In the middle of a silence deserted as a street before a crime
not even breathing so that nothing will disturb my dying
in this loneliness with no walls
at this hour when angles are escaping
I leave my bloodless statue in the tomb of my bed
and go off in the slow-moving moment
in the interminable descent
with no arms to stretch out
with no fingers to reach the scale falling from an invisible piano
with nothing more than a glance and a voice
that can’t remember having left their eyes and lips
what are lips? What are glances that are lips?
and my voice is no longer my voice
within this unwetting water
within this plate glass air
within this purple fire that slashes like a scream
In the miserable game of mirror to mirror
my voice is falling
and my voice incinerates
and my voice in sin narrates
and my voice in sin elates
and my poison scintillates
like plate glass ice
like the screams of ice
here in the shell of my ear
the pounding of a sea where I get nothing
wet nothing
for I’ve left my arms and feet on shore
and I feel the net of my nerves being cast outside me
and everything escapes like a calculating fish
counting to a hundred in the pulse in my temples
a dead telegraph no one is answering
for sleep and death have nothing more to say.
(1940)