Eight Prose Poems of Max Jacob

adapted from the French by Howard Hart

Public Notice

           A BEAUTIFUL SOUL, BRAND

       NEW HAS BEEN LOST..

           WILL YOU KINDLY RETURN

        IT TO GOD WHO IS ITS OWNER.

                             Little Diary of Life in the World

    Monday:  Wonderful time yesterday at Melanie's, really wonderful.  Marvelous.

   Tuesday:  Great last night with Suzanne, so much fun.  Marcel is delicious.  That Annie-Marie is terrible.  Impossible.

    Wednesday:  Very nice seeing Jules again, at his place.  Maurice's paintings are charming, they really are.  Don't think anyhthing of Louis's music. Wish I could, but it's nothing, really.

   Thursday: 

   Friday:  Alfred killed himself.  He was an idiot.  An idiot.

   Saturday:  Received his note:  "Will we see you tomorrow at the same place?  Max has gone away to the Benedictines.  What a dope."  Max is crazy, but he is.

   Sunday:  Must say again that Max is a dope.  A little religion is all right but he is fanatical.  He is. Going to the Benedictines is just plain crazy.  Really.

  

Conscience

   I have three false windows underneath this cigarette.  They are the color of ivory.  I have three false teeth.

   The dentist who put them in my gums told me he obtained them from corpses.

   "Now this one belonged to a very intelligent fornicator.

Yes . . . the fellow who owned the next one was a hypocrite.  Hmmm  . . . the third here comes, I believe, from a lunatic."

   Later for you, dentist, later!  These three men have come often enough to take their toll unnderneath this tongue.

AND IT IS E|NOUGH if a five year old child in his pale blue shirt picks ujp a crayon and draws on a white piece of paper, for a door to open wide into the light, for the castle to be built again up from the ground, and for the reddish brown hill to spout flowers all over its side!

A Detective Story

(mystical poem)

"A SIMPLE DETECTIVE STORY:  that room at night, the woman swallows the diamond while she hides the light with a portrait painting."  I say it's a parable. The diamond is the Holy Eucharist, the darkness is our body unworthy to receive the diamond. The portrait painting with which she hides the light is the daily intellectual work that hinders the effect of the Holy Eucharist--which would make the darkness disappear if we didn't let anxiety creep into us because of our work in this world. And more, you noticed that there was a mirror in the room of the woman, the thief. See how that soul is preoccupied with itself!

CHRISTIAN FAMILIES

   Something terrific happened at the school run by monks of the Congregation of X.  A miracle in fact.  One monk hit a boy who was making fun of him.  The boy called on Christ as witness that he wasn't making fun of him, and the white marble statue put out its arm and blessed the boy, then slapped his accusor.  The monk apologized.

   Everyone in the class got on his knees.  Vocations sprang up and do you know what happened?  The families were "shocked."  They pulled the boys out of school not because teachers were hitting the students, but because the education was "much too mystical."

HEAVEN, or Paradise, is a white line of chalk on the blackboard of your life.  Are you going to erase it with the devils of this century?

The Revelation

   Back from the Bibliotheque Nationale, I put down my briefcase and started looking for my slippers. When I looked up, there was someone on the wall.  Someone was in the red wallpaper. My flesh fell on the floor!

   Denuded . . . by lightening . . .that eternal second and truth . . . truth . . . and tears . . . joy of truth . . . unforgettable truth!  Jesus is on the wall of my little room.

Why?

   Forgive me God. . . .

    He is in a landscape that I did years ago.  And He is beautiful.  Gentle and elegant.  His shoulders  . . . the way He stands.  He's in a robe of yellow silk that has blue ornamemts. . . . He turns and I see His calm shinning face.  Then six monks carry a dead body into the room. A woman is standing close to me, she has snakes on her arms and in her hair. . . .

   Angel:  You have seen God, you are now innocent. You don't understand this happiness that has come to you.

   Me:  I want to cry . . . to cry. . . I'm a poor human animal.

   Angel:  The demon is gone.  He will come back.

   Me:  The demon. . . .

   Angel:  Intelligence now. . . .

   Me:  You can't imagine what you're doing for me.

   Angel:  We love you . . . remember . . . look into your heart.

   Me;  God, Jesus, I understand!

---These poems first appearts in the literary quarterly      EXODUS, appearing in 1959.  EXODUS, mutatis  

  mutandis, is an early precursor to this website.