Vulgar Nocturne

One breath opens operatic breaches in the barrier—blurs the pivoting of worn roofs—disperses the limits of the foyers—eclipses the casements.

Along the vine, having put my foot on a gargoyle—I descended into this coach whose epoch is indicated enough by convex mirrors, curved panels and contour sofas. Hearse of my slumber, isolated, house of the shepherd of my silliness, the vehicle veers onto the grass of the old effaced road: and in a defect at the top of the righthand mirror whirl pale lunar figures, leaves, breasts.

—A green and blue very deep invade the image.

Unhitching around a patch of gravel.

—Here one will whistle for the storm, and Sodoms and Solymas, and ferocious beasts and armies,

(Postilion and beasts of dream will they again under the most suffocating forests, drop me to the eyes in the wellspring of silk?)

And send us, lashed across lapping waters and spilled drinks, rolling to the baying of mastiffs...

—One breath disperses the limits of the foyer.

Seascape

Cars of silver and copper—
Prows of steel and silver—
Beat the foam—
Pull up bramble stumps.
The currents of the moor,
And the enormous ruts of the ebb,
Go off circularly eastward,
Toward the forest pillars—
Toward the pilings of the pier,
Whose angle is hit by whirlwinds of light.

Winter Feast

The cascade rings behind the comic opera huts. Girandoles prolong, in the orchards and lanes beside the Meander—the greens and reds of sundown. Horatian nymphs with First Empire hair—Siberian Rounddances, Chinese women by Boucher.

Anguish

Could it be She will have me pardoned for ambitions continually crushed—an easy end repair ages of indigence—one day of success lull us on the shore of our fatal inability?

(O palms! diamond!—love, strength!—higher than all joy and glory!—anyhow—everywhere, demon, god—youth of this being: me!)

Accidents of scientific faëry and movements of social fraternity be cherished as progressive restitution of the first frankness?...

But the Vampire who makes us nice commands that we amuse ourselves with what she leaves us, or otherwise be more droll.

Roll on wounds, through the wearying air and sea; in tortures, through silence of murderous waters and air; in torments that laugh, in their silence atrociously howling.