Antonin Artaud Theater of Cruelty Or Joie De Vivre Part 1

Paris then was a place Where new ideas were Brewing in the intellectual And art communities And new ones were Emerging everyday Some brilliant some not Time will make it clear What is what But then it was an exciting Paris of the time of Artaud Andre Breton the leader of surrealist The movement became a communist He got lost in the world of confusion Recycling old ideas of revolution Remastered in the writings of Marx in to new world to be born in fusion Of paradise on the earth emerging From the corpses of the old civilization Saluting new born red nation A plaque devouring Europe’s Exhausted soul and body Antonin Artaud did not like this He cut off umbilical cord With bleeding surrealism That he used to belong to And chose a different path Traveled much less Leading away from the mess That world was immersed Deeply in those confusing days In Europe of terrible change He went to Mexico instead And encountered a shamanic world He experienced unbelievable things And when he came back to Paris He was not sure if it happened for real Or was it only his vivid dream He was taught a peyote dance By a shaman with a bird’s glance And dark face with high cheeks Smiling at him all the time His name was Don Juan He taught Artaud to fly Up high in the midnight sky Like a black soaring crow See the world from above Spread wide in brilliant Shiny starry moonlight He was sitting in a dark cave Surrounded by a local tribe A magical pipe was passed by And white smoke sealed his eyes He saw images and dark shapes Dancing around him in shades With hands raised up to the sky They were chanting magical words That he could not understand But he felt a pull in his heart And saw a line being drawn Of a new sharp design That he had never seen before It was pulling him out of His vivid lucid dreams and Pushing away melancholic Hold of the demon inside Coyote devouring him alive He felt light and elevated Dancing around a bright fire He saw stars falling from the sky And showering his naked soul That was hung on the old tree Next to the water pool He saw women soaking it Like a dirty laundry in the creek Then rinsing in waters deep And hanging it to be bleached In the bright full moonlight And dried by the North winds In the hot sun the next day at noon Then suddenly he realized He was wide awake for a while Holding his soul in his hands It smelled like sun and wind And looked fresh and alive