The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

TRISTAN TZARA

glass toys shatter among the stars with chains
for animals
and in the glaciers I’d like to come along
with root
with my sickness
with the sand swarming in my brain
for I’m very smart
and with darkness

XII

IN PORCELAIN the song imagined
I’m tired—the queens’ song
the tree bursts with food like a lamp
I WEEP longing to rise above the fountain twists to the sky because there is no
more terrestrial gravity in school and in the brain
my hand is cold and dry but it has stroked the surging forth of water
and I’ve also seen something (in the sky) like water screwing down the fruits
and the eraser

XIII

but I think serious thoughts about what’s happened to me
lila
LILA

LILA

LILA

LILA

your brother is yelling
tell him
between the leaves of the book the humid
hand
paint my belief with lime
burn dark in the wire
LILA