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Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Henri Michaux, Labyrinth





















Life the labyrinth, the labyrinth death,
labyrinth without end, says the Master of Ho.

Everything caves in, nothing sets free.
The suicide is reborn to new pain.

The prison opens onto a prison,
one corridor opens on another:

he who thinks he’s unrolling the scroll of life
is unrolling nothing.

Nothing leads anywhere.
The centuries too live underground, says the Master of Ho.

1 comment:

R. G. Bhaji said...

Jamie McKendrick, 'Skin Deep'



The headlamps of divers
cast a greasy cloud of light just under
the sea's dark skin. Before you can blink

the octopus has played a symphony
of russet stipples and black bands
across its back. It thinks in colour.

Beware and welcome have twenty inflections
like Delacroix saying Mon cher monsieur
- for tomorrow's lunch they'll all boil down

to an inky sauce, some Redon lithograph
of spiders dancing in the afterlife.