Chaim Soutine (1893-1943)

Ah the truth,
                       is the rank lustful lives of men and women
                       going after it
in all its red—

it is just this nipple exposed beneath the rag
                                                 puce with lava-milk,

it is just this beef-stink in the studio,
the popped-out eyes of rotting salmon,

a particular chicken:   The scrawniest one in the shop,
                                    long neck and blue skin

I’m going to hang it up by the beak with a nail.
In a few days it should be perfect.

It must be very very dead.
                                                  Even the red gladioli
have passed over into that garden where things shout

                                      don’t look at me!

Everything startled into still thinking
                                                              it is alive.

What else is spirit but the hectic orifice
                                                 of the still unwilling
to admit they are excruciatingly gone?

                                     A conniption fit of fact?

                                                 Still nothing new.
What is more beautiful than that?