3. Contrasts

The windows of my poesy are wide open on the boulevards
and in their panes
Glitter
Gemstones of light

Hark the violins of limousines and the xylophones of linotypes
The dauber cleans himself with the hand towel of the sky
All is spots of color

And the hats of women passersby are comets in the conflagration
of evening

Unity

There’s no more unity
All the clocks say 24 hours now after having been set back ten

minutes
There’s no more time.

There’s no more money.
In the Chamber
They waste the marvelous elements of raw material

In the bistro

The workers in blue shirts drink red wine

Every Saturday chicken in the pot

They play
They bet
From time to time a crook passes by in a car
Or a child plays with the Arch of Triumph…
I advise Mr. Pig to lodge his protégés in the Eiffel Tower.

Today
Ownership change
The Holy Spirit is for sale in the tiniest shops

I read with ravishment the bands of calico

Of marigold
There are none but the pumice stones of the Sorbonne that have

never bloomed
The sign of the Samaritan plows per contra the Seine
And over at Saint-Séverin

I hear
The tramcars’ relentless ringing

It rains electric light bulbs

Montrouge Gare de l’Est Métro Nord-Sud bateaux-mouches

world
All is halo
Depth
Rue de Buci they hawk L’Intransigeant and Paris-Sports
The airport of the sky is now, ablaze, a picture by Cimabue

Whenas to the fore

Men are
Long

Dark

Sad
And smoke, factory stacks.

October 1913.