A CRY - Antonin Artaud

A CRY

The little celestial poet

Opens the shutters of his heart.

The heavens clash. Oblivion

Uproots the symphony.

Stableman the wild house

That has you guard wolves

Does not suspect the wraths

Smouldering beneath the big alcove

Of the vault that hangs above us.

Hence silence and darkness

Muzzle all impurity

The sky strides forward

At the crossroad of sounds.

The star is eating. The oblique sky

Is opening its flight toward the heights

Night sweeps away the scraps

Of the meal that contented us.

On earth walks a slug

Which is greeted by ten thousand white hands

A slug is crawling

There where the earth vanished.

Angels whom no obscenity summons

Were homeward bound in peace

When rose the real voice

Of the spirit that called them.

The sun lower than daylight

Volatilized all the sea.

A strange but clear dream

Was born on the clean earth.

The lost little poet

Leaves his heavenly post

With an unearthly idea

Pressed upon his hairy heart.

Two traditions met.

But our padlocked thoughts

Lacked the place required,

Experiment to be tried again

A.A.

Antonin Artaud to Jacques Riviere

1924