Walking Around

It happens that I am tired of being a man.
It happens that I go into the tailor shops and the movies
faded, impenetrable, like a felt swan
navigating on a water of origin and ash.

The smell of barbershops makes me sob out loud.
I want nothing but the repose either of stones or of wool,
I don't want to see any more establishments nor gardens,
nor merchandise, nor glasses, nor elevators.

It happens that I am tired of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow,
It happens that I am tired of being a man.

However, it would be delicious
to scare a notary with a cut lily
or kill a nun with one blow to the ear.
It would be beautiful
to go through the streets with a green knife
shouting until I die of cold.

I do not want to go on being a root in the dark,
hesitant, extended, shivering with dreams,
downwards, in the wet innards of the earth,
soaking it up and thinking, eating every day.

I do not want for my many miseries.
I do not want to continue as a root and as a tomb,
as a solitary tunnel, as a cellar full of corpses,
freezing, dying with pain.

That's why Monday burns like oil
at the sight of me arriving with my jail-face,
and it howls in passing like a wounded wheel,
and its footsteps towards nightfall are filled with hot blood.

And it shoves me along to certain corners, to certain damp houses,
to hospitals where the bones come out of the windows,
to certain cobblers' shops smelling of vinegar,
to streets horrific as crevices.

There are birds the color of sulfur, and horrible intestines
hanging from the doors of the houses which I hate,
there are forgotten sets of teeth in a coffee-pot,
there are mirrors
which should have wept with shame and horror,
there are umbrellas all over the place, and poisons, and navels.

I walk with calm, with eyes, with shoes,
with fury, with forgetfulness,
I pass, I cross offices and stores full of orthopedic appliances,
and courtyards hung with clothes on wires,
underpants, towels and shirts which weep
slow dirty tears.