Un Fantôme: Les Ténèbres, Le Parfum

I found it quite funny that she too started a blog, just in time for me to stop caring about the one thing that we had in common. This also came right on the heels of a rather unsettling piece of news from one G. who said that someone was reading this site and making comments about it on porches. I find this more amusing than anything else, mostly because this blog was originally for the sake of indulging my own rather stupid melodrama in the hopes that I could purge it from my soul. It's done the trick more or less, and since I never really intended for any of the interested parties to see it then I daresay that this turn of events is probably not in my favor. But I think it shouldn't matter to me. I have no reputation to shatter. If G. knows then so does P. and then W. and then probably A. Oh, we are all connected to each other. Ha ha ha.

The next poem I split up since it is effectively four poems in one.

A Phantom

I. The Darkness
In the cave of unfathomable sadness
Where Destiny has already relegated me;
Where never enters a rose and happy ray;
Where, alone with the Night, sullen hostess,

I am like a painter that a scoffing God
Condemns to paint, alas! On the darkness;
Where, cooking for the ghastly appetites
I boil and eat my own heart,

For moments that shone, that lengthened, that spread
A ghost made of grace and splendor.
By its dreamy, oriental appearance,
When it reaches its absolute grandeur,
I recognize my beautiful visitor:

It is She! Black and yet luminous.

II. The Perfume
Reader, have you sometimes breathed
With exhilaration and slow-moving greed
That grain of incense that refills a church,
Or from a sachet the inveterate musk?

Deep charm, magic, by which we grow tipsy,
In the present the past restored!
So the lover on a worshipped body
Picks from memory the exquisite bloom.

From her weighty and elastic hair,
Living sachet, censer of the alcove,
A scent went up, savage and brown,

And from her clothes, muslin or velvet,
Completely imbued with her flawless youth,
She released a perfume of fur.

Un Fantôme

I. Les Ténèbres

Dans les caveaux d'insondable tristesse
Où le Destin m'a déjà relégué;
Où jamais n'entre un rayon rose et gai;
Où, seul avec la Nuit, maussade hôtesse,

Je suis comme un peintre qu'un Dieu moqueur
Condamne à peindre, hélas! sur les ténèbres;
Où, cuisinier aux appétits funèbres,
Je fais bouillir et je mange mon coeur,

Par instants brille, et s'allonge, et s'étale
Un spectre fait de grâce et de splendeur.
À sa rêveuse allure orientale,
Quand il atteint sa totale grandeur,
Je reconnais ma belle visiteuse:

C'est Elle! noire et pourtant lumineuse.

II. Le Parfum
Lecteur, as-tu quelquefois respiré
Avec ivresse et lente gourmandise
Ce grain d'encens qui remplit une église,
Ou d'un sachet le musc invétéré?

Charme profond, magique, dont nous grise
Dans le présent le passé restauré!
Ainsi l'amant sur un corps adoré
Du souvenir cueille la fleur exquise.

De ses cheveux élastiques et lourds,
Vivant sachet, encensoir de l'alcôve,
Une senteur montait, sauvage et fauve,

Et des habits, mousseline ou velours,
Tout imprégnés de sa jeunesse pure,
Se dégageait un parfum de fourrure.