Max JACOB – Autograph poem: “The Poet in the City” – [1932]

Max JACOB (1876.1944)

Autograph manuscript – “ The Poet in the City ”

A vertical quarto page.

Slnd [1932]. Pencil signature of another hand.

This poem was published in Nouvelles littéraires in 1932.

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The poet in the city

Advertising your claims

Brighten up the department stores;

But what trouble in my soul

Is it evening or morning.

I hear the cars mooing

The brakeless phonograph

Meditation blinds me

And my steps no longer have a path.

The trees of Time bend

In the Seine, they want to drink.

Once strange kings of France

Bowed down to see them.

Pain follows like a shadow

We don't always think about it

The spirit rises from the grave

The smile marries love.

Max Jacob.