Preamble (A Rough Draft For An Ars Poetica) by Jean Cocteau
...Preamble
A rough draft for an ars poetica
. . . . . . .
Let's get our dreams unstuck
The grain of rye free from the prattle of grass et loin de arbres orateurs
I
plant
it
It will sprout
But forget about the rustic festivities
For the explosive word falls harmlessly eternal through the compact generations
and except for you
nothing denotates
its sweet-scented dynamite
Greetings I discard eloquence the empty sail and the swollen sail which cause the ship to lose her course
My ink nicks and there
and there
and there
and there
sleeps deep poetry
The mirror-paneled wardrobe washing down ice-floes the little eskimo girl
dreaming in a heap of moist negroes her nose was flattened against the window-pane of dreary Christmases
A white bear adorned with chromatic moire
dries himself in the midnight sun
Liners
The huge luxury item
Slowly founders all its lights aglow
and so sinks the evening-dress ball into the thousand mirrors of the palace hotel
And now it is I
the thin Columbus of phenomena alone in the front of a mirror-paneled wardrobe full of linen and locking with a key
The obstinate miner of the void exploits his fertile mine
the potential in the rough glitters there mingling with its white rock
Oh princess of the mad sleep listen to my horn and my pack of hounds
I deliver you from the forest where we came upon the spell
Here we are by the pen one with the other wedded on the page
Isles sobs of Ariadne
Ariadnes dragging along Aridnes seals
for I betray you my fair stanzas to run and awaken elsewhere
I plan no architecture
Simply deaf like you Beethoven
blind like you Homer numberless old man
born everywhere
I elaborate in the prairies of inner silence
and the work of the mission and the poem of the work and the stanza of the poem and the group of the stanza and the words of the group and the letters of the word and the least loop of the letters
it's your foot of attentive satin that I place in position pink tightrope walker sucked up by the void
to the left to the right the god gives a shake and I walk towards the other side with infinite precaution