Another Picabia poem

Baccarat

I am a beautiful monster
who shares his secret with the wind.
What I love most in others
is myself.*

I am a beautiful monster;
I have the sin of virtue for support.
My pollen stains the roses
from New York to Paris.

I am a beautiful monster
whose face conceals his countenance.
My senses have only one thought:
a frame without a picture!**

I am a beautiful monster
with a velodrome for a bed;
transparent cards***
populate my dreams.

I am a beautiful monster
who sleeps with himself.
There are only seven in the world
and I want to be the biggest.

*Compare with Nietzsche:

240 At the sea – I would not build a house for myself, and I count it as part of my good fortune that I do not own a house. But if I had to, then I should build it as some of the Romans did – right into the sea. I should not mind sharing a few secrets with this beautiful monster.

242 Suum cuique [To each their own] – However great the greed of my desire for knowledge may be, I still cannot take anything out of things that did not belong to me before; what belongs to others remains behind. How is it possible for a human being to be a thief or robber?

**See Picabia's Tabac-rat:

***Apparently, transparent cards are a name for pornographic pictures. See also Picabia's transparencies: