You are here

Earth Ocean

Author: 
Apollinaire

- to Giorgio de Chirico

 

I built a house in the middle of the ocean

Its windows rivers streaming from my eyes

Octopuses storm the walls we hold onto

Hear their triple hearts beat beaks rattle the panes

                           Sodden house

                           House on fire

                           Quick season

                           Season of song

              The planes are dropping eggs

              Mind the anchor that one swings

Mind the inkjet that one squirts

A good thing you've come from the sky

The earthbound octopuses are trembling

And we're nothing but clever gravediggers

Pale octopuses of chalk seas pale-beaked octopuses

You can tell there's an ocean round this house

It never sleeps

 

share

From Brando's Hat No 2 (Summer 1998). Translated by Steven Waling.

Explore more

RELATED POEMS

Household

by
Henry Shukman

The tons of brick and stone, the yards of piping,

the sinks and china basins, three toilets, the tiles,

and the tons of wood in floors, chairs, tables,

the yards of flex and cable that wrap the house

like a net, the heavy glassed front door, the gate

onto the street, the rippled sheets of window,

the yew tree by the back, the pictures, books, piano:

what would it all weigh? One kiss, one breathed

declaration, and there it is: the mass of love.

 

Home
Enjoy this poem

Remote

by
Ra Page

Although I only use a few

its rack of buttons feels familiar

– a scientific calculator

to school kids yet to work out pi.

 

I play the channels with one thumb,

cross by stepping stones of touch,

touch, touch from floodlit football pitch

to chat show guest, to this sit com.

 

But now I’ll have to share the thing,

give up my relay race from news

to news, budge over for someone else

to sit, with tired legs, strange

 

tastes. She points afresh: to archive

footage, video-recorded

lifestyles…jobs I once considered,

places I thought I’d one day live.

 

Home
Enjoy this poem

Continuity

by
Rennie Parker

Their doors come through

Our walls, their noise is ours.

An enthusiast of drills,

His noise reminds me

Of steel pencils.

Each night when all their

Windows shut, they dream annoyance

Slotted between their starched

Particular nightsheets.

 

I hear her voice between

Three walls. Whatever she does

It doesn’t sound like fun.

May I be spared the kitchen

Mixer and electric knife;

A flexible knife has cleansed her

And it doesn’t sound good.

 

He makes low noise beyond

The garden wall (the garden wall).

His hut light’s on (click)

He makes mechanic sounds;

Bricks and mortar

Have broken his bones,

Used his blood.

 

Next door I need no clock.

- My life is timed

When their programmes switch;

Their regular sawn-off dog

Has its punctual bark. I know

They talk to neighbours,

Wait for invitations

From the household god

Who leaves no room

And interchangeable as grass

Another pair comes when

Old ones make no sound.

 

Home
Enjoy this poem