“Poor Mickey Mouse”
drunken siren voices mumble.
Poor Mickey Mouse,
Minnie’s icy glance has caught you on the back foot.
You couldn’t dwell on it,
but her words cut you like knives or fangs.
And today she just said no to you
that that’s enough
…and, no more, Mickey Mouse.
And everything has collapsed around you:
the plastic American happiness has collapsed,
that ephemeral bourgeois happiness.
And an explosion has gone on growing deep in your consciousness:
anguish,
and nausea…
“Poor Mickey Mouse!”
drunken siren voices mumble.
Mickey Mouse, you are walking
down avenues as empty as the night,
feebly dampened
by this gauze of water like a fit of weeping,
and soiled by obscene neon signs.
Mickey Mouse, you are strolling, a ghost dressed in a raincoat,
your red shoes cracking out like whips on filthy ground.
Night is a mouse with a thousand faces
and you are now a sad mouse.
And lady-mice move their tails, move their lips, move their bums
and ask you What’s the matter, sad mouse?
But first you’ll find a bar where you can drown your honour,
your honour… and your good name: Mickey Mouse, from Disney.
And after those magic whiskeys you’ll go out
and you’ll answer the voice of a neon lady-mouse that calls, What’s the matter, sad mouse?
And you’ll walk together down the boulevard
and you won’t want to know what bed you’ll wake up in tomorrow.