Poems by Tristan Tzara

All Poems Original Poems Translations

To Make A Dadist Poem

Take a newspaper.

Take some scissors.

Choose from this paper an article the length you want to make your poem.

Cut out the article.

Next carefully cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them all in a bag.

Shake gently.

Next take out each cutting one after the other.

Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.

Tristan Tzara

Chanson Dada

this is the song of a dadaist

who had dada in his heart

he tore his motor apart

he had dada in his heart

the elevator lugged a king

he was a lumpy frail machine

he cut his right arm to the bone

sent it to the pope in rome

Tristan Tzara

Cinema Calendar Of The Abstract Heart - 09

the fibres give in to your starry warmth

a lamp is called green and sees

carefully stepping into a season of fever

the wind has swept the rivers' magic

and i've perforated the nerve

by the clear frozen lake

has snapped the sabre

but the dance round terrace tables

Tristan Tzara

Vegetable Swallow

two smiles meet towards

the child-wheel of my zeal

the bloody baggage of creatures

made flesh in physical legends-lives

the nimble stags storms cloud over

rain falls under the scissors of

the dark hairdresser-furiously

swimming under the clashing arpeggios

Tristan Tzara

Great Lament Of My Obscurity Three

where we live the flowers of the clocks catch fire and the plumes encircle the brightness in the distant sulphur morning the cows lick the salt lilies

my son

let us always shuffle through the colour of the world

which looks bluer than the subway and astronomy

we are too thin

we have no mouth

our legs are stiff and knock together

Tristan Tzara

Proclamation Without Pretension

Art is going to sleep for a new world to be born

"ART"-parrot word-replaced by DADA,

PLESIOSAURUS, or handkerchief

The talent THAT CAN BE LEARNED makes the

poet a druggist TODAY the criticism

of balances no longer challenges with resemblances

Hypertrophic painters hyperaes-

theticized and hypnotized by the hyacinths

142

by Tristan Tzara