André Breton
One word and all is saved One word and all is lost — André Breton, from “Unconscious,” Poems of André Breton: A Bilingual Anthology (University of Texas Press, 1982)
Category: Surrealism
André Breton
When the windows like the jackal’s eye and desire pierce the dawn, silken windlasses lift me up to suburban footbridges. I summon a girl who is dreaming in the little gilded house; she meets me on the piles of black moss and offers me her lips which are stones in the rapid river depths. Veiled… Continue reading André Breton
Paul Celan
Unreadability of this world. All doubles. The strong clocks back the fissure-hour, hoarsely. You, wedged into your deepest, climb out of yourself for ever. — Paul Celan, “Unreadability,” Paul Celan: Selections. (University of California Press, March 14th 2005)
Leonora Carrington
Your head has dissolved into thin air and I can see the rhododendrons through your stomach. It’s not that you are dead or anything dramatic like that, it is simply that you are fading away and I can’t even remember your name. — Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet. (Exact Change; 1ST edition, February 2, 2004)… Continue reading Leonora Carrington
E. E. Cummings
in Spring comes(no- one asks his name) a mender of things with eager fingers(with patient eyes)… — E. E. Cummings, from “Spring,” Selected Poems. (Liveright; New Ed edition, 12 Oct. 1994)
Octavio Paz
With shadows I draw worlds, I scatter worlds with shadows. I hear the light beat on the other side. — Octavio Paz, from “This Side,” The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz: 1957-1987, trans. Eliot Weinberger (New Directions, 1987)
E. E. Cummings
the sky a silver dissonance by the correct fingers of April resolved into a clutter of trite jewels — E. E. Cummings, from “Impressions: the sky a sliver,” Tulips and Chimneys. (Liveright; 2nd Revised ed. Edition, August 17, 1996) Originally published 1923.
