Le Jeu

Here it goes. Post number one hundred. I think a lot has changed since I started, most notably since the beginning of this current calendar year. It started out rough but now it's nothing but (hopefully) smooth sailing into the great, beautiful unknown.

The other night I heard the bad news. A. said it was only for a few hours so my heart got quieter and I drank enough water to clear my head. That was the night I felt my tears burn his skin like acid. Oh lame. I thank Apollo that he understood. I am no longer soaked full of ennui. This is a new feeling. I haven't felt it in awhile, perhaps never before. Peace like a river, or some equally placid body of water.

I will give up the wine and the ghost. I will celebrate everything this beautiful life has given me.

Gambling
In the faded armchairs old courtesans,
Pale, eyebrows painted, eyes tender and fatal,
Simpering, and making from their skinny ears
A clink of stone and metal fall;

Around the green tables lipless faces,
Colorless faces, toothless jaws,
And fingers convulsed with a hellish fever,
Searching the empty pocket or the beating breast;

Under the dirty ceilings a row of pale lights
And enormous oil lamps project their glow
Onto the dark brows of celebrated poets
Who come to squander their blood-sweat;

Here is that black picture that in a nocturnal dream
I saw unwind before my discerning eye.
Myself, in a corner of the silent den,
I see myself leaning, cold, mute, envious,

Envious of these peoples’ stubborn passion,
Of these old whores’ gloomy gaiety,
And all cheerfully dealing in my face,
The one his old honor, the other her beauty!

And my heart was alarmed by envying many a poor man
Racing with fervor to the gaping abyss,
And who, drunk from his blood, would prefer in sum
Pain to death and hell to nothingness!

Le Jeu
Dans des fauteuils fanés des courtisanes vieilles,
Pâles, le sourcil peint, l'oeil câlin et fatal,
Minaudant, et faisant de leurs maigres oreilles
Tomber un cliquetis de pierre et de métal;

Autour des verts tapis des visages sans lèvre,
Des lèvres sans couleur, des mâchoires sans dent,
Et des doigts convulsés d'une infernale fièvre,
Fouillant la poche vide ou le sein palpitant;

Sous de sales plafonds un rang de pâles lustres
Et d'énormes quinquets projetant leurs lueurs
Sur des fronts ténébreux de poètes illustres
Qui viennent gaspiller leurs sanglantes sueurs;

Voilà le noir tableau qu'en un rêve nocturne
Je vis se dérouler sous mon oeil clairvoyant.
Moi-même, dans un coin de l'antre taciturne,
Je me vis accoudé, froid, muet, enviant,

Enviant de ces gens la passion tenace,
De ces vieilles putains la funèbre gaieté,
Et tous gaillardement trafiquant à ma face,
L'un de son vieil honneur, l'autre de sa beauté!

Et mon coeur s'effraya d'envier maint pauvre homme
Courant avec ferveur à l'abîme béant,
Et qui, soûl de son sang, préférerait en somme
La douleur à la mort et l'enfer au néant!
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I can feel the warmth, my one and only. Though perhaps not for long. I can be so sickeningly selfish. Yes.