1976 Poem by Xavier Roelens

elephant rides with squirrel and ant to the austrian forests.
the car is blue and warm. it has faux leather seats. That's not
very comfortable yet not uncomfortable enough for the
collection of squirrel.
‘what collection?' asks ant.
squirrel fetches a box from his suitcase.
‘this is my collection of fear.' in the box sits a plastic
spider with six legs, a fragment of an antenna, an empty
ampule and a small notebook.
‘I'm writing a fear poem in that notebook. go ahead, read.'
ant takes the notebook and reads:
I hereby collect
the fear that
today's world will disappear
the fear that there are
limits to
my growth
the fear that I shall remain in
bullfrog perspective
the fear of moving from a
juniper bush to
a standard oak
the fear of crossing
the road to
grandmother's oak
the fear that the
clouds drifting by will push
the nahtenna to fall on top of me
the fear of being gobbled up by
the bed
the fear of
spiders in the
basement
the fear for
desperate demonstrators
the fear of having enough
money to buy
a gun and
reason enough to radicalise
ideas with
a violence that justifies itself
the fear to lie in
bed paralysed by
fear
the fear of saying what I fear
the fear that
truth is a socially determined
category and furthermore something like
society doesn't exist
the fear I will not get any
beech nuts
the fear of not being able to quit my
dependency on
beech nut oil
‘it's not finished. wait, here, I've got some inspiration.'
squirrel snatches the notebook from ant. while he adds
another line, he tastes their sound out loud:
the fear that with
an elephant at
the wheel I will crash into the
display window of
a porcelain shop
‘nothing I have written has ever come to pass.'
to the left of the car the sun is slowly rising. ant
believes he can see snow in the distance.
‘yesterday I coloured in a mushroom,' ant says.
‘miss hare held my mushroom in the air so that everyone
could see it. that's how pretty she thought it was.' he takes the
empty ampule from squirrel's box . ‘what's this?'
‘careful, it contains a panic-blip. you can't predict
what might happen in a panic-blip.'
squirrel picks up his notebook again and writes:
the fear that that which
miss hare tells in
class is
a pre-agreed lie
just in that moment elephant slows down and stops on
the side of the road.
‘let's take a moment, stretch our legs, time for breakfast.'
he opens the boot. he summons ant and squirrel. tucked under a
blanket lie presents and chocolate and speculas.
‘this is from saint nicolas,' says elephant, ‘he came
into the car while you were sleeping.'