During the nights

the cockroaches

climb down the walls

to escort my dreams

and, without respect for my rank,

look at themselves in the mirror

and are happy everywhere they go.

They attack the generosity of my socks

(the aesthetic dogma of my feet)

that, faded like skeletons,

relax upon the floor.

They besiege the tyranny of my boots,

humiliating their perverse lineage,

and it is then

that they hurt my soul.

I trap a thunderbolt with my hands

and they get frightened and run away;

they enter and exit the barrel of my machine gun

and in the magazine make a conclave,

readying themselves, as if preparing to kill me.

I spit at them,

bang the wall,

and, shouting,

invoke the devil and curse their origins.

They march away

and hide in my books;

there they remain quiet

and, in the imagination of the world,

deposit their eggs,

and also

they shit on knowledge.

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Silence. Montreal: The Muses Co., 1992

ISBN 0-919754-41-4 & ISBN 0-919754-40-6