EDMOND JABÈSSunland
A country where the billboards have claws
Not just anyone can enter
Where the stones are outside earth’s ravaged eyelids
Shadows there take a chance on
morning How many knots of thirst for fruit immobilize the branches
from the roots up
A country a town at the foot of a wall
where children play at catching the wind
at blinding the big blue eyes of the wind
where girls hike up their schnappsy dresses
at midnight
My love a country a town a room
prolonged by the oil of casements
cut short by the quartz of evening setting in
where the bolts are lock-boxes with dream keys
on which you write your name
where water runs between the fingers
when the lamp begins to flicker
My love a country a town a room a bed
The universe sprouts there in spider fronds lynx-pads
We hear life inflating the veins
of silence
All things take measure of themselves and rejoice
in their own form
My love a country a town a room a bed a dead man
which opens out
when nothing sounds
I never spoke to you about him
my brother my ally
the only one who remembers
who tells indefinitely the frozen beads of his soul
Pain sets fire
to shadows His temples become irridescent
unawares
My love a country a town a room a bed a dead man a
roof
Cinderella rouses festive rings on the river
with her naked foot
The orchestra makes gold orgy-beans glitter
on heads of grizzled hair