Spleen (Je suis comme le roi)/Spleen (Quand le ciel bas et lourd)

Feeling better, lucid dreams. Oh, beauty. Run from him.

Spleen (I am like the king)
I am like the king of a rainy country,
Rich, although powerless, young and yet very old,
Who, despises the deference of his advisors,
Gets bored with his dogs as he does with other beasts.
Nothing can enliven him, not game, nor falcon,
Nor his people dying in front of the balcony.
The ridiculous ballads of his favorite clown
No longer amuse the brow of this cruel patient;
His bed of fleur-de-lis turns into a tomb,
And the women of finery, for whom every prince is beautiful,
No longer know where to find indecent gowns
To pull a smile from this young skeleton.
The scientist who makes the gold for him has never been able
To remove the corrupted element from his being,
And in these tubs of blood that came to us from the Romans,
And that in their old days the powerful recall,
He has not been able to warm up this stupid cadaver
Where the green water of the Lethe flowed in the place of blood.

Spleen (Je suis comme le roi)
Je suis comme le roi d'un pays pluvieux,
Riche, mais impuissant, jeune et pourtant très vieux,
Qui, de ses précepteurs méprisant les courbettes,
S'ennuie avec ses chiens comme avec d'autres bêtes.
Rien ne peut l'égayer, ni gibier, ni faucon,
Ni son peuple mourant en face du balcon.
Du bouffon favori la grotesque ballade
Ne distrait plus le front de ce cruel malade;
Son lit fleurdelisé se transforme en tombeau,
Et les dames d'atour, pour qui tout prince est beau,
Ne savent plus trouver d'impudique toilette
Pour tirer un souris de ce jeune squelette.
Le savant qui lui fait de l'or n'a jamais pu
De son être extirper l'élément corrompu,
Et dans ces bains de sang qui des Romains nous viennent,
Et dont sur leurs vieux jours les puissants se souviennent,
II n'a su réchauffer ce cadavre hébété
Où coule au lieu de sang l'eau verte du Léthé

Spleen (When the sky low and heavy)
When the sky low and heavy weighs like a cover
Over the whimpering spirit, prey to the long ennui,
And from the horizon embraces the whole circle
It pours over us a black day sadder than the nights;

When the earth is changed into a humid prison,
Where Hope, like a bat,
Goes into it beating the walls with her timid wing
And knocks her head on the rotten ceilings;

When the rain scatters its immense trails
It imitates the bars of a great prison,
And as a silent stock of despicable spiders
Go spreading their threads in the depths of our brains,

Suddenly the bells jump with fury
And fire toward the sky a hideous howling,
Like wandering spirits without a homeland
Who put themselves to groaning stubbornly.

—And long hearses, without drums or music
Parade slowly in my soul; Hope,
Conquered, weeps, and atrocious Anxiety, despotic,
Over my leaning head plants her black flag.

Spleen (Quand le ciel bas et lourd)
Quand le ciel bas et lourd pèse comme un couvercle
Sur l'esprit gémissant en proie aux longs ennuis,
Et que de l'horizon embrassant tout le cercle
II nous verse un jour noir plus triste que les nuits;

Quand la terre est changée en un cachot humide,
Où l'Espérance, comme une chauve-souris,
S'en va battant les murs de son aile timide
Et se cognant la tête à des plafonds pourris;

Quand la pluie étalant ses immenses traînées
D'une vaste prison imite les barreaux,
Et qu'un peuple muet d'infâmes araignées
Vient tendre ses filets au fond de nos cerveaux,

Des cloches tout à coup sautent avec furie
Et lancent vers le ciel un affreux hurlement,
Ainsi que des esprits errants et sans patrie
Qui se mettent à geindre opiniâtrement.

— Et de longs corbillards, sans tambours ni musique,
Défilent lentement dans mon âme; l'Espoir,
Vaincu, pleure, et l'Angoisse atroce, despotique,
Sur mon crâne incliné plante son drapeau noir.

Spleen (J'ai plus de souvenirs)

The sun is covered with crepe and I really wish I could convince myself to give a shit. No more sex. Or drugs probably. But prospects, always. I asked him why it lasted this long when hearts had never moved.

"I guess I was just trying to make myself feel something."

I am only unhappy insofar as I have lost a very pretty thing. The same eyes that had originally enticed and seduced me now looked hollow as holy hell last night when the news came crashing down angrily on the stones below. But there was no anger. Sadness for me. Soul-crushing apathy for him. Fuck.

In other news, I hate the travel. But here is a beautiful poem.

Spleen (I have more memories)
I have more memories than if I had a thousand years.

A large chest of drawers cluttered with balance-sheets,
Verses, love letters, processes, romances,
With heavy hair rolled into receipts,
Hides fewer secrets than my sorry brain.
It is a pyramid, an immense cave,
That contains more cadavers than a common grave.
—I am a cemetery abhorred by the moon,
Where long worms drag themselves like remorse,
That ever hound my dearest dead.
I am an old boudoir full of wilted roses,
Where all lies a mess of outdated fashions,
Where the plaintive pastels and pale Bouchers
Only, breathe the odor of an uncorked flask.

Nothing is equal in length to the shaky days,
When under the heavy flakes of the snowy years
Ennui, fruit of the doleful incuriosity,
Takes the proportions of immortality.
—From now on you are no more, oh living matter!
Than a granite surrounded by a vague horror
Dozing in the depths of a hazy Sahara;
An old sphinx ignored by an unworried world,
Neglected from the map, and whose wild temper
Sings only to the rays of the setting sun.

Spleen (J'ai plus de souvenirs)
J'ai plus de souvenirs que si j'avais mille ans.

Un gros meuble à tiroirs encombré de bilans,
De vers, de billets doux, de procès, de romances,
Avec de lourds cheveux roulés dans des quittances,
Cache moins de secrets que mon triste cerveau.
C'est une pyramide, un immense caveau,
Qui contient plus de morts que la fosse commune.
— Je suis un cimetière abhorré de la lune,
Où comme des remords se traînent de longs vers
Qui s'acharnent toujours sur mes morts les plus chers.
Je suis un vieux boudoir plein de roses fanées,
Où gît tout un fouillis de modes surannées,
Où les pastels plaintifs et les pâles Boucher
Seuls, respirent l'odeur d'un flacon débouché.

Rien n'égale en longueur les boiteuses journées,
Quand sous les lourds flocons des neigeuses années
L'ennui, fruit de la morne incuriosité,
Prend les proportions de l'immortalité.
— Désormais tu n'es plus, ô matière vivante!
Qu'un granit entouré d'une vague épouvante,
Assoupi dans le fond d'un Sahara brumeux;
Un vieux sphinx ignoré du monde insoucieux,
Oublié sur la carte, et dont l'humeur farouche
Ne chante qu'aux rayons du soleil qui se couche.
----
I have plenty to occupy me but I waste all my time on the inconsequential things.

Spleen (Pluviôse, irrité)

It's not January yet, even though Baudelaire sort of says that it is. What to think?

Now it is autumn. Today was the first crisp and eerie day where the leaves looked like they actually belonged on the ground and the chill I felt was completely permanent. No more sticky summer feelings, even if summer did seem like it lasted a terribly long time. My selfsame, my brother, where will you be this evening.

Autumn smells like date rape, Hot Fuss, and every mistake I ever made.

Spleen (Pluviose, angry)
Pluviose, angry at the whole city,
From his urn in great waves pours a dark coldness
Onto the pale residents of the neighboring cemetery
And mortality on the hazy suburbs.

My cat searches for a litter on the tile
Stirs his meager, mangy body without rest;
The soul of an old poet wanders into the gutter
With the sad voice of a chilly phantom.

The great bell moans, and the smoking log
Accompanies in falsetto the sniffling clock,
While in a game full of foul perfumes,

Fatal inheritance from a dropsical old woman,
The beautiful knave of hearts and the queen of spades
Talk ominously of their former loves.

Spleen (Pluviôse, irrité)
Pluviôse, irrité contre la ville entière,
De son urne à grands flots verse un froid ténébreux
Aux pâles habitants du voisin cimetière
Et la mortalité sur les faubourgs brumeux.

Mon chat sur le carreau cherchant une litière
Agite sans repos son corps maigre et galeux;
L'âme d'un vieux poète erre dans la gouttière
Avec la triste voix d'un fantôme frileux.

Le bourdon se lamente, et la bûche enfumée
Accompagne en fausset la pendule enrhumée
Cependant qu'en un jeu plein de sales parfums,

Héritage fatal d'une vieille hydropique,
Le beau valet de coeur et la dame de pique
Causent sinistrement de leurs amours défunts.

----

Maybe Baudelaire doesn't make me happy, but he makes me the kind of good, sweet, sad that I have come to love.

La Cloche fêlée

It was not my problem but now I am making it mine. This is unhealthy. I get these odd mini-panic attacks when I think of what could happen. This is not so much over the situation itself but more with respect to the overwhelming, gut-wrenching fear that it will turn itself into a encore of the fantastic mess that A. caused. I don't care about B. that much. Sure. Cute. Rather, beautiful. But I don't adore him like I did the other one. One's beauty was internal, the other has it out for show. Fuck. What is to be done? Ignore, ignore, ignore. But this is hard to do when one pays no mind in the first place. Drink some more perhaps, or just focus on bettering oneself. This is not new, this is stupid.

Baudelaire's imagery is shifting. He has gone from the summer references in things like "Une Charogne" to the portraits of fall in "Chant d'Automne" and "Causerie" into the blatant references to winter that are coming with this poem. The languor and the phantasmagorical stumbling over one's words and the swimming of passion through the soggy humid air...it's no longer there. Bells cannot sound as clearly in the humid air, whether they be broken or not.

I started this in summer and it will be winter soon enough. It doesn't matter if the weather refuses to budge.

The Cracked Bell
It is bitter and sweet, through the nights of winter,
To listen, by the fire that flutters and that smokes,
To the distant memories slowly rising
At the sound of the bells that sing in the mist.

Blessed is the bell with the vigorous throat
Which, despite its age, is lively and in good health,
Faithfully throws its religious cry,
Like an old soldier who watches from under the tent!

Me, my soul is cracked, and when in her ennuis,
She wants to populate the cold night air with her songs,
It often happens that her faded voice

Resembles the heavy groan of an injured man one forgets
At the edge of a lake of blood, under a great pile of the dead
And who dies, without movement, in immense effort.

La Cloche fêlée
II est amer et doux, pendant les nuits d'hiver,
D'écouter, près du feu qui palpite et qui fume,
Les souvenirs lointains lentement s'élever
Au bruit des carillons qui chantent dans la brume.

Bienheureuse la cloche au gosier vigoureux
Qui, malgré sa vieillesse, alerte et bien portante,
Jette fidèlement son cri religieux,
Ainsi qu'un vieux soldat qui veille sous la tente!

Moi, mon âme est fêlée, et lorsqu'en ses ennuis
Elle veut de ses chants peupler l'air froid des nuits,
II arrive souvent que sa voix affaiblie

Semble le râle épais d'un blessé qu'on oublie
Au bord d'un lac de sang, sous un grand tas de morts
Et qui meurt, sans bouger, dans d'immenses efforts.

Le Tonneau de la Haine

Oh, more happiness.

The Cask of Hatred
Hatred is the cask of the pale Danaïdes;
Desperate Vengeance with arms red and strong,
Beautifully pours into the empty darkness
Great buckets full of blood and tears of the dead,

The Demon makes secret holes in these abysses,
Through which a thousand years of sweat and stress would flee,
Even if she would know to revive her victims,
And by milking them resuscitate their bodies.

Hatred is a drunkard in the depths of a tavern,
Who always feels the thirst born from the liquor
And multiply itself like the Lernaean Hydra.

—But the happy drinkers know their conqueror,
And Hatred is doomed to this lamentable fate
Of never being able to fall asleep beneath the table.

Le Tonneau de la Haine
La Haine est le tonneau des pâles Danaïdes;
La Vengeance éperdue aux bras rouges et forts
À beau précipiter dans ses ténèbres vides
De grands seaux pleins du sang et des larmes des morts,

Le Démon fait des trous secrets à ces abîmes,
Par où fuiraient mille ans de sueurs et d'efforts,
Quand même elle saurait ranimer ses victimes,
Et pour les pressurer ressusciter leurs corps.

La Haine est un ivrogne au fond d'une taverne,
Qui sent toujours la soif naître de la liqueur
Et se multiplier comme l'hydre de Lerne.

— Mais les buveurs heureux connaissent leur vainqueur,
Et la Haine est vouée à ce sort lamentable
De ne pouvoir jamais s'endormir sous la table.
----

This time tomorrow: erased, over, out.

Une gravure fantastique/Le Mort joyeux

Let's sing about death!

A Fantastic Engraving
This curious specter has no clothing than,
Grotesquely encamped on his skeletal brow,
A dreadful diadem feeling like a carnival.
Without spurs, without whip, he winds a horse,
Phantom like him, apocalyptic beast,
That leaks through the nostrils like an epileptic.
Traversing the space they through together,
And they press infinity with an indiscriminate hoof.
The rider carries a flaming sword
Over the nameless multitude that his horse crushed,
And looks over, like a prince inspecting his mansion,
The cemetery cold and immense, without a horizon,
Where lies, in the glimmers of a white and lifeless sun,
The nations of ancient and modern history.

Une gravure fantastique
Ce spectre singulier n'a pour toute toilette,
Grotesquement campé sur son front de squelette,
Qu'un diadème affreux sentant le carnaval.
Sans éperons, sans fouet, il essouffle un cheval,
Fantôme comme lui, rosse apocalyptique,
Qui bave des naseaux comme un épileptique.
Au travers de l'espace ils s'enfoncent tous deux,
Et foulent l'infini d'un sabot hasardeux.
Le cavalier promène un sabre qui flamboie
Sur les foules sans nom que sa monture broie,
Et parcourt, comme un prince inspectant sa maison,
Le cimetière immense et froid, sans horizon,
Où gisent, aux lueurs d'un soleil blanc et terne,
Les peuples de l'histoire ancienne et moderne.

The Joyful Dead
In a rich soul full of snails
I wish to dig myself a deep grave,
Where I can spread out my old bones at leisure
And sleep in the oblivion like a shark in the wave.

I hate the testaments and I hate the tombs;
Rather than imploring a tear from the world,
Living, I would love better to invite the crows
To draw all the remnants from my filthy carcass.

Oh worms! Black companions without ears and eyes,
You see a free and joyous dead man coming to you;
Well-fed philosophers, sons of corruption,

So go through my ruin without remorse,
And tell me if there is still some torture
For this old soulless body, death amongst the dead!

Le Mort joyeux
Dans une terre grasse et pleine d'escargots
Je veux creuser moi-même une fosse profonde,
Où je puisse à loisir étaler mes vieux os
Et dormir dans l'oubli comme un requin dans l'onde.

Je hais les testaments et je hais les tombeaux;
Plutôt que d'implorer une larme du monde,
Vivant, j'aimerais mieux inviter les corbeaux
À saigner tous les bouts de ma carcasse immonde.

Ô vers! noirs compagnons sans oreille et sans yeux,
Voyez venir à vous un mort libre et joyeux;
Philosophes viveurs, fils de la pourriture,

À travers ma ruine allez donc sans remords,
Et dites-moi s'il est encor quelque torture
Pour ce vieux corps sans âme et mort parmi les morts!

Sépulture

Sepulcher
If in a heavy and somber night
A good Christian, by charity,
Behind some old ruins
Buries your vaunted body,

At the hour where the innocent stars
Close their heavy eyes,
The spider there will make his webs,
And the viper his babies;

All year you will hear
Over your convicted head
The pitiful cries of the wolves

And of the scrawny sorcerers,
The frolics of lustful old men
And the intrigues of the black rogues.

Sépulture
Si par une nuit lourde et sombre
Un bon chrétien, par charité,
Derrière quelque vieux décombre
Enterre votre corps vanté,

À l'heure où les chastes étoiles
Ferment leurs yeux appesantis,
L'araignée y fera ses toiles,
Et la vipère ses petits;

Vous entendrez toute l'année
Sur votre tête condamnée
Les cris lamentables des loups

Et des sorcières faméliques,
Les ébats des vieillards lubriques
Et les complots des noirs filous.
----

Too tired to exist, really. Back from the land of too much intrigue and not enough forethought. I may see him tonight, tomorrow. Either way I am full of dread. I am not his type. Too sullen, too old...my alcoholism is no longer charming--just pathetic, it seems. If I were not here I would not have to care, but for the sake of putting on a show I must fight for something I don't even really want anymore. How do I put it down without looking defeated? It was beautiful and carefree once upon a time but now...well, who knows. By starlight I will let him go. I have another lover, a lover that tells me that if A comes immediately before B then A cannot be last and B cannot be first. I wish life has Not Laws. No, it just has jungle juice and public spectacles.

But at least they're scared.

La Pipe/La Musique

Oh beauty, the sex and drugs are to be replaced by page after page of logic puzzles and silly reasoning tests.

But it's okay. I have missed the panic that accompanies hour after hour of staring at the same book.

The Pipe
I am the pipe of an author;
One sees, contemplating my countenance,
Abyssinian or Kaffir,
That my master is a great smoker.

When he is full of sorrow,
I smoke like the cottage
Where the food is prepared
For the return of the laborer.

I embrace and I cradle your soul
In the blue and roving web
That rises in fire from my mouth,

And I roll a powerful dittany
That charms his heart and cures
The strains of his spirit.

La Pipe
Je suis la pipe d'un auteur;
On voit, à contempler ma mine
D'Abyssinienne ou de Cafrine,
Que mon maître est un grand fumeur.

Quand il est comblé de douleur,
Je fume comme la chaumine
Où se prépare la cuisine
Pour le retour du laboureur.

J'enlace et je berce son âme
Dans le réseau mobile et bleu
Qui monte de ma bouche en feu,

Et je roule un puissant dictame
Qui charme son coeur et guérit
De ses fatigues son esprit.


Music
Music often takes me like the sea!
Toward my pale star,
Under a ceiling of mist where in a vast ether,
I set sail;

Chest forward and lungs swollen
Like the canvas
I climb the backs of the piling waves
Which night conceals from me;

I sense all the passions vibrating in me
From a suffering vessel;
The good wind, the tempest and its convulsions

On the immense abyss
Rock me. At other times, flat calm, great mirror
Of my despair!

La Musique
La musique souvent me prend comme une mer!
Vers ma pâle étoile,
Sous un plafond de brume ou dans un vaste éther,
Je mets à la voile;

La poitrine en avant et les poumons gonflés
Comme de la toile
J'escalade le dos des flots amoncelés
Que la nuit me voile;

Je sens vibrer en moi toutes les passions
D'un vaisseau qui souffre;
Le bon vent, la tempête et ses convulsions

Sur l'immense gouffre
Me bercent. D'autres fois, calme plat, grand miroir
De mon désespoir!

Les Chats/Les Hiboux

I wonder if my lack of posting comes about directly as a result of my lack of drama. The ennui has mostly faded and I don't know if that is because I went an entire week without reading Les Fleurs du Mal or if it is because the person I question always says what he means and likes hanging out with me and doesn't give me bullshit and vagueness like the others did. In return, I don't have to give him bullshit or vagueness either. It's nice for a change. Really is. The world is not so melodramatic and no matter how full of rage I am over little X-factors, somehow they don't matter that much anymore.

Two animal poems. The second one reminded me a bit of my sister, for no reason other than the fact that she has been collecting owl things for about ten years now.

The Cats
The fervent lovers and the austere scholars
Love equally, in their mature season,
The cats strong and sweet, pride of the house,
Who like them are sensitive to cold and like them sedentary.

Friends of knowledge and of passion
Explore the silence and the horror of the darkness;
Erebus would have taken them for his gloomy steeds,
If they were able to give their pride into servitude.

In dreaming they take noble airs
Of great sphinxes stretched out in the depths of solitude,
Who seem to sleep in an endless dream;

Their fertile loins are full of magic sparks,
And fragments of gold, like fine sand,
Vaguely stud their mystical eyes.

Les Chats
Les amoureux fervents et les savants austères
Aiment également, dans leur mûre saison,
Les chats puissants et doux, orgueil de la maison,
Qui comme eux sont frileux et comme eux sédentaires.

Amis de la science et de la volupté
Ils cherchent le silence et l'horreur des ténèbres;
L'Erèbe les eût pris pour ses coursiers funèbres,
S'ils pouvaient au servage incliner leur fierté.

Ils prennent en songeant les nobles attitudes
Des grands sphinx allongés au fond des solitudes,
Qui semblent s'endormir dans un rêve sans fin;

Leurs reins féconds sont pleins d'étincelles magiques,
Et des parcelles d'or, ainsi qu'un sable fin,
Etoilent vaguement leurs prunelles mystiques.


The Owls
Under the yews which shelter them
The owls have arranged themselves
As foreign gods
Shooting their red eyes. They meditate.

Without moving they abide
Until the melancholy hour
Where, heaving back the slanting sun,
The darkness will establish itself.

Their attitude instructs the wise
That in this world one must fear
Uproar and movement;

Man drunk on a passing shadow
Forever carries the punishment
Of having wished to change his place.

Les Hiboux
Sous les ifs noirs qui les abritent
Les hiboux se tiennent rangés
Ainsi que des dieux étrangers
Dardant leur oeil rouge. Ils méditent.

Sans remuer ils se tiendront
Jusqu'à l'heure mélancolique
Où, poussant le soleil oblique,
Les ténèbres s'établiront.

Leur attitude au sage enseigne
Qu'il faut en ce monde qu'il craigne
Le tumulte et le mouvement;

L'homme ivre d'une ombre qui passe
Porte toujours le châtiment
D'avoir voulu changer de place.