It is death: the policeman lies dead. On high, love takes a siesta, sucking the meat with heavy hand where the extinguished kisses leave a red patch. Alone is the hour. Listen. Not a dream stirs.
It is life: listen, the lively spring sings the eternal song on the head of a sea-god drawing green naked limbs on the bed of the Morgue ... and the great open eyes.
DIURNAL PARIS
See gleaming in the skies the great disk of red copper, immense casserole where the good God cooks manna, the harlequin, eternal plat du jour. It is dipped in sweat and dipped in love.
The laridons wait in a circle near the oven; vaguely one hears the rustling of rancid flesh, and the tipplers, too, are there, holding out their jugs; the wretches shiver, waiting their turn.
Thinkest thou the sun then fries for everybody these fat stirring scraps of burnt meat which a flood of gold inundates? No, the dog-soup falls on us from the sky.
They are beneath the ray and we beneath the gutter. To us the black jug that grows cold without light. Our substance for ourselves is our bag of gall.
With the assent of the tall sunflowers.