The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

RAYMOND QUENEAU

Reinforcements
[II]

I am old and I am heavy
my age counts up adds pounds to me
and they tell me that old and heavy
I’ve just to wait for death to screw me
in a corner—like somebody old somebody heavy
—keith waldrop

That Don’t Scare Me

That don’t scare me so much death of my guts
death of my bones death of my nose
That don’t scare me so much me a skeeter sort
baptized Raymond from a line of Queneaus

That don’t scare me so much where my books get stacked
in book stalls in johns in dust and doldrums
That don’t scare me so much me who scribble a pack
and boil down death into some poems

That don’t scare me so much Soft night flows
between ringwormy eyelids over dead eyeballs
Night is soft a redhead’s kiss
honey of meridians at north and south poles

I’m not scared of that night not scared of absolute
sleep It must be heavy as lead
dry as lava dark as the sky
deaf as a beggar bellowing on a bridge

I’m scared sti√ of unhappiness crying pain
and dread and rotten luck and parting too long
I’m scared of the lardbellied abyss that holds sickness
and time and space and the mind gone wrong

But I’m not so scared of that lugubrious imbecile
Who’ll come and spit me on his toothpick point
when I’m down and with eyes vague and placid I’ll
have lost my cool to the collecting rats