Poem by La Sirena featuring in Jean Bonnin’s book, A Guidebook to Surrealism: Surrealism by Surrealists (2022).
The Flesh Steals Work That Condemns
The flesh steals work that condemns
The meat steals the work that you throw away
The mountain throws it back at you
We wear the coat of eyes in autumn
The bird told me a tale of autumn leaves
The heart is stolen from the work
The thunderbird flew out of the stone
When the cave was empty
Yet the flesh demands that we swallow the hours of her peacock clock
Meat is a wasteful job
The tower will dance when you see it
Silently the stars shone their shadow talk so that the smile was broken nightly
It has all gone asunder
Work disguises itself as life and holds time hostage
The body steals the work of resistance
I will return to the swaying clouds
‘Embrace the pleasure principle’ declares the flesh
But not before the books write themselves
Whose face is missing now?
Sinful deeds, damning works
Who can know the revolution of the clock more than those who toil in the fetid sweatshops of capitalist hierarchies?
The sleeping clocks pretend to chime
Does a backwards clock run faster?
The world will never know
The wisdom of the cats in medusa masks knows no equal
Who holds the keys to past doors?
Who steals the work he condemns?
When will the wind sing in my ears again?
The body steals work it judges
Their secret is the golden travesty that pierces the palimpsest of flesh
The cats whisper the secrets that were frozen in time
Cats fed on dogs’ meat
And the wish cast in the placenta birdcage painted the trail to keys I cannot grasp
Embryonic fires burn out the future of time
Cats mummified in wishes and curses
Even their bones sing with the echoes of murder and the murder of echoes in triplicate
All this and a dancing amoeba
Collective poem by Doug Campbell, Taya King, Daina Kopp and Darren Thomas
La Sirena 