PEOPLE


People

Modest chair people painted grey
who don't want to be anything
but chairs for others to sit in.

Cloud people giving birth to themselves.

Navel-less non-people who'd like to improve
and slowly slowly as if blind
grope their way toward a real human navel.

Hole people who are the straight
gate to the most progressive hell.
Hole people making a comb
but little honey.

Long thin thread people
of white unwritten thread
rolled on a spool
convenient to carry in your pocket.

People who have a feeling
that the stones will soon be ripe.

People of the opinion
that it makes no sense
to grow in addition to their two front legs
two legs behind
that even a single leg would do
to jump into the bottomless pit.

Minute people who when put on the wall
promptly turn into circles
cry cuckoo cuckoo
and show the time.

People who turn into bright suns after their death.

People like a sea
throwing dice with bouquets of flowers.

People who are mild egg moons.

People who get into a train
as an Arabic 1
and get out
as a Roman I.

People say to themselves:
Reproducing produce
whether umbrellas or potemkin spears
in Greek or Hebrew villages
makes you mad.
Better to hedge cold frontiers.
Better not to leave the peridrome.
all your life.

People who sneeze pebbles.

Centaur people half man half car.

Chatterbox people chattering about boxes.

People who can't develop a taste
for the primeval
but rather wrangle in this world
and in their noseless faces
daily brush and paint and lacquer
three abundant heraldic
stylized moustaches
one above another.

destruction and billiard-breaks, are actions which are insured against
lightning and recognized as being a public utility. There is one known
fact: dadaists are only to be found these days in the French Academy. I
nevertheless consider myself very likeable.

-Tristan Tzara