PurbeckDavid49

By PurbeckDavid49

Twins? (Don't trust the thumbnail!)

These are two of several lambs, all seated and ruminating.

It brings to mind the French expression "grasse matinée" (remaining in bed in the morning, or oversleeping ) and thence the non-existent English "grass matinee", which might refer to animals seated and ruminating in the morning. 

And the French expression was used by Jacques Prévert as the title to his poem, written in the 1930s about the desperate measures which a hungry tramp can be driven to.  Here it is in an English translation:

Oversleeping

It is terrible
the cracking noise of the boiled egg broken on a tin counter
it is a terrible noise
when it buzzes in the head of a man full of hunger
it is terrible too the man's head
the head of the man full of hunger
when he looks at himself at six in the morning
in the window of the superstore
a head colour of dust
yet it is not his head he's looking at
in the window of Potin's store
he cares not of his head the man
he's not thinking about it
he's dreaming
he's imagining another head
the head of a calf for instance
with vinegar sauce
or any other head that you can eat
and he slowly moves his jaws
slowly
and he gnashes his teeth
because everybody's mocking him
and he can't do anything
and he counts on his fingers one two three
one two three
he hasn't had anything to eat for three days
and he may be saying to himself for three days
it can't go on
it does
three days
three nights
nothing to eat
and behind these windows
the pâté the bottles the cans
dead fish protected by cans
cans protected by windows
windows protected by cops
cops protected by dread
so many barricades for only six sardines...

Further on stands a snack
cream-coffee and fresh croissants
the man staggers
and inside his head
a fog of words
a fog of words
sardines to eat
boiled eggs cream-coffee
coffee topped up with rum
cream-coffee
cream-coffee
crime-coffee splattered with blood!...

A man much considered in his neighbourhood
was murdered in daylight
the murderer the tramp stole from him
two francs
that is to say a topped-up coffee
zero francs seventy
two slices of bread and butter
and twenty-five centimes for the waiter's tip.

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