Free Union

Andre Breton

My wife with the hair of a wood fireWith the thoughts of heat lightningWith the waist of an hourglassWith the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tigerMy wife with her rosette mouth and a bouquet of stars of the last magnitudeWith the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earthWith the tongue of rubbed amber and glassMy wife with the tongue of a stabbed hostWith the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyesWith the tongue of an unbelievable stoneMy wife with her eyelashes in the strokes of a child's writingWith eyebrows from the edge of a swallow's nestMy wife with brows of slates on a hothouse roofAnd with steam on the windowpanesMy wife with shoulders of champagneAnd of a fountain with dolphin heads beneath the iceMy wife with wrists of matchesMy wife with fingers of luck and the ace of heartsWith fingers of mown hayMy wife with armpits of marten and of beechnutAnd of Midsummer NightOf privet and of an angelfish nestWith arms of seafoam and of riverlocksAnd of a mingling of the wheat and the millMy wife with legs of flaresWith the movements of clockwork and despairMy wife with calves of eldertree pithMy wife with feet of initialsWith feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinkingMy wife with a neck of unpearled barleyMy wife with a throat of the valley of gold

Of a tryst in the very bed of the torrentWith breasts of nightMy wife with her undersea molehill breasts  My wife with breasts of the ruby's crucibleWith breasts of the spectre of the rose beneath the dewMy wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of daysWith the belly of a gigantic clawMy wife with the back of a bird fleeing verticallyWith a back of quicksilverWith a back of lightWith a nape of rolled stone and wet chalkAnd of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinkingMy wife with hips of a skiffWith hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathersAnd of shafts of white peacock plumesOf an insensible pendulumMy wife with buttocks of sandstone and asbestosMy wife with buttocks of swans' backsMy wife with buttocks of springWith the sex of an irisMy wife with the sex of placer and platypusMy wife with a sex of seaweed and ancient sweetmeatMy wife with a sex of mirrorMy wife with eyes full of tearsWith eyes of purple panoply and of a magnetic needleMy wife with savanna eyesMy wife with eyes of water to be drunk in prisonMy wife with eyes of wood always under the axeMy wife with eyes of water-level air-level earth and fire

Sleepless City

Federico Garcia LorcaOut in the sky, no one sleeps. No one, no one.No one sleeps.The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,and the brokenhearted fugitive will meet on street cornersan unbelievable alligator resting beneath the tender protest of the stars.

Out in the sky, no one sleeps. No one, no one.No one sleeps.In a graveyard far off there is a corpsewho has moaned for three yearsbecause of an arid landscape in his knee;and that boy they buried this morning cried so muchit was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.

Life is not a dream. Careful!  Careful!  Careful!We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earthor we climb to the snow's edge with the voices of dead dahlias.But there is no oblivion; no dream:only flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouthsin a tangle of new veins,and those who hurt will hurt without restand those who are afraid of death will carry it on their shoulders.

One day horses will live in the saloonsand the enraged antswill throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the eyes of cows.

Another daywe will watch the dried butterflies rise from the deadand still walking through a landscape of gray sponges and silent shipswe will watch our ring flash while roses spill from our tongues.

Careful!  Be careful!  Be careful!Those still marked by claws and thunderstorms,and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention of bridges,or that corpse who possesses now only his head and a shoe,we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes are waiting,where the bear's teeth are waiting,where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,and the fur of the camel stands on end with a violent blue chill.

Out in the sky, no one sleeps. No one, no one.No one sleeps.But if someone does close his eyes,whip him, my children, whip him!Let there be a landscape of open eyesand bitter wounds on fire.Out in the sky, no one sleeps.  No one, no one.I have said it before.No one is sleeping.But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the night,open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlightthe fake goblets, the poison, and the skull of the theaters.