HOUSEHOLD DEMANDS, 1

do you see these fine plates
with their eggshelly texture
and flawless bird plumes
swirling in their bottoms?

well i know

that if i dare smash them against the tree over there
the crash
the bright shards in their slow
acrobatics in the air

and the rage

will give me back the right nourishment.

HOLIDAYS WITHOUT HEGEL

Whole villages
we have seen
that let themselves be
in the shade of a big tamarind

wild ivy
            coiled round the telegraph poles

donkeys
            nodding their heads over fractions
            of their legs
            lozenges in quivering water

Here work is reduced
to getting up with the sun
very high
behind the weariness
that some tourists
drag after them

Here
we spend days without glory
without a moral
without a timetable

Sprawling
we have read
any old unwanted newspaper
that offered
we have read the deaths
the lovers' messages
the bankers' threats
            neither blank nor concentrating

Nothing has moved us

Nothing has upset us
in the overwhelming heat

We have liked
our children just as they are:
black
skinny
scratching
the thousand insect eggs
under their skin
only properly hungry at nightfall
            as if a sudden appetite
            gave them the same urges
            as hunters
            poking the fire
            in an old illustration                                                   

so far away among the folds of sand
that they seemed to belong to others
to be smoke
            matter evaporating in the gauze of the horizon

Naked in the open air
we have eaten
freshly dismembered crabs
without pity
with no more precaution than keeping
out of the wind
huddled together

Dirty
we have been
            with no judgments
            and no afterthoughts

The sea
            has been the sea

The light
             light

At most
an invisible weight on our backs

The animals' stupor
consisted of sucking noisily
and at peace
each fishbone
and in the end
            the shining blade
                        the diamond scales
                           hurt nobody

Nobody
was inspired to write a poem
by the death throes of the pelican
            the children dragged it painfully
            from one end to the other
            tortured it
            by offering it worms
            and rotten fishes
            in the ear of its broken wing
            they whispered
            with cynical patience
            its lost infinity

Suitable quotations
didn't even remotely
occur to us                                                                                          

nor the duty of pronouncing
any such words

Only interjections

Because talking
             what is called talking
we haven't talked

And implying
            nor have we implied

Dirt
poverty
we have not discussed
nor the exhilaration of the fishermen
how they throw the net
and some coins
that they quickly cover
with the palms of their hands
            as if it was writing

No redeeming passion
has touched us

We have humiliated no one
with interpretations
or false songs

The song came by itself
as an exhalation
of the open night

its burnt salt lips
brushed us
in the swinging light
over the book
read till late
with ignorance and belief
without understanding
like an unhappy student
aloof from the world
            while the children's sleep
            had the same swell as the pelican
            in its deep flight

            deep and weightless and dewed with foam
                        steady in turbulence

NO ONE CAN HAVE BEEN HAPPIER THAN US

They all died
beetles fireflies mosquitos daddy-longlegs
minute lace wings
rosy filigree
fine threads
               leaf
                         frostings

they all died
thousands of them danced
particles of stars
in the crystalline trap of the glass of water
in the beam of light shuffled by the wind
they all died
the mischievous the little suns
shot into the cat's fur
seduced by the Persian warmth of the fruit
they all succumbed to fatigue
to celebration
they drank so hard of the summer
they buzzed so much in their ardor
they had only to enter the sunset
scarcely waver over the steam from tea
elbow to elbow
trusting
be deceived in the glowing of the oven
get sticky
in the honey of the dirty plates
blind with gold and softness
on the butter
in the sloth of coffee the glazed dessert
they all died finally
of immortal excess
in the poem
            The morning finds them motionless
            an army broken
            by too much sweetness and light
            swept away
            with the dew-damp broom
            and without pity