The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

BERNARD COLLIN

Fraction

Far o√ is less distant than the ground, the biting bed
of air,
where you stop, a harrow on the reddening
earth.

I remain above the grass, in the blinding air.

The ground erupts ceaselessly towards us,
without my moving o√
from the day.

Nothing
today, is trampled. I don’t subsist
in the naked air.

On this road growing.
—mary ann caws

Bernard Collin 1927–

paris, france

C

ollin, a poet and artist, lives in Paris. He has been publishing his highly

original texts since 1960 with Mercure de France, Christian Bourgois,

and Fata Morgana. His most recent books have been published by

Éditions Ivréa. Principal works: Perpétuel voyez physique, 1996; Les Milliers, les

millions et le simple, 1999; Les Globules de Descartes, 2003.

Perpetual Look Physics
17/5

Straight line, row of swimmers, a hundred feet to a line, l’oratio pedestris, the
tongue dragging itself along, goes over the earth, the other is the winged tongue,