Haiti continued - The Traveller's Tree: A Journey Through the Caribbean Islands - page 201

face, and his hand, for a moment, rested on my shoulder. ' Vous allez écrire des bêtises, mon pauvre ami .'
We both laughed, knowing that it was bound to be true. I asked him, in return, what way of life he had
chosen. He blew a long thread of smoke into the air, and answered, with a lapidary decisiveness that was
becoming familiar:
' Je suis poète .'
Lyric? Epic? Romantic? Symbolist? He shook his head with a slow and negative motion. No, none of
those. He was a surrealist. At my entreaty, he recited two of his poems which I found so remarkable and
so good that I copied them down next day from his two books [6] in the public library. Here are fragments
of them.
' Sept fois mon col ,
He began
Dix sept fois mon collier .'
His eye catching mine, we both laughed again.
' Informe, froid
Les yeux sans eau comme la fatalité .'
And then, in a deep, slow voice—
' A l'horizon des fièvres
Pour la voix au bal du Poète
Le poète chant lugubre, au rire de chat ,
Le coeur, léché, fêté par les veilles
Dites aux litanies delacées Edith
Le lieu, le buste, au gré de mon reflet
Cloué, incomplet, aux evantails
Dans ma douceur more.
Torpeur dans mon sang deganté sans amour
Apres-midis denués a tire d'ailes'
ending in still deeper tones—