fr Days of Mercury
One night with Cocteau
How we change every hour
Ned Rorem, Paris Diary 1952
“I tried not to write” Cocteau wrote “I drew.
Otherwise my right hand would grow frantic.”
notes from Jean Cocteau, circa 1925.
On the first official cure
Re~dreaming rheumatic fever
Inside the
Dna of surrealists
tumbling
From a tower just
To crush me
But knew not to be really
Here except physically
Only that
no more no more
I could hear my hair grow
so learned how to
Switch down the volume somehow
But still heard the blood in
Venus go to an ice
Angel from licking Jean
Because he couldn’t get out
Of this room.
(like Petrushka)
Wasn’t then was then wasn’t then was
Turning over
tri movie cube
With the other Jean
Later deaf screens
the corners to show
Spikes & rivet
Calculus over
The trails to borderless
Romania
Channel for them
or you would
Be killed if you
Didn’t focus on
two subterranean storms
In the raw
Shocks of color where
That sees the condition of the world.
After that Cocteau
held the key where
all of my diaries were hidden
In the same room my parents.
But I’m not sure since they
Are disappeared since
But I sometimes we hear their
Voices are just outside.
Naturally they were all phantoms as
I was pretending to be
just to get to the
moments of lording shadows
Next moment (rhyme) surreality
And all of the great literature in the
World was visible in that
hidden crystal
That weighted down my papers
And was overlooked when they
Investigated me
That fascists came busting in
But I couldn’t be bothered because
I was working on cinema scores
And they said they were enraged
Taking actions against me
But really they were pissed because
I wasn’t afraid of them
How could I be fearful of just them
their cruel minds and dead hearts
Were nothing
I thrived next to that
I also pretended it was just a dream
I pretended they were my rapists
I passionately raged that they
Gnawed their souls away
With religion
And panicked when they realized
What they had done
So shrouded themselves in the
Corrupt mysteries
Why wouldn’t it be
A satire of the cruelest
Revelations, the
Brutalist passions
I started smoking
Opiummmmmmmmmmmm
Mirrors in mirrors in mirrors
Inevitably that clouded sanctuary
Obliterating the lies
I heard someone ask
Whisper this was a most serious
Story
“you expect me to swallow the sacrament like an aspirin.”
“Exactly”
“well I’ll have to think about it.
“So if you want to stay and smoke you can
At least pretend”
And he is not gone
And he is gone
And he is not gone
Toward war
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