Preamble (A Rough Draft For An Ars Poetica)

Jean Cocteau 1889 (Maisons-Laffitte) – 1963 (Milly-la-Forêt)



...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

Submitted by Linda M. Gibbs

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 13, 2023

1:55 min read
250

Quick analysis:

Scheme XA A BCC D DX EFGX G AC H XIJJXX XK LK XF MCX ANXOLXX KG P Q RS SXRT XB UXXMPA VWXX XKA SNXX GXT VXVXX F CAX OGPK V FXP XGVX XVI PAQUXEXR XPPAVW HAAXP X
Closest metre Iambic dimeter
Characters 2,172
Words 384
Stanzas 38
Stanza Lengths 2, 1, 3, 1, 2, 4, 1, 2, 1, 6, 2, 2, 2, 3, 7, 2, 1, 1, 2, 4, 2, 6, 4, 3, 4, 3, 5, 1, 3, 4, 1, 3, 4, 3, 8, 6, 5, 1

Jean Cocteau

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. more…

All Jean Cocteau poems | Jean Cocteau Books

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