Richard Wright: Five Haikus
1.
I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away.2.
I give permission
For this slow spring rain to soak
The violet beds.3.
With a twitching nose
A dog reads a telegram
On a wet tree trunk.4.
Burning autumn leaves,
I yearn to make the bonfire
Bigger and bigger.5.
A sleepless spring night:
Yearning for what I never had
And for what never was.**********
Photo: Richard Wright in his studio, 1943
Antonin Artaud: «Poète noir»
Poète noir, un sein de pucelle
te hante,
poète aigri, la vie bout
et la ville brûle,
et le ciel se résorbe en pluie,
ta plume gratte au cœur de la vie.
Forêt, forêt, des yeux fourmillent
sur les pignons multipliés ;
cheveux d’orage, les poètes
enfourchent des chevaux, des chiens.
Les yeux ragent, les langues tournent,
le ciel afflue dans les narines
comme un lait nourricier et bleu ;
je suis suspendu à vos bouches
femmes, cœurs de vinaigre durs.- from L’Ombilic des limbes
Young Artaud in character…
“If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.” - “On Suicide,” no. 1, Le Disque Vert (1925)
