I was alone with a chair on a plain
Which lost itself in an empty horizon.
The plain was flawlessly paved.
Nothing, absolutely nothing but the chair and I
were there.
The sky was forever blue,
No sun gave life to it.
An inscrutable, insensible light
illuminated the infinite plain.
To me this eternal day seemed to be projected —
artificially— from a different sphere.
I was never sleepy nor hungry nor thirsty,
never hot nor cold.
Time was only an abstruse ghost
since nothing happened or changed.
In me Time still lived a little
This, mainly, thanks to the chair.
Because of my occupation with it
I did not completely
lose my sense of the past.
Now and then I’d hitch myself, as if I were a horse, to the chair
and trot around with it,
sometimes in circles,
and sometimes straight ahead.
I assume that I succeeded.
Whether I really succeeded I do not know
Since there was nothing in space
By which I could have checked my movements.
As I sat on the chair I pondered sadly, but not desperately,
Why the core of the world exuded such black light.
(Jean Hans Arp)
More Poetry from Jean Hans Arp:
Jean Hans Arp Poems based on Topics: Light, Horse, Infinity, Space, Time, World, Past- Die Schwalbenhod (Jean Hans Arp Poems)
- Die Schwalbenhode (Jean Hans Arp Poems)
- West (Jean Hans Arp Poems)
- Opus Null (Jean Hans Arp Poems)
- The Domestic Stones (fragment) (Jean Hans Arp Poems)
- The Air is a Root (Jean Hans Arp Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: World Poems, Light Poems, Time Poems, Past Poems, Space Poems, Horse Poems, Infinity PoemsBased on Keywords: abstruse, occupation, exuded