Der Panther

Cannot be understood

And to try

            Is to move further from understanding still.

Better that “horror”

Be written on a piece of paper

And that that paper be burned

And its ashes sent to the sky

And that they seed the clouds that float

Above a silent Paris.

It is that blue sky -

Emblem of Empire, syphilis, enlightened atrocity -

Which is responsible

            For the eyes which weary of the cage

And the doubt of a world beyond them.

And it is its duty alone to bear

The great lluvulation

Necessary to revive a dead heart.