The poetry of Jean Arp

more coming!

SPECIAL THANG-- Click here to hear the 1946 poem "Hive of Dreams" in the original French, put to music and sung (slightly rearranged) by me!

kaspar is dead (1912)

alas our good kaspar is dead.
who will conceal the burning banner in the cloud's pigtail now and 
blackly thumb his daily nose.
who will run the coffee grinder in the primeval cask now.
who will entice the idyllic deer out of the petrified bag.
who will blow the noses of ships unbrellas beekeepers ozone-spindles and bone the pyramids.
alas alas alas our good kaspar is dead.  goodness gracious me kaspar is dead.
the hay-fish in the bell-barns chatter heartbreakingly whenever his first name is uttered.  that's why i keep on sighing 
   his surname kaspar kaspar kaspar.
why hast thou forsaken us.  into what shape has your great wonderful soul migrated.  are you a star now or a chain of 
   water on a hot cyclone or an udder of black light or a transparent brick on the moaning drum of craggy existence.
now our crowns and our soles are drying up and the fairies are lying half-charred at the stake.
now the black bowling alley is booming behind the sun and no one is winding the compasses or the handbarrow wheels any more.
who will eat with the phosphorescent rat at the lonesome barefoot table.
who will drive out the siroccoco-devil when he tries to lure the horses away.
who will interpret the monograms in the stars for us.
his bust will grace the mantels of all truly noble men but that's no solace or snuff for a death's-head.

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