boiling oil and when you see they’re a nice golden brown you take them out and let them cool and melt some honey and while it’s hot roll them in it draining them well and then when they’re almost cold pour rainbow sprinkles over them in front of the mirror of family memories that for me have this flavor and that my mother sometimes sent me knowing how much I liked these things when I was still a boy so long ago and that now at one-o-eight in the morning on the twentieth of January in the year XXXVI lying in bed in my room that looks out on the garden in the Rue La Boétie number 23 in Paris I don’t know why I remember all this that has nothing to do with what I’m writing or maybe it’s only the apparent embroidery of the threads running wild with happiness from floating freely without being tamed by the pattern tickled out of it by the bullring attendant
20 January XXXVI
and at the first shove the bull gives to the horse the curtain rises and all the boats full of footlights go on with fireworks from the sheaves of rockets that reap lights spread-eagle between the sheets of the colors that make its bed and of the bunches of flowers of the cup of glass banderillero who nails his fan who gets tangled up in the open skein of the pattern of his dance and the bull with its key seeks the eagle eye of the tambourine that rings from the blow given by the horn in the spree of its abdomen like the deliberate chiming of the binge fine and delicate banquet of death and opens the door of the deck of the belly wide to the mare lifts the curtains and discovers the feast and arranges the table and chairs and collects the forgotten rags and with its snout cleans the tablecloths stained with the collected blood spurts into the cups along the paths and lanes of the guts braiding them so carefully and arranging them and tying them to the ribs hanging Chinese lanterns and flags on them its eye gleaning the inside details discovers the back of the cave in the deepest inner depth stuck to the twisted roof of the dry tree and sponge drowning in blood the hard-boiled egg of the little white and blue horse wrapped in the sugar and honey of the purple anemone and the poppy full stop and briny bellflower and saltpeter caught by the teeth in the whitewash of the wall that stays up by a miracle in the jostling dealt by the panting that swells the blackberry basket and the white become rose of the little horse jumps its blue that pecks the lilac color from the light that bites it on the neck and in its chest the fanfare of the bass drum and the cymbal the trombone bursts out hands tied by the ropes that pull the net of thorns and of eyes that pull through their veins the broken boat shaking its legs and undoing the mess of the bloody intestine beauties that get tangled up each time more in the labyrinth of the mainmast of the captive pain of the game of chess that swims champion among the waves of olés and the cries that tear ostrich from the open book frightened in the sun that opens its mouth and looks at its throat its tongue speaking truly now tossing out plans perspectives and drawing lines of flight its head turns around and says look at me now that you’re looking at me look at me since you’re already looking at me look at me since me already you’re looking at now look at me since you’re looking at me if already me now look since already you’re looking since if you’re looking at me and if la look now la look ti now look la ti la la ti mi ti la mi ti ti mi ti la ti ti boat lying on the beach cut out by the scissors of the mirror of the silk of the cape and flower stinking from the twisted fart bells hanging from the neck of the slap in the curtains of the tail cake of pierced bone in the part of the tiers that are to the right of the left hand of the ashtray that’s already playing with flames in the highly prohibited game 32 33 24 0 2 21 golden in the festival of the tender dove the niche laughs at the rope la ti la sol re breaks the dispatch and the clam lights the chain of the clock la ti la fa mi re ti la shuts in the touch of silence beneath the needle that wets its finger in the drop of water from the spigot 2 and 2 are six and three reales more and 2 are 10 and six 498678 and in addition the washerwoman’s accounts with her wheat and her wheaty asparragus and her packets of pure sentiments and braided ornaments and the complications borne on the shoulder and the throw-me and leave-it and don’t say there’s a reason to sit down and not do anything more ever that we’ll have to see what’s good and bad and the bad flavor left to fear by burdens and bugs that’s good the clock is fed up with giving so many alms to the hours that don’t even listen to its drowsy ringing of the bell when it hasn’t slept in a century and a thousand others that her hand covers the mouth of the drain that gushes from the belly of the one I was telling you the tale about and that each little curl on the nape of the neck taking the shape of a letter combined in a certain way here is the hard part would form the complete page of the truth of the story passed through the sieve of the mathematics of the exact poetry of its eye
22 January XXXVI
stone bronze steel blood fire black soot punch hammer cable iron chain dog wolf fried squid black record of cante jondo rust the bell’s barking lip eye whistle arrow shout if the silence fades away it’s all ready say a hundred times a and then b and then a b a a and then a b a b and then and then a b c d leap of the toad that falls drowns and passes the feather duster tired at this hour and doesn’t let the bunch of grapes bullfight its wine today since it’s already one twenty in the morning on the 23rd of January in the year 1936
26 January XXXVI
without order or measure without taste without smell the eye will close its wings and sing the prayer for the dead hand placed on guard of laughter dies if the awning scrapes in the light of his neck the displeasure of the color that punishes it bites over a slow flame the finger that twists the shadow that the fan makes of it but let the air come to awaken the glass that ignites it and then the crackling that would be the joy that cheers it on and reddens the rag scratching the box would skip with the metamorphosis of the blood and the thrown dice which if the sword leaps hitting right in the middle of the host and falls apart in the middle of the rose the pair of banderillas that dance saffron flint the blue disc caught in the mesh of the rain of hands and gathered in flight by the sharp beak of the somersault of the captive steel in the cage the boat leaves its bed and goes out through the world trailing its cape and if the grief and regrets and the blow they strike at the mirror can nail their keys in a crown upon its brow the halo of kisses burns in its bonfire the distant sound carried in the beak by the reflection of the stone in the ring sniffing its armpit
27 January XXXVI
it’s raining along the thread that bathes the destiny of the fold of the leaf that flies when it crosses the piece of linen the perfume that intoxicates with its cries the eye placed on the anvil and with each blow that transforms the color of the colors the blood of the flame burns inside the crystal of the goblet
the handful of kings and queens from the playing cards that he tosses against the passing cloud the joy that roasts its chestnuts weighs its old rags on the scales and puts the bread darned with red thread and nailed with thorns in the oven hangs it from the mainmast of the brigantine that goes out wings extended from the earthenware bowl from the gazpacho from the corrida and hides its hour in the flyer stuck to its prison wall cuts it and crumbles and puts it on guard atop the horn that crowns with abysses the stroll by the seashore in the afternoon around six in the silk of its pearly arm shell from Compostela beside the 3 flowers that vomit the green tongue from their mouths heads tousled from the reddish tulip and from the two other yellow tulips singing around the silver and gold of the suits the hard-boiled egg and the anchovies the onion and the oil and the elegance and the confections the grace and the poise and the joke and the salt that they offer to the blockhead who stretching out his hand asks them for a little alms sitting alone on the ground in the middle of the plaza who swallowing saliva rises to heaven among the clouds of bullfighting music hauling the rope from the well and the bucket full of the sun’s laughter that spills and drenches the piece of the plaza on the left from the blow of its lance while the stroke of the bell and the blackbird in the stroke of silence wakes up and sticks out its nose behind the veil the light keeps quiet and an instant puts its hands in front of the noise and throws the cotton above the frying pan and combs the hair of the silence with the feather that the lilac color has stained and rubs the glass with its breath and erases the plaza with its hand and rocks its sleep by the eye of the pearl in the tie-pin and sings into the mouth of the goblet the secret that takes its siesta spread out at the bottom which if the white dissolves in such a pale blue it sighs in the rose and in extasy the yellow faints floats its image in the zephyr and the cambric and a scent of violets sways along when the clock moves its spider legs to catch the fly
28 January XXXVI
225.818 zero three twenty-one thirty-three plus the zeros and all the rest that’s added and does the account that complicates each time more the mess of messes of this life which neither one nor the other nor the one beyond nor the most distant memory that hammers around the cage and makes the goldfinch tell its troubles typewritten so wet and drenched on the moss of the piece of the old cobalt blue rag spoils the tale and drinks a shot of light to everyone’s health and if it’s not the eagle the doorman who receives him on the doorstep of his house and collects his hat and cape when he arrives and the lion who licks his hand at the festoon his caresses make shaking the flag of salutations that the sparrow hawk flies the cape flutters about from the swarm of bees haloing the bull’s head and carries it away enamored of the washed-out blue in his eyes behind him like a lamb adorned with rosettes and colored bows
1 February XXXVI
love is a nettle we have to mow down each instant if we want to have a snooze stretched out in its shadow
2 February XXXVI
once again the beak of the bull opens the skin of aged wine in the horse’s belly and the cellar lit by the blood’s oil explodes the bass drum of the fanfare of pain cooked with the finest needle from the fringes of its eye in the flag that the terror has nailed inside and that the fear shakes desperately trampling on the curtains of its entrails tangling in the threads of the curtain of its theater the illusion of the drama that stakes its life on the last card and builds its house of cards on the razor’s edge of the sound of the swan song of the clarion that dies of sorrow swimming blind diver through the green guts of the lake where Ophelia goes searching at the bottom for a piece of paper and a pencil to start gradually doing her overdue accounts of the list of the stockings of the shirts and pants and the handkerchiefs soaked in the sound of the flower torn from the flute of the inner blue that covers the window gripping the bars a bouquet of hands bites it and twists it when he offers his cape to fill the horn that the bull presents to him and wrapped in the incense of his cape the panting of the silence enters which the cotton sinks in its wound with the sound of cymbals death which opens the faucet where the little white mouse flees which robs it of the grain of rice where its pure horse history is written while the cape sprinkles its purple and coats the tip with the caramel the finishing touch of the diversionary maneuver on the trivet the cauldron begins to make its soup and sing very funny and cheerful tales to pass the time and distract the respectable public disgusting and rotten caught in the prongs of the fork that scrapes the bottom of the paella if the gold rains its saltshaker and stamps in the puddle where the harp floats its tongue rubbing the mud the cup spits the reflection and doesn’t sing through the veil the prayer for the dead which time nails to the poster that peels from the wall the infernal machine of the fluttering where the butterfly laughs
(from the Spanish)
Pablo Picasso
published in Pablo Picasso, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz & other poems, edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris (Providence: Exact Change, 2004)
Sunday 5 January XXXVI
more than of honey the aftertaste if her gaze shoots the perfume of her caress and rides and sings her excursion of delights nothing else recalls the color fanning her temple when the flower presses its lips against the edge of the glass
6 January XXXVI
around the well in the plaza the pins of the cries are sticking the butterflies of the mouths upon the Magi’s cake and the arm of the heat gathers in its fist twenty sacks worth from the mountain of wheat and spreads it out and paints on each grain a face which in front the garden of thoughts repeats in its mirrors and the corroded clock melts drunkenly from its fire and spills the pleasure that drenches the afternoon on its lips the sand that rises the dry mouth showing the tongue where the eyes come to fill their pitchers and the solitary orange climbs up along the invisible spiderweb and remains suspended in the air until the plate comes out that gathers it from behind the roof on the left and catches fire in the tinder of the trumpet which clawing the naked breast of the sky makes it pour into the arena’s throat the milk which thirsty on its knees the body thrown back head touching feet demands and which desire writhing in the clarion like a fool who with his notes makes the rocket of his love rise up as high as the skirt of the balcony between the legs of his loge wrapped in the freshness of silk of the rose dressed with the weight of gold the hand of the white wing of a dove takes off from the arm and flies to his brow and wipes his sweat with his fingertips and makes it jump sardine in the skillet at the touch of the feather that passes the arrow of his smile outlined in the aroma of the carnation by his nose at the bullpen that begins to unwind the ball of silence from his rags of fear and anguish model hearing a child cry in her cradle in the desperate afternoon mother-of-pearl and conch shell while the wheat makes its bread in the painter’s palette who prepares his bath and perfumes it with the smell of the shower of his well-flexed rainbow and launches and smears on his arrow the spree of color measuring each step that leads to the breaking or binding line leaving not a single loose end chastising the light that bares itself makes a date and flees running at the slightest movement that the wind picking up its skirts among the rows carries off and tosses the worms from the cheese into the lower tiers and accelerates the hour’s movement in the village clock which explodes in the red flags it prefers while the cristal piece of music shrieks shattering its front in a thousand bits from the blow dealt against the sky that burns the afternoon sizzling in the oven stuffed with horses dressed in sadness in purple and silver stripes and in apple green and jet black which swallowing saliva bites the cheek of the sun till blood gushes forth which keeps in its cocoon the diamond bull made of all the love of the loves of the blood flag shaken by the olés from the bunch of hearts flapping their wings at the snout showing its beauty through the blind spot of its prison
7 January XXXVI
where thousands of lightning rods end at the well that is the bull where acrobats climb a thousand loves that are going to receive the clouds from hands that would like to caress it touch its hair and kiss it on the brow
9 January XXXVI
to make it virgin since it’s under the glass where bees go around making the hive of their piccolos waiting for the pigeon to see that the coming hour is about to explode and the buzz of the opening bread shouts its applause even more in love faints and goes to pieces in the arms of the afternoon the kiss that pricks the chain in the thick of the neck and makes it dance until its colors bleed and the ribbons of the fingers end up white on the hand that hangs and starts rubbing over the hair the dancing and sticky game of life that kicks up a racket and cuts it when the moment falls biting the bells shaken by the stab that the swift delivers into thin air
10 January XXXVI
and in the tiers of wheat I’ll break the silence on the embers of the trumpets since today I’m going to write you a corrida you’ll lick your fingers if you care to listen to me until the end when the lone ant in the middle of the arena sees the night penetrate and stretch out its hand and run its palm over the wounds and then apply it to the face of the ring and ascend the deck of spangles to the top and shake them around the plate of asbestos turning the wheel of night at a gallop tossing its rags out the window to see them break the line of the arrow’s journey into a thousand pieces of dream and tie the ends and weave the basket where the bunch of games of spider threads will spring forth that get mathematically entangled with the rope from the well and pull the best and the worst from the ball or if not at any rate everything we imagine to be true which is already something to open the door of the pen and let the butterflies escape so that they’ll go tell it all furtively in the corner that hides its nose beneath the wing abandoned on the stirrup of the gate when the arena lifts its shadow and tears it out and fear carries it away and passes its knife through the open neck of the lamb opening its eye wide and leaving its gaze nailed to the point of the blade which laughs sticking out past the eaves of the roof if the dew drop tickles it turns over in its bed and bites its lips but for a voice to pass its fingers through the crack in the door and the cricket will climb on its legs uphill the abandoned piece from the cracking of the forest and the smell of fried codfish will say its prayer before the pepper that swells its pride in the heat of the coals that roast it and the biting teeth clenched tight between the two knees
11 January XXXVI
the nightfrets two twenty thirty-two six forty twenty-seven seventeen eighteen forty-five and ten at two-thirty in the morning he wakes up smells the fresh scent of watermelon on the pier which sways gazing at the stars trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling trembling lightens lightens lightens lighter lightens the rose that comes out of the pale blue light blue light pale blue blue from its darkest blue if the pale rose colors its rose with rose that is paler still and the rose rosens with rose in the rosiest rose yet of the rose rose rosing its rose rose rose rose in the rosiest the rose that catches fire in the thirst for drinking in the gold that sprinkles its enflamed rose in the fire of the gold that burns its cheeks blazing from its incandescent rose which the gold melted in the white red burns if the plate grows swells increases and climbs the eye of the partridge of the lark of the quail of the blackbird of the goldfinch of the sparrow hawk of the ringdove and other spangles catching fire in the throat of its cries marzipan of nougat of rooster and roast leg of lamb color of dry straw thyme between the teeth of the square root of such an amusing aubade stretching its arms passing its fingers among the trees pissing the streams of flowers and shaking its sheets warm still in the smell from the window her attractive body entangled in the clear perfume of the silk of the morning that’s washed in the gaze lost in the distance of the rosy pompon cloud hiding its light behind the bed of the cloud nine times minus four repeated in the bell of the hour’s flight that opens its lips jumps on a horse with its wings and climbs like a rocket above its song to make holes in the tip of the blue of the ball of the poor washerwoman of the drawing spread out to dry on the copper plate of the etching of roses and jasmine today anniversary of this love that is my life now that it’s four little minutes past six on the eleventh of January in the year XXXVI I write and smell the flowers that are in front of me to the right but seated in front of the table in such a way that the line going from the left angle where my elbow rests cuts the waste basket in two and what do I care about the bull and its fight at this hour now that the piano is eating slowly swallowing serpents and toads and skinning frogs with the sound of its silly mouse music but the perfumed fan of its memory which will carry me away on its leaf rowing seaward
12 January XXXVI
along the filthy spoon of this Sunday here in Paris raining with its hands the song of cotton of its pearl but what can you do that’s how it is and you have to let each one drag the old rag we inherit a little higher so worn out from so much rubbing along the clouds cleaning greasy casseroles pierced and gnawed by the broken bones of the rabbit made into easter and customhouse of the rubber that not even its rage chews anymore in the hatred mill affectionately licks the crystal of the wound to see the mute dance at the back of the room and the silence blowing in the trumpet and suffocating the musician with its deleterious perfume and dressing him with visiting cards and placing him on top of the discobolus and laughing at him undo his seams and then carrying him off to roast in the pan where the monkey’s ears are frying which is depicted in the horn of the phonograph if the gray sweeps the shirt from the port in the wheel of the disc of castanets the stridence of its pair of banderillas touches him in the pocket where he keeps his summer in Barcelona the beautiful and the list where I left so many things hanging on the altar of joy that I mix now with a bit of the color of the neck of the pigeon of melancholy
14 January XXXVI
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 0 2 32 1 0 4 32 1 2 0 2 3 4 2 0 2 1 do re mi fa sol la ti do do ti la sol fa mi re do sings Spanish fly its hard-boiled egg color of sermon of Lent trained flea and grudging whip of the transparent alabaster of the wings that the breadroll clutched to the little bitch that’s no longer a bitch or anything that licks the ream of eyes nailed to the mirror of the suit of lights of Bengal shakes in the morning when the serpent wets its lit candle in the gaze of the horse that waits to be able to open its belly to the light black sauce chest casket and writing desk hiding the fright and rancor in the cigarette smoke breast of laurel leaves and crown inserted into the embroidery of the drawing of the cape of soot adorned with onions peppers and tomatoes the eggplant and garlic painted lifelike with their smell and their sayings and manner of dress which in the wish to imitate the narcissus flower will burn their wings in the flame which the tip of the horn of their key will snatch the bolt from the curtains that cover the touch of silence of entrails that swell and overflow from the bed of the trunk that broke its straps exploding the sound of reveille of death with its gala outfit head crowned with keyrings full of complicated little keys of the drawing of its twisted snail curiosities of biscuit and Malagan churro and its necklaces of bunches of anchovies and over its net tunic made from the guts of squinting cats wears tied around its waist the rope from the well that threads sixteen sea bream heads through the eyes and each end retains with a knot the dried skin of an angler holding between its teeth on the tongue sticking out a Sevillian nickel one and the other a cigarette butt as for its feet it wears galoshes and above each one tied with some green ribbons a handkerchief with the Spanish colors painted on its four edges and in each corner the portrait of a bullfighter Costillares Pedro Romero Conejito and el Chico del Pandero who are singing and playing guitar doing somersaults juggling the pears of the elm tree when the machine starts to move and the steam hides it behind the shadow carried on their shoulders by the matador’s entire team who are coming out of the boardinghouse now carrying in their throat the weight of unseeing eyes and the metal taste of the cry of the ball of cotton that scratches their ear with worry the slap of street breath collecting garbage in the gold and indigo silk plate the plum red and the black compressed in green by the silver embroidery that celebrates it and by the ivory white
16 January XXXVI
writes on the jawbone of the balcony with the smell of fried eggs and potatoes the landlady’s paper which in French in the text tells the true story of the strange event that took place suddenly in the Jewish quarter in Avignon and says la fille du marchand entortillée au doigt de la pâle chimère secoue son édredon taillé dans du cristal de roche with the sneaky sneak of the street informers the flood of pennants and the panting of the color of the flags with the sole intention of harvesting organ pipes that play such a bullfighting march with its music of eyes in measure and time to the hour that digs its spurs if the rooster dressed in its tomato and pepper has left in the skirmish besides many illusions its bones which the cigar lit in the pealing of the clocktower bell that forces its way amid the cymbals and bass drum erases the shadow which the fall of the clapper caused in the brow of the silence and the car flies more than it runs and grows intoxicated with its heat with its smell with its gestures with its desire the faun the colt and mounts it and its thighs squeeze it tight burning its skin the wave that the sea carries off and draws at the bottom a heart with two open wings and two bull’s horns and between the teeth of the mouth an arrow and if the ace of diamonds doesn’t come out first when he tosses the cards from the deck through the clouds he takes the bow and arrows and starts piercing all the cards one by one until they fall dead upon the roof
17 January XXXVI
which if the mother-of-pearl why go looking so far at the bottom of the mine what the stream still sings in the hand of the flower face to face the breeze blows shaking its fringes tells me the truth straight out covers its nose and hides between the folds of the reflection that the passing of its hand through the sun’s ray that blows out the crack on the inner left side of the refuge and decomposes its bounds that the clockmaker with the first lash he delivers will cause to leap wings together beneath the wheels that weave light on the grain of sand that the slipper carries off embedded in the left edge the arena opens its belly wide and sees in the horn the key that splits it and sets it dry raisin on the cane that goes fishing for the needlepoint that the color wipes the plate clean of the potato omelette heart grasshopper heart laughs open-mouthed heart is content crust of bread sprinkled with olive oil rubbed in the flying gurnard’s eye Pandora’s box tambourine accompanying the chimes of the feet hanging in the tree made by the pieces torn from the afternoon that rubs its nose in the arm that a lily’s sigh reclining at the edge of the creaking and the flavor that in the bull’s eye the cinnamon lifts onto the tip of the blue nailing it with bayonets hammering on the nape of the neck the stool where seated he is writing his vile garrote story of the bull explodes at four in the afternoon the fiesta
18 January XXXVI
and the song of songs appears inside the crystal clear cup of the bullfighters who are full of thousands of rainbow castanets of guitars of silk of hearts bells of fires of Bengal and of rockets of butterflies of lips flowers that dancing singing clapping and exploding and flying go in against the crystal to break the breakwater of olés that applaud their forms upon the sail that swells pregnant in the twisted panting that receives from the thousands and thousands of concentric circles made all around by the thousands and thousands of mouths that start nailing above their bodies the sound that awakens against the crystal the kiss of the design that embroiders the gold or silver that will dress the capes boleros and bags that coat bullfighters and toreadors cooked in the heat of the threads of the coffin of the clever worm dyed as the stellar specter that the colored wings that hold up in the air like the mules that the tickles that the bells season mince with their vinegar throw a net over the body stretched out in the sun and haul the seine of the miraculous fish that shows amid its mesh the monkey’s leaps and mischief and the matador’s team appears in the world dragging behind them the centaurs centurions
19 January XXXVI
and from the table of flames from the bonfire of music the cloud of transparent locusts rises precious stones that fly through out of their machinegunning necessity to possess the key to the main problem central point and eye of the needle beacon rain of stars whip drill and taste of hate in the mouth bird beribboned arrow comes to peck in mid-flight from the burning rose of death that the purple and almond green gauze of the light of its wax in the plate gathers the venom that the swan scorpion will sing now so twisted at the fluttering of the silk against the face of the air that laughs at the saying he drops his head rolling to the bitter shore of the aloe of the color given by the punch of the sun that has gone away fugitive from the night from the bed where with a bicycle in a house of ill repute in Barcelona he leaped with the lance and thrust banderillas sitting in a chair which now that the monkey the parrot the drumsticks the saw the hammer the sickle the scarf and the thistle the trumpet the clarion the jetstone the cry the light and the curl the feather and the smell under his arm cook together in the cauldron the light the feather the cheese the rice the breadcrusts and the ice the chirping of the swifts at the bottom of the blue soup tureen and the tra la la la la they shoot the necessary shots and the omissions that drown in the ink and the blind man sees his image portrayed in the foam of the few pieces of silence that fly strung along on the threads of the air and entangle the pale skein that stops and waits and halts its silence and stops for a moment the clock that turns such a pale yellow faints and bleeds its hours from the unhealthy sorrow learned by every school and wakes up egg sun brighter than the sun made into a man bull host surrounded by twenty-six white eagle wings wrapped in iris circles that keep growing larger as others appear and grow infinitely and since infinitely others and others that appear grow larger as well over the India ink of the infinite which comical as it may be the accuracy of what was said it shows its bit of irony and smiles at the written page because the truth is laughter which in a pure guffaw quarrels with such a funny chimera and water under the bridge since it’s time to come out now for the first tough surly black bull wild-haired muddy dapple-gray cowardly and outlined clockmaker and bearded affection blood-drenched carnation pipes of Pan and slice with its sardine in marinade on top and northern arch passing its finger along the edge of the scythe shuts the bolt and turning it twice like a goat chaste satyr unaware of love even by sight sun within his sun and I laugh knowing what he is climbing the mountains uphill setting himself like a flag on the highest peak shaking it drunk with joy choking in its folds the birds that later at night belly up dead will keep counting their pesetas and playing to see which will toss them the furthest from the vertigo that makes it fling from the crate the dark ball of the bullpen that gives off the smell of love cuckoo bird which by the handful cherubs and chubby angels with no backsides accompany and fan with their wings the jingle and perfume they offer to the indigo blue of the clarion with their farts which in the water of the fountain that fills the crystal glass already described ascend in a balloon the basket filled with the bunch of the most insipid jokes and flatteries so high that the baba made with eau-de-vie flour anisette sugar and olive oil kneaded a long time the dough cut into square pieces and folded twice fried in hot boiling oil and when you see they’re a nice golden brown you take them out and let them cool and melt some honey and while it’s hot roll them in it draining them well and then when they’re almost cold pour rainbow sprinkles over them in front of the mirror of family memories that for me have this flavor and that my mother sometimes sent me knowing how much I liked these things when I was still a boy so long ago and that now at one-o-eight in the morning on the twentieth of January in the year XXXVI lying in bed in my room that looks out on the garden in the Rue La Boétie number 23 in Paris I don’t know why I remember all this that has nothing to do with what I’m writing or maybe it’s only the apparent embroidery of the threads running wild with happiness from floating freely without being tamed by the pattern tickled out of it by the bullring attendant
20 January XXXVI
and at the first shove the bull gives to the horse the curtain rises and all the boats full of footlights go on with fireworks from the sheaves of rockets that reap lights spread-eagle between the sheets of the colors that make its bed and of the bunches of flowers of the cup of glass banderillero who nails his fan who gets tangled up in the open skein of the pattern of his dance and the bull with its key seeks the eagle eye of the tambourine that rings from the blow given by the horn in the spree of its abdomen like the deliberate chiming of the binge fine and delicate banquet of death and opens the door of the deck of the belly wide to the mare lifts the curtains and discovers the feast and arranges the table and chairs and collects the forgotten rags and with its snout cleans the tablecloths stained with the collected blood spurts into the cups along the paths and lanes of the guts braiding them so carefully and arranging them and tying them to the ribs hanging Chinese lanterns and flags on them its eye gleaning the inside details discovers the back of the cave in the deepest inner depth stuck to the twisted roof of the dry tree and sponge drowning in blood the hard-boiled egg of the little white and blue horse wrapped in the sugar and honey of the purple anemone and the poppy full stop and briny bellflower and saltpeter caught by the teeth in the whitewash of the wall that stays up by a miracle in the jostling dealt by the panting that swells the blackberry basket and the white become rose of the little horse jumps its blue that pecks the lilac color from the light that bites it on the neck and in its chest the fanfare of the bass drum and the cymbal the trombone bursts out hands tied by the ropes that pull the net of thorns and of eyes that pull through their veins the broken boat shaking its legs and undoing the mess of the bloody intestine beauties that get tangled up each time more in the labyrinth of the mainmast of the captive pain of the game of chess that swims champion among the waves of olés and the cries that tear ostrich from the open book frightened in the sun that opens its mouth and looks at its throat its tongue speaking truly now tossing out plans perspectives and drawing lines of flight its head turns around and says look at me now that you’re looking at me look at me since you’re already looking at me look at me since me already you’re looking at now look at me since you’re looking at me if already me now look since already you’re looking since if you’re looking at me and if la look now la look ti now look la ti la la ti mi ti la mi ti ti mi ti la ti ti boat lying on the beach cut out by the scissors of the mirror of the silk of the cape and flower stinking from the twisted fart bells hanging from the neck of the slap in the curtains of the tail cake of pierced bone in the part of the tiers that are to the right of the left hand of the ashtray that’s already playing with flames in the highly prohibited game 32 33 24 0 2 21 golden in the festival of the tender dove the niche laughs at the rope la ti la sol re breaks the dispatch and the clam lights the chain of the clock la ti la fa mi re ti la shuts in the touch of silence beneath the needle that wets its finger in the drop of water from the spigot 2 and 2 are six and three reales more and 2 are 10 and six 498678 and in addition the washerwoman’s accounts with her wheat and her wheaty asparragus and her packets of pure sentiments and braided ornaments and the complications borne on the shoulder and the throw-me and leave-it and don’t say there’s a reason to sit down and not do anything more ever that we’ll have to see what’s good and bad and the bad flavor left to fear by burdens and bugs that’s good the clock is fed up with giving so many alms to the hours that don’t even listen to its drowsy ringing of the bell when it hasn’t slept in a century and a thousand others that her hand covers the mouth of the drain that gushes from the belly of the one I was telling you the tale about and that each little curl on the nape of the neck taking the shape of a letter combined in a certain way here is the hard part would form the complete page of the truth of the story passed through the sieve of the mathematics of the exact poetry of its eye
22 January XXXVI
stone bronze steel blood fire black soot punch hammer cable iron chain dog wolf fried squid black record of cante jondo rust the bell’s barking lip eye whistle arrow shout if the silence fades away it’s all ready say a hundred times a and then b and then a b a a and then a b a b and then and then a b c d leap of the toad that falls drowns and passes the feather duster tired at this hour and doesn’t let the bunch of grapes bullfight its wine today since it’s already one twenty in the morning on the 23rd of January in the year 1936
26 January XXXVI
without order or measure without taste without smell the eye will close its wings and sing the prayer for the dead hand placed on guard of laughter dies if the awning scrapes in the light of his neck the displeasure of the color that punishes it bites over a slow flame the finger that twists the shadow that the fan makes of it but let the air come to awaken the glass that ignites it and then the crackling that would be the joy that cheers it on and reddens the rag scratching the box would skip with the metamorphosis of the blood and the thrown dice which if the sword leaps hitting right in the middle of the host and falls apart in the middle of the rose the pair of banderillas that dance saffron flint the blue disc caught in the mesh of the rain of hands and gathered in flight by the sharp beak of the somersault of the captive steel in the cage the boat leaves its bed and goes out through the world trailing its cape and if the grief and regrets and the blow they strike at the mirror can nail their keys in a crown upon its brow the halo of kisses burns in its bonfire the distant sound carried in the beak by the reflection of the stone in the ring sniffing its armpit
27 January XXXVI
it’s raining along the thread that bathes the destiny of the fold of the leaf that flies when it crosses the piece of linen the perfume that intoxicates with its cries the eye placed on the anvil and with each blow that transforms the color of the colors the blood of the flame burns inside the crystal of the goblet
the handful of kings and queens from the playing cards that he tosses against the passing cloud the joy that roasts its chestnuts weighs its old rags on the scales and puts the bread darned with red thread and nailed with thorns in the oven hangs it from the mainmast of the brigantine that goes out wings extended from the earthenware bowl from the gazpacho from the corrida and hides its hour in the flyer stuck to its prison wall cuts it and crumbles and puts it on guard atop the horn that crowns with abysses the stroll by the seashore in the afternoon around six in the silk of its pearly arm shell from Compostela beside the 3 flowers that vomit the green tongue from their mouths heads tousled from the reddish tulip and from the two other yellow tulips singing around the silver and gold of the suits the hard-boiled egg and the anchovies the onion and the oil and the elegance and the confections the grace and the poise and the joke and the salt that they offer to the blockhead who stretching out his hand asks them for a little alms sitting alone on the ground in the middle of the plaza who swallowing saliva rises to heaven among the clouds of bullfighting music hauling the rope from the well and the bucket full of the sun’s laughter that spills and drenches the piece of the plaza on the left from the blow of its lance while the stroke of the bell and the blackbird in the stroke of silence wakes up and sticks out its nose behind the veil the light keeps quiet and an instant puts its hands in front of the noise and throws the cotton above the frying pan and combs the hair of the silence with the feather that the lilac color has stained and rubs the glass with its breath and erases the plaza with its hand and rocks its sleep by the eye of the pearl in the tie-pin and sings into the mouth of the goblet the secret that takes its siesta spread out at the bottom which if the white dissolves in such a pale blue it sighs in the rose and in extasy the yellow faints floats its image in the zephyr and the cambric and a scent of violets sways along when the clock moves its spider legs to catch the fly
28 January XXXVI
225.818 zero three twenty-one thirty-three plus the zeros and all the rest that’s added and does the account that complicates each time more the mess of messes of this life which neither one nor the other nor the one beyond nor the most distant memory that hammers around the cage and makes the goldfinch tell its troubles typewritten so wet and drenched on the moss of the piece of the old cobalt blue rag spoils the tale and drinks a shot of light to everyone’s health and if it’s not the eagle the doorman who receives him on the doorstep of his house and collects his hat and cape when he arrives and the lion who licks his hand at the festoon his caresses make shaking the flag of salutations that the sparrow hawk flies the cape flutters about from the swarm of bees haloing the bull’s head and carries it away enamored of the washed-out blue in his eyes behind him like a lamb adorned with rosettes and colored bows
1 February XXXVI
love is a nettle we have to mow down each instant if we want to have a snooze stretched out in its shadow
2 February XXXVI
once again the beak of the bull opens the skin of aged wine in the horse’s belly and the cellar lit by the blood’s oil explodes the bass drum of the fanfare of pain cooked with the finest needle from the fringes of its eye in the flag that the terror has nailed inside and that the fear shakes desperately trampling on the curtains of its entrails tangling in the threads of the curtain of its theater the illusion of the drama that stakes its life on the last card and builds its house of cards on the razor’s edge of the sound of the swan song of the clarion that dies of sorrow swimming blind diver through the green guts of the lake where Ophelia goes searching at the bottom for a piece of paper and a pencil to start gradually doing her overdue accounts of the list of the stockings of the shirts and pants and the handkerchiefs soaked in the sound of the flower torn from the flute of the inner blue that covers the window gripping the bars a bouquet of hands bites it and twists it when he offers his cape to fill the horn that the bull presents to him and wrapped in the incense of his cape the panting of the silence enters which the cotton sinks in its wound with the sound of cymbals death which opens the faucet where the little white mouse flees which robs it of the grain of rice where its pure horse history is written while the cape sprinkles its purple and coats the tip with the caramel the finishing touch of the diversionary maneuver on the trivet the cauldron begins to make its soup and sing very funny and cheerful tales to pass the time and distract the respectable public disgusting and rotten caught in the prongs of the fork that scrapes the bottom of the paella if the gold rains its saltshaker and stamps in the puddle where the harp floats its tongue rubbing the mud the cup spits the reflection and doesn’t sing through the veil the prayer for the dead which time nails to the poster that peels from the wall the infernal machine of the fluttering where the butterfly laughs