The Head by Blaise Cendrars (Frédéric-Louis Sauser)

The guillotine is the masterpiece of plastic art
Its click
Creates perpetual motion
Everyone knows about Christopher Columbus’ egg
Which was a flat egg, a fixed egg, the egg of an inventor
Archipenko’s sculpture is the first ovoidal egg
Held in intense equilibrium
Like an immobile top
On its animated point
Speed
It throws off
Multicolored waves
Color zones
And turns in depth
Nude.
New.
Total.

From: https://www.theparisreview.org/poetry/4395/eleven-poems-blaise-cendrars

Date: 1919 (original in French); 1966 (translation in English)

By: Blaise Cendrars (Frédéric-Louis Sauser) (1887-1961)

Translated by: Ron Padgett (1942- )

Tags: 1919, 1966, blaise cendrars, frédéric-louis sauser, poetry, ron padgett, the guillotine is the masterpiece of plastic art, the head