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The Verb to Be
By Dan Piepenbring February 19, 2015
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Andre_Breton
ANDRÉ BRETON IN 1924.

André Breton’s poem “The Verb to Be” originally appeared in our Spring 1985 issue.

I know the general outline of despair. Despair has no wings, it doesn’t necessarily sit at a cleared table in the evening on a terrace by the sea. It’s despair and not the return of a quantity of insignificant facts like seeds that leave one furrow for another at nightfall. It’s not the moss that forms on a rock or the foam that rocks in a glass. It’s a boat riddled with snow, if you will, like birds that fall and their blood doesn’t have the slightest thickness. I know the general outline of despair. A very small shape, defined by jewels worn in the hair. That’s despair. A pearl necklace for which no clasp can be found and whose existence can’t even hang by a thread. That’s despair for you. Let’s not go into the rest. Once we begin to despair we don’t stop. I myself despair of the lampshade around four o’clock, I despair of the fan towards midnight, I despair of the cigarette smoked by men on death row. I know the general outline of despair. Despair has no heart, my hand always touches breathless despair, the despair whose mirrors never tell us if it’s dead. I live on that despair which enchants me. I love that blue fly which hovers in the sky at the hour when the stars hum. I know the general outline of the despair with long slender surprises, the despair of pride, the despair of anger. I get up every day like everyone else and I stretch my arms against a floral wallpaper. I don’t remember anything and it’s always in despair that I discover the beautiful uprooted trees of night. The air in the room is as beautiful as drumsticks. What weathery weather. I know the general outline of despair. It’s like the curtain’s wind that holds out a helping hand. Can you imagine such a despair? Fire! Ah they’re on their way … Help! Here they come falling down the stairs … And the ads in the newspaper, and the illuminated signs along the canal. Sandpile, beat it, you dirty sandpile! In its general outline despair has no importance. It’s a squad of trees that will eventually make a forest, it’s a squad of stars that will eventually make one less day, it’s a squad of one-less-days that will eventually make up my life.

>>9884713
despair is decay
despair is a monster that if exposed to the sun explodes with the lust that it once thought was power. Now knows that it cannot be anything but weak. Despair rots you from the inside the opposite of power, nothing but shame, sitting in it's own filth

Its only an excerpt, but its really my favorite. Its when Satan's host get BTFO by the Son of God. The Thunderer.

[T]He[y] trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If he opposed; and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God
Raised impious war in Heav'n and battle proud
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire
Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.
Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, [t]he[y] with his horrid crew
Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery g[o]lf
Confounded though immortal: but his doom
Reversed him to more wrath; for now the thought
Both of happiness and lasting pain
Torments [them]

>>9884814

Well we can't just go topping Milton can we? Way to one-up everyone preemptively.

yalll done goofed I just wanted to post my poem you dumb fricks

>>9884856

I don't care man that Milton shit flows

>>9884867
idk but my stuffs pretty nice man
dont really know what u eating but sounds like u gotta g5t your nutrition up

>>9884913

Nah tho, I'm on that diet of pure kino

>>9884957
chemo? Sucks about your cancers man

>>9885156

sucks about your eyes man

i hear theres this rad dude called jesus, get him to put some mud on them. u be saved homie

>>9885159
What does that even mean lol u sound like a hobo

>>9885190

oh so u blind and dumb. i get it. here's a penny

>>9885230
you literally have cancer

>>9885230
sorry bout that