Our Little Continent

Our continent is small.
It only has one well
and the well is also used as a fireplace.
Our continent is small
and has only one bridge.
This bridge is thin exhausted
and beats its four agitated tails
against its emaciated sides.

Our little continent is surrounded
by a great deal of water.
Fishbones grow marvelously in this water.

All the roads in our little continent
end in bottomless holes.
Into these holes we throw
the foul-smelling pebbles
that grow in our beds.
Since every one of us
has a hundred beds to himself
the quantity of foul-smelling pebbles
that each of us has to get rid of daily
is enormous.

Out diet is simple
but healthy.
Butterfly-pulp
the small toes of cenobites
the mummies of spiders
are among our delicacies.

We are simply dressed
in goldbeater's skins and potsherds.

Many of us
can't stand grasshoppers.
If by chance
someone is contaminated by a grasshopper
he jumps and jumps higher and higher
and eventually never comes back down.

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