I took off, fists in my torn pockets;
Even my coat was becoming an idea;
I went beneath the sky, Muse! and I was your vassal;
Oo-la-la did I dream some love affairs!
My only pair of pants had a big hole.
—Tom Thumb the dreamer, I picked rhymes
On my way. My inn was at the Big Dipper.
—My stars in the sky made a gentle swoosh.
And I listened to them, seated by roads,
Those good September evenings where I felt drops
Of dew on my brow, like a strong wine;
Where, rhyming surrounded by fantastic shadows,
Like lyres I strummed the elastic laces
Of my wounded shoes, one foot near my heart!
Bill Zavatsky is a poet, translator, and editor based in New York City. This poem was published in Rimbaud—10 Poems (Omertà, 2014), now out of print. Bill has also translated (with Zack Rogow) Earthlight: Poems by André Breton (Black Widow Press) and (with Ron Padgett) The Poems of A. O. Barnabooth (Black Widow Press).
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