La Révolution Surréaliste 1927
Source: La Révolution Surréaliste, Third year, Nos. 9-10, October 1, 1927;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor 2012;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2012.
In the shelter of oaks covered in vermin
Oaks full of the greenery of the dead
Violet shadow separating the decay of horizons
Since the birth of man
In the shelter of trees justice is not rendered
For justice is a bird of ill omen
Which wails at night to lull to sleep rooms full of love
Rooms fatal to newborn infants
Disguised she offers an unhealthy hand
To the poor despairing of the blackness of walls
The prison guards growl with joy while sucking on handcuffs
Colder than a church’s bell tower
The crowd rushes, it must already foresee towards so-called popular dancehalls
Justice justice
It will surely end up by choking while coughing
Lost cat behind a sticky sidewalk
Pitiful window opening only to extinguish
The glimmerings that brush against the length of short-sighted bodies
Ask the way while crying the length of the streetlights
While the policemen go bald
How the stained glass windows of the chapels are obliterated
Under the pressure of the damp hands of women who were never virgins
And for whom every boulevard was only ever a passion
Ask the way and they won’t answer
Shoulders exiled to the endless nights
Mines of strangled shadows
Streetlights surge in sparks of distant waves
It’s raining full force
A sparrow hawk leaps out, a disoriented dancer
Space moves with agility beneath metallic forests
From which musical crows fly to cold destinies
Beyond the rapid palpitation of the underbrush
Nailed to the ground by menhirs
Scarecrows of cloud sketched or dying
Beyond the despoiled virginities of deserts where the sun sleeps
Today’s boredom has taken a seat
Covered in seconds like a priest with fleas
The caress of these monsters has melted
From its dust escape white and gold birds
Joy of feathers rapidity of wings
Train of a dress of escaped jewels of the eyes of loving women
Exalted flames transparent necks
Gentle breast torsos of stars
Vigilant guards of the tender dawn
The crystalline dawn the perpetual dawn
Blue-haired panther
Love is born of encounters an octopus eats the rainbow
A perfumed owl shelters with its wing
The ironic ghosts and the friends of crime
The slopes blackened with obligations crumble at the trembling of fatigue
Yet again dusk has dispersed into the night
After having written on the walls IT IS FORBIDDEN NOT TO DREAM