Tuesday 31 March 2015

Poem: "Occasionally Paul Eluard"




OCCASIONALLY 
PAUL ELUARD


dawn cross-hatches sheets with cancer
you raise your antlered eyelids and
speak to me through bronze keyholes
as we empty our pockets in frozen ritual,
seventeen insects crawl within my stomach
seventy-four ashtrays scream in silent agony,
you raise your vacuum lips from the pubic fire
of my grateful thighs where you’ve spent the night

the world ceases to exist
beyond our field of perception,
you climb the austere liquid watches
somewhere beyond the monastic emptiness
of vision until canopus defies uranus
across a street clogged with
the silt of unattached retinas,
eventually, unseen conversation
extinguishes itself in
a spill of coins…



Published in: ‘CENTRE SEVENTEEN’ (UK)
‘SECOND COMING’ (USA)
‘GLOBAL TAPESTRY JOURNAL’ (UK)
‘FORERUNNER No.35’ (Australia – November 1975)
also collected into:
‘SECOND COMING ANTHOLOGY’ (USA – March 1984)
‘DEAF EYES’ (Fiasco Publications)

             Paul Eluard (14 December 1895 - 26 November 1952)

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