{
 "id": "mina-loy/cafe-du-neant",
 "title": "Café du Néant",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Mina Loy",
 "poet_slug": "mina-loy",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Three Moments in Paris",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1915,
  "venue": "Rogue, vol. I no. 4 (1 May 1915), p. 10, as part II of “Three Moments in Paris”",
  "note": "Read on the page image of the Beinecke copy: the issue’s imprint line reads “Volume I, No. 4, May 1, 1915”, its contents leaf lists “THREE MOMENTS IN PARIS … Mina Loy … Page 10”, and the poem stands there as part of a group headed “Three Moments in Paris / By MINA LOY”. The text held here follows the 1923 Lunar Baedecker printing, not this one.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17374476"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/mina-loy_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uva.x002129491?urlappend=%3Bseq=396",
   "https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17374476",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_others-a-magazine-of-the-new-verse_1916-07_3_1/page/27",
   "https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17390662",
   "https://archive.org/details/othersanantholo01kreygoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924022030351",
   "https://archive.org/details/littlereview07mcke/page/n199",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_others-a-magazine-of-the-new-verse_1917-04_3_6",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_dial_1921-06_70/page/672",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_dial_1921-08_71/page/n15",
   "https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.32106010168349",
   "https://archive.org/details/contact-collection-of-contemporary-writers/page/137",
   "https://personal.colby.edu/~isadoff/map/loy.doc",
   "https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/digital_objects/211477",
   "https://digitalcommons.whitworth.edu/transatlantic/1/"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Little tapers lighted leaning diagonally",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stuck in coffin tables of the Café du Néant",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leaning to the breath of baited bodies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like young poplars fringing the Loire",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Eyes that are full of love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And eyes that are full of kohl",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Projecting light across the fulsome ambiente",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Trailing the rest of the animal behind them",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Telling of tales without words",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lies of no consequence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One way or another",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The young lovers hermetically buttoned up in black",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To black cravat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the blue powder edge dusting the yellow throat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What color could have been your bodies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When last you put them away",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nostalgic youth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Holding your mistress’s pricked finger",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the indifferent flame of the taper",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Synthetic symbol of life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In this factitious chamber of death",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The woman",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As usual",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is smiling as bravely",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As it is given to her to be brave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While the brandy cherries",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In winking glasses",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are decomposing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Harmoniously",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the flesh of spectators",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And at a given spot",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There is one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Having the concentric lighting focused precisely upon her",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prophetically blossoms in perfect putrefaction",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet there are cabs outside the door.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}