#Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages

[majestativa]

Back into the abyss of consciousness.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, (1971)

[majestativa]

Madness glittering inside your head.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, (1971)

[majestativa]

Mad illusion on the walls of hashish and opium foam on the dreamers’ brain–mouth obsolete like obsidian and agate.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, (1971)

[majestativa]

Unlettered, the beautiful becomes monstrous.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, trans by Kimon Friar, (1971)

[majestativa]

I make superhuman efforts to speak to save myself from the fire which I myself have lit.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, (1971)

[majestativa]

Of holy lust […] or falling in love madly backwards.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, (1971)

[majestativa]

Surrealism […] hanging from the lips of a beautiful woman as a grape-vine.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, (1971)

[majestativa]

Towering above other words in Babylonian splendor.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, to André Breton, (1971)

[majestativa]

Like the velvet forests of darkness whose limits are pure flesh in the nth power.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, (1971)

[majestativa]

And my burning self a Buddhist in Saigon.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, to Nikos Stangos, (1971)

[majestativa]

A creature afraid to fall in love cold piece of marble made of flesh the endless poem of which I dreamt composed of words of fire that made the paper burn.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, trans by Nikos Stangos, (1971)

[majestativa]

And I think of everything as/ slash […] From Julius to Balthasar everything seems so simple so clear/ slash The right of man, cruelty to animals, the rites of madness/ slash /slash/ PEACE/ SLASH.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, (1971)

[majestativa]

Written in the language of flowers on the cheeks of madness Hypnotically revealed.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, to André Breton, (1971)

[majestativa]

Cassandra […] resident in every mind Title of any book worth reading.

— Nanos Valaoritis, Hired Hieroglyphs: Poems and Collages, (1971)