Thrice-Great: Les Fleurs du Mal in One Year

Le Voyage

2009-05-31T15:31:00.001-07:00

On this sleepy Sunday evening, I will let my flowers die. 151 poems. 12 months. I am pleased that I have finished this project in my anticipated time. I think to how I was and who I was back all that time ago and I am happy with how things have turned out. I never got what I thought I wanted but now I realize more than ever that what I wanted was something completely different. Hope springs eternal. This year I saw love and death and tragedy and beauty and every shade of human thought and emotion. I think to the future, to the summer, to my sweet, beautiful selfless love and how this has ultimately changed for the better.

When I started all the poems reminded me of the first and all the ennui and the hatred. Now Baudelaire sings about sailing, about a voyage, about new things. God help and protect me, this will all be everything I hoped and prayed for.

The Voyage

To Maxime du Camp

I.
To the child, in love with maps and prints,
The universe is equal to his vast appetite.
Ah! How the world is great in the lamplight!
How the world is small in the eyes of memory!

We leave one morning, mind full of fire,
Heart thick with resentment and bitter desires,
And we go, according to the rhythm of the sword,
Rocking our infinity on the finite of the seas:

Some, joyous at fleeing a despicable country;
Others, the horror of their birthplaces, and a few,
Astrologers drowned in the eyes of a woman,
Tyrannical Circe with dangerous perfumes.

In order to not be changed into beasts, they get drunk
From space and light and blazing skies;
The ice that bites them, the suns that bronze them,
Slowly erase the mark of the kisses.

But the true voyagers are only those who go
In order to leave; hearts light, similar to balloons,
They never move away from their fatality,
And, without knowing why, always say: Let’s go!

Those for whom the desires have the form of clouds,
And who dream, like a conscript of a cannon,
Of great pleasures, changeable, unknown,
And whose name the human spirit has never known!

II.
We imitate, horror! The top and the ball
In their waltz and their leaps; even in our sleep
Curiosity torments us and rolls us
Like a cruel Angel who flogs suns.

Unusual fortune where the goal moves around,
And, being nowhere, is maybe everywhere!
Where Man, whose hope is never weary,
Always runs like a fool to find rest!

Our soul is a three-mast seeking his Icaria;
A voice rings out over the bridge: “Open your eyes!”
A voice at the top, ardent and foolish, cries:
“Love…glory…happiness!” Hell! It is a reef!

Ever islet spotted by the man on watch
Is an Eldorado promised by Destiny;
Imagination who prepares her orgy
Only finds a reef in the light of morning.

Oh the poor lovers of fanciful lands!
Must he be put into irons, thrown into the sea,
This drunken sailor, inventor of Americas
Whose mirage makes the abyss more bitter?

Thus the old vagabond, trampled in the mud,
Dreams, nose in the air, of brilliant paradises;
His enchanted eye discovers a Capua
Everywhere the candle illuminates a sty.

III.
Amazing voyagers! What noble stories
We read in your eyes deep like the seas!
Show us the cases of your rich memories,
These marvelous jewels, made from stars and either.

We want to travel without vapor and veil!
Make, in order to brighten the boredom of our prisons,
Pass over our spirits, stretched like a cloth,
Your memories with their framed horizons.

Tell, what have you seen?

IV.
“We have seen stars
And streams, we have also seen sands;
And, despite many collisions and unexpected disasters,
We were often bored, like we are here.

The glory of the sun on the purple sea,
The glory of cities in the setting sun,
They lit in our eyes an anxious ardor
To plunge into a sky of attractive shimmers.

The richest cities, the greatest landscapes,
Never contained the mysterious allure
Of skies that chance makes with the clouds.
And desire always makes us worried!

—Pleasure adds to the strength of desire,
Desire, old tree that pleasure serves to fertilize,
While increasing and hardening your bark,
Your branches want to see the sun more closely!

Will you always grow, great tree more vivacious
Than the cypress? —Yet we have, with care,
Picked some sketches for your greedy album
Brothers who find beautiful all that comes from afar!

We have paid tribute to idols with trunks;
Thrones studded with luminous gems;
Of finely wrought palaces whose magical pomp
Would make a ruinous dream for your bankers;

Of costumes that are intoxication for the eyes;
Of women whose teeth and nails are stained,
And of skillful jugglers that the serpent caresses.”

V.
And then, and then what?

VI.
“ Oh childish minds!
Not to forget the essential things,
We have seen everywhere, and without having looked for it,
From the top to the bottom of the fatal ladder,
The tedious spectacle of immortal sin:

Woman, vile slave, proud and stupid,
Adoring herself without laughter and loving herself without disgust;
Man, greedy tyrant, bawdy, hard and covetous,
Slave of slave and stream in the sewer;

The hangman who enjoys, the martyr who sobs;
The festival that seasons and perfumes the blood;
The poison of power irritating the despot,
And the people in love with the deafening whip;

Several religions similar to ours,
All climbing to the sky; the sanctity,
Like a delicate sprawled out on a feather bed,
Finds pleasure in the nails and the horsehair;

Long-winded Humanity, drunk on his genius,
And, now as mad as she was in the past,
Crying to God, in her furious agony:
“Oh my selfsame, my master, I curse you!”

And the less silly, daring lovers of Dementia,
Fleeing from the great troop pent up by Destiny,
And finding refuge in the immense opium!
—Such is the eternal report of the whole world.”

VII.
Bitter to know, that which one gains from a voyage!
The world, small and monotonous, today,
Yesterday, tomorrow, always, makes us see our image:
An oasis of horror in a desert of ennui!

Must he leave? Remain? If you can stay, stay;
Leave, if you must. One runs, and the other hides
To deceive the watchful and deadly enemy,
Time! There are, alas! Runners without rest,

Like the wandering Jew and the apostles,
For whom nothing suffices, neither wagon nor vessel,
In order to flee this infamous repetition; there are others
Who know how to kill him without leaving their cradles.

When finally he puts his foot on our spine,
We can hope and cry: Forward!
Just as in the past we left for China,
Eyes fixed on the open sea and hair in the wind,

We will embark on the sea of Darkness
With the joyful heart of a young passenger.
Listen to these charming and somber voices,
That sing: “Come here you who wish to eat

The perfumed Lotus! It is here that one harvests
The miraculous fruits for which your heart has hungered;
Come and get drunk on the strange sweetness
Of this never-ending afternoon!”

In the familiar notes we discern the specter;
Our Pylades stretch their arms across the sea towards us.
“In order to cool your heart swim towards your Electra!”
Says she whose knees we once kissed.

VIII.
Oh Death, old captain, it is time! Raise the anchor!
This land bores us, oh Death! Let us sail away!
If the sky and the sea are black like ink,
Our hearts that you know are full of sunbeams!

Pour out your poison that it may fortify us!
We wish, so much this fire burns our brains,
To plunge into the bottom of the abyss, Heaven or Hell, what importance?
Into the depths of the Unknown to find the new!

Le Voyage

À Maxime du Camp

I.
Pour l'enfant, amoureux de cartes et d'estampes,
L'univers est égal à son vaste appétit.
Ah! que le monde est grand à la clarté des lampes!
Aux yeux du souvenir que le monde est petit!

Un matin nous partons, le cerveau plein de flamme,
Le coeur gros de rancune et de désirs amers,
Et nous allons, suivant le rythme de la lame,
Berçant notre infini sur le fini des mers:

Les uns, joyeux de fuir une patrie infâme;
D'autres, l'horreur de leurs berceaux, et quelques-uns,
Astrologues noyés dans les yeux d'une femme,
La Circé tyrannique aux dangereux parfums.

Pour n'être pas changés en bêtes, ils s'enivrent
D'espace et de lumière et de cieux embrasés;
La glace qui les mord, les soleils qui les cuivrent,
Effacent lentement la marque des baisers.

Mais les vrais voyageurs sont ceux-là seuls qui partent
Pour partir; coeurs légers, semblables aux ballons,
De leur fatalité jamais ils ne s'écartent,
Et, sans savoir pourquoi, disent toujours: Allons!

Ceux-là dont les désirs ont la forme des nues,
Et qui rêvent, ainsi qu'un conscrit le canon,
De vastes voluptés, changeantes, inconnues,
Et dont l'esprit humain n'a jamais su le nom!

II.
Nous imitons, horreur! la toupie et la boule
Dans leur valse et leurs bonds; même dans nos sommeils
La Curiosité nous tourmente et nous roule
Comme un Ange cruel qui fouette des soleils.

Singulière fortune où le but se déplace,
Et, n'étant nulle part, peut être n'importe où!
Où l'Homme, dont jamais l'espérance n'est lasse,
Pour trouver le repos court toujours comme un fou!

Notre âme est un trois-mâts cherchant son Icarie;
Une voix retentit sur le pont: «Ouvre l'oeil!»
Une voix de la hune, ardente et folle, crie:
«Amour... gloire... bonheur!» Enfer! c'est un écueil!

Chaque îlot signalé par l'homme de vigie
Est un Eldorado promis par le Destin;
L'Imagination qui dresse son orgie
Ne trouve qu'un récif aux clartés du matin.

Ô le pauvre amoureux des pays chimériques!
Faut-il le mettre aux fers, le jeter à la mer,
Ce matelot ivrogne, inventeur d'Amériques
Dont le mirage rend le gouffre plus amer?

Tel le vieux vagabond, piétinant dans la boue,
Rêve, le nez en l'air, de brillants paradis;
Son oeil ensorcelé découvre une Capoue
Partout où la chandelle illumine un taudis.

III.
Etonnants voyageurs! quelles nobles histoires
Nous lisons dans vos yeux profonds comme les mers!
Montrez-nous les écrins de vos riches mémoires,
Ces bijoux merveilleux, faits d'astres et d'éthers.

Nous voulons voyager sans vapeur et sans voile!
Faites, pour égayer l'ennui de nos prisons,
Passer sur nos esprits, tendus comme une toile,
Vos souvenirs avec leurs cadres d'horizons.

Dites, qu'avez-vous vu?

IV.
«Nous avons vu des astres
Et des flots, nous avons vu des sables aussi;
Et, malgré bien des chocs et d'imprévus désastres,
Nous nous sommes souvent ennuyés, comme ici.

La gloire du soleil sur la mer violette,
La gloire des cités dans le soleil couchant,
Allumaient dans nos coeurs une ardeur inquiète
De plonger dans un ciel au reflet alléchant.

Les plus riches cités, les plus grands paysages,
Jamais ne contenaient l'attrait mystérieux
De ceux que le hasard fait avec les nuages.
Et toujours le désir nous rendait soucieux!

— La jouissance ajoute au désir de la force.
Désir, vieil arbre à qui le plaisir sert d'engrais,
Cependant que grossit et durcit ton écorce,
Tes branches veulent voir le soleil de plus près!

Grandiras-tu toujours, grand arbre plus vivace
Que le cyprès? — Pourtant nous avons, avec soin,
Cueilli quelques croquis pour votre album vorace
Frères qui trouvez beau tout ce qui vient de loin!

Nous avons salué des idoles à trompe;
Des trônes constellés de joyaux lumineux;
Des palais ouvragés dont la féerique pompe
Serait pour vos banquiers un rêve ruineux;

Des costumes qui sont pour les yeux une ivresse;
Des femmes dont les dents et les ongles sont teints,
Et des jongleurs savants que le serpent caresse.»

V.
Et puis, et puis encore?

VI.
«Ô cerveaux enfantins!

Pour ne pas oublier la chose capitale,
Nous avons vu partout, et sans l'avoir cherché,
Du haut jusques en bas de l'échelle fatale,
Le spectacle ennuyeux de l'immortel péché:

La femme, esclave vile, orgueilleuse et stupide,
Sans rire s'adorant et s'aimant sans dégoût;
L'homme, tyran goulu, paillard, dur et cupide,
Esclave de l'esclave et ruisseau dans l'égout;

Le bourreau qui jouit, le martyr qui sanglote;
La fête qu'assaisonne et parfume le sang;
Le poison du pouvoir énervant le despote,
Et le peuple amoureux du fouet abrutissant;

Plusieurs religions semblables à la nôtre,
Toutes escaladant le ciel; la Sainteté,
Comme en un lit de plume un délicat se vautre,
Dans les clous et le crin cherchant la volupté;

L'Humanité bavarde, ivre de son génie,
Et, folle maintenant comme elle était jadis,
Criant à Dieu, dans sa furibonde agonie:
»Ô mon semblable, mon maître, je te maudis!«

Et les moins sots, hardis amants de la Démence,
Fuyant le grand troupeau parqué par le Destin,
Et se réfugiant dans l'opium immense!
— Tel est du globe entier l'éternel bulletin.»

VII.
Amer savoir, celui qu'on tire du voyage!
Le monde, monotone et petit, aujourd'hui,
Hier, demain, toujours, nous fait voir notre image:
Une oasis d'horreur dans un désert d'ennui!

Faut-il partir? rester? Si tu peux rester, reste;
Pars, s'il le faut. L'un court, et l'autre se tapit
Pour tromper l'ennemi vigilant et funeste,
Le Temps! Il est, hélas! des coureurs sans répit,

Comme le Juif errant et comme les apôtres,
À qui rien ne suffit, ni wagon ni vaisseau,
Pour fuir ce rétiaire infâme; il en est d'autres
Qui savent le tuer sans quitter leur berceau.

Lorsque enfin il mettra le pied sur notre échine,
Nous pourrons espérer et crier: En avant!
De même qu'autrefois nous partions pour la Chine,
Les yeux fixés au large et les cheveux au vent,

Nous nous embarquerons sur la mer des Ténèbres
Avec le coeur joyeux d'un jeune passager.
Entendez-vous ces voix charmantes et funèbres,
Qui chantent: «Par ici vous qui voulez manger

Le Lotus parfumé! c'est ici qu'on vendange
Les fruits miraculeux dont votre coeur a faim;
Venez vous enivrer de la douceur étrange
De cette après-midi qui n'a jamais de fin!»

À l'accent familier nous devinons le spectre;
Nos Pylades l&agrave-bas tendent leurs bras vers nous.
«Pour rafraîchir ton coeur nage vers ton Electre!»
Dit celle dont jadis nous baisions les genoux.

VIII.
Ô Mort, vieux capitaine, il est temps! levons l'ancre!
Ce pays nous ennuie, ô Mort! Appareillons!
Si le ciel et la mer sont noirs comme de l'encre,
Nos coeurs que tu connais sont remplis de rayons!

Verse-nous ton poison pour qu'il nous réconforte!
Nous voulons, tant ce feu nous brûle le cerveau,
Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu'importe?
Au fond de l'Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau!
---
And in the future I may rewrite, rethink, interject and illustrate. But for now I will let this stand alone and I will go somewhere and think. This is no kind of end. One year ago the world was shaky and uncertain and now it is even more so. But I am happy. Always, I am happy.

Le Rêve d'un Curieux

2009-05-28T07:25:00.001-07:00

Not much to say here and now. I race against the clock while he tosses and turns in my little bed. Oh.

The Dream of a Curious Man

To Félix Nadar

Do you know, like I do, the savory sorrow
And do you make them say of you: “Oh! Peculiar man!”
—I went to die. It was in my amorous soul
Desire mixed with horror, a specific evil;

Anguish and vivid hope, without factious humor.
The fatal hourglass continued to empty more,
My torture was more bitter and delicious.
All my heart tore itself from the familiar world.

It was like the child eager for the show,
Hating the curtain like one hates an obstacle…
Finally the cold truth revealed itself,

I was dead without surprise, and the terrible dawn
Enveloped me. —What? Is that it?
The cloth was lifted and I was still waiting.

Le Rêve d'un Curieux

À Félix Nadar

Connais-tu, comme moi, la douleur savoureuse
Et de toi fais-tu dire: «Oh! l'homme singulier!»
— J'allais mourir. C'était dans mon âme amoureuse
Désir mêlé d'horreur, un mal particulier;

Angoisse et vif espoir, sans humeur factieuse.
Plus allait se vidant le fatal sablier,
Plus ma torture était âpre et délicieuse;
Tout mon coeur s'arrachait au monde familier.

J'étais comme l'enfant avide du spectacle,
Haïssant le rideau comme on hait un obstacle...
Enfin la vérité froide se révéla:

J'étais mort sans surprise, et la terrible aurore
M'enveloppait. — Eh quoi! n'est-ce donc que cela?
La toile était levée et j'attendais encore.
----
I am taking it over one more time.

La Fin de la Journée

2009-05-22T06:32:00.000-07:00

It's cold, cold, cold here even though the sun seems to shine. I am tired of this place and I want to move on. My heart has stopped flailing and I am ready to spend the next few weeks doing nothing but sitting around and hoping to be amused. The joy he promised me has not arrived quite yet, but neither has the summer, really.

Three poems left. Weird.

The End of the Day
Under a pale light
Runs, dances and bends without reason
Life, imprudent and shrill.
Also, as soon as on the horizon

The voluptuous night rises,
Soothing all, even hunger,
Erasing all, even disgrace,
The Poet says to himself: “Finally!

My spirit, like my vertebra,
Passionately invokes rest;
Heart full of gloomy dreams,

I go lie down on my back
And roll myself in your curtains,
Oh refreshing darkness!”

La Fin de la Journée
Sous une lumière blafarde
Court, danse et se tord sans raison
La Vie, impudente et criarde.
Aussi, sitôt qu'à l'horizon

La nuit voluptueuse monte,
Apaisant tout, même la faim,
Effaçant tout, même la honte,
Le Poète se dit: «Enfin!

Mon esprit, comme mes vertèbres,
Invoque ardemment le repos;
Le coeur plein de songes funèbres,

Je vais me coucher sur le dos
Et me rouler dans vos rideaux,
Ô rafraîchissantes ténèbres!»
---
Not gonna lie, the soul left this project weeks or months ago but I don't care. It's morning in my mind and pretty much everywhere else for that matter.

La Mort des artistes

2009-05-19T11:43:00.000-07:00

The end is nigh, maybe 3 or 4 more posts and then I am off. Where? Nowhere, not for awhile. Lazy summer has returned and I find myself hopelessly unwilling to do any kind of productive labor. I am a bit unhappy with his imminent ten-day departure but I suppose I will have to get over that if I am to somehow live without him for months on end. Three months and counting and we have never slept apart, no matter how many late drunken nights or all-day sailing voyages. But I have not grown familiar or complacent; he continues to surprise me with his kindness and infinite mercy, his genuine love of my soul, and his animal passion. Oh, Apollo, why give me this great gift only to have it ripped away? I start and stammer about nothing but him, him, him but all the footwork is done and I have little to occupy myself save for some packing, paperwork and bickering.

Sometimes I think to the one who came at the beginning of all this, who earned my dedication, and who left me unwilling, cynical and miserable. He is happy, it seems and for once I don't grudge him any of that. What would have been the end of all this? Nothing. If the Other One is willing to go through such pains for him then by all means they should love and multiply. A year ago I said I would do anything for him but now I know better. The one I have is perfect beyond measure and I thank everyone and everything for this blessing. From holding my hand in the hospital to buying little souvenirs when he is away at sea, his love comes through and I cherish it above all other things.

The Death of the Artists
How many times must I shake my bells
And kiss your low brow, dreary caricature?
In order to hit the target, of mystical nature,
How many javelins, oh my quiver, must you lose?

We will wear out our soul in subtle intrigues,
And we will demolish many a heavy frame,
Before contemplating the great Creature
Whose infernal desire fills us with sobs!

There are those who have never known their Idol,
And these sculptors damned and marked with an affront,
Who go hammering breast and brow,

Have only one hope, strange and somber Capitol!
It is that Death, gliding like a new sun,
Will make the flowers of their mind open!

La Mort des artistes
Combien faut-il de fois secouer mes grelots
Et baiser ton front bas, morne caricature?
Pour piquer dans le but, de mystique nature,
Combien, ô mon carquois, perdre de javelots?

Nous userons notre âme en de subtils complots,
Et nous démolirons mainte lourde armature,
Avant de contempler la grande Créature
Dont l'infernal désir nous remplit de sanglots!

Il en est qui jamais n'ont connu leur Idole,
Et ces sculpteurs damnés et marqués d'un affront,
Qui vont se martelant la poitrine et le front,

N'ont qu'un espoir, étrange et sombre Capitole!
C'est que la Mort, planant comme un soleil nouveau,
Fera s'épanouir les fleurs de leur cerveau!
---
In the face of uncertainty I pray for my family. I can only hope that their lifelong devotion to the Almighty provides them with solace in this time of need.

My unhealthy flowers are wilting, and they will be dead within days.

La Mort des pauvres

2009-05-18T06:05:00.000-07:00

I am closing in on the last few days and I am certain that this will all be done in time. Yesterday life came full circle when the next generation were handed their diplomas and sent off into the world. The most important ones are still around though, as am I, sick though I am. Saline solution and sleepless nights. He will see me through. The time draws near and my very last opportunity for complete closure has flown the coop. I don't mind. I want all the new beginnings.

Praise Apollo I am sleepy, for the alternative is so much worse.

The Death of the Poor
It is Death that consoles, alas! And that makes us live;
It is the purpose of life, and it is the only hope
That, like an elixir, raises us and intoxicates us,
And gives us the heart to walk until evening;

Through the storm, and the snow, and the ice,
It is the vibrant light on our black horizon
It is the famous inn noted in the book,
Where one can eat, and sleep, and sit down;

It is an Angel who holds in his magnetic fingers
Sleep and the gift of ecstatic dreams,
And who remakes the bed of the poor and the naked people;

It is the glory of Gods, it is the mystical granary,
It is the purse of the poor and her old fatherland,
It is the portico open over the unknown Skies!

La Mort des pauvres
C'est la Mort qui console, hélas! et qui fait vivre;
C'est le but de la vie, et c'est le seul espoir
Qui, comme un élixir, nous monte et nous enivre,
Et nous donne le coeur de marcher jusqu'au soir;

À travers la tempête, et la neige, et le givre,
C'est la clarté vibrante à notre horizon noir
C'est l'auberge fameuse inscrite sur le livre,
Où l'on pourra manger, et dormir, et s'asseoir;

C'est un Ange qui tient dans ses doigts magnétiques
Le sommeil et le don des rêves extatiques,
Et qui refait le lit des gens pauvres et nus;

C'est la gloire des Dieux, c'est le grenier mystique,
C'est la bourse du pauvre et sa patrie antique,
C'est le portique ouvert sur les Cieux inconnus!
---
Sleep sweet, fondly. There is nothing I want more in this world than to lay down and to feel no pain.

La Mort des Amants

2009-05-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

Pretty sunshine days and Annapolitan sunsets. The world is warmer and I remain convinced that I have found what I have been looking for. My mother says she is sad and I feel bad in telling her that I am the happiest I have ever been. There are some refusals but I have enough to keep me going. I love the world and I love the hope that comes with being content.

Baudelaire greets death with his lovers.

The Death of the Lovers
We will have beds full of light scents,
Couches as deep as tombs,
And strange flowers on the shelves,
Blooming for us under skies more beautiful.

Using their last warmth to outdo each other,
Our two hearts will be two great flames,
That will reflect their double lights
In our two spirits, these twin mirrors.

An evening made of mystical rose and blue,
We will exchange a single lightning flash,
Like a long sob, completely full of farewells.

And later an Angel, opening the doors,
Will come to renew, faithful and joyous,
The tarnished mirrors and dead flames.

La Mort des Amants
Nous aurons des lits pleins d'odeurs légères,
Des divans profonds comme des tombeaux,
Et d'étranges fleurs sur des étagères,
Ecloses pour nous sous des cieux plus beaux.

Usant à l'envi leurs chaleurs dernières,
Nos deux coeurs seront deux vastes flambeaux,
Qui réfléchiront leurs doubles lumières
Dans nos deux esprits, ces miroirs jumeaux.

Un soir fait de rose et de bleu mystique,
Nous échangerons un éclair unique,
Comme un long sanglot, tout chargé d'adieux;

Et plus tard un Ange, entr'ouvrant les portes,
Viendra ranimer, fidèle et joyeux,
Les miroirs ternis et les flammes mortes.
---
Summer loving, loathing, longing. Here it comes!

Les Litanies de Satan

2009-05-11T12:19:00.000-07:00

Spent these days in a funk: vomiting, panicking, and finding my true and everlasting peace. Family brunches and giggles, ships hulls dragging along shallow bays. Metaphors, la di da. I love this cozy little world and I want it for my own. All I can think about it what Might Happen. No delusions of grandeur I hope.

The Litanies of Satan
Oh you, the wisest and most beautiful of the Angels,
God betrayed by fate and deprived of praises,

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

Oh Prince in exile, whom one has wronged
And who, vanquished, always comes back stronger,

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who knows all, great king of underground things,
Familiar healer of human anguish,

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who, even to the lepers, to the damned pariahs,
Teaches the taste of Paradise through love,

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

Oh you who from Death, your strong and aged lover,
Engendered Hope, —a charming fool!

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who gives to the outcast this calm and raised gaze
That condemns all the people around the gallows.

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who knows in which corners of envious lands
The jealous God hides the precious rocks,

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You whose clear eye knows the deep arsenals
Where the multitude of metals sleep enshrouded,

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You whose large hand hides the chasms
From the sleepwalker roaming the edges of buildings,

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who, to console the frail, suffering man,
Taught us to mix the saltpepper and sulfur,

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who puts your mark, oh subtle helper,
On the brow of vile, merciless Croesus,

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who placed in the eyes and the heart of girls
The cult of the sore and the love of rags,

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

Staff of exiles, lamp of inventors,
Confessor of the hanged men and the conspirators,

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

Adoptive father of these who in his black anger
God the Father has chased from the earthly paradise,

Oh Satan, take pity on my long misery!

Prayer

Glory and praise to you, Satan, in the heights
Of Heaven, where you reigned, and in the depths
Of Hell, where, vanquished, you dream in silence!
Make it that my soul one day, under the Tree of Science,
Reposes close to you, at the hour where on your brow
Its branches will spread out like a Temple!

Les Litanies de Satan
Ô toi, le plus savant et le plus beau des Anges,
Dieu trahi par le sort et privé de louanges,

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Ô Prince de l'exil, à qui l'on a fait tort
Et qui, vaincu, toujours te redresses plus fort,

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Toi qui sais tout, grand roi des choses souterraines,
Guérisseur familier des angoisses humaines,

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Toi qui, même aux lépreux, aux parias maudits,
Enseignes par l'amour le goût du Paradis,

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Ô toi qui de la Mort, ta vieille et forte amante,
Engendras l'Espérance, — une folle charmante!

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Toi qui fais au proscrit ce regard calme et haut
Qui damne tout un peuple autour d'un échafaud.

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Toi qui sais en quels coins des terres envieuses
Le Dieu jaloux cacha les pierres précieuses,

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Toi dont l'oeil clair connaît les profonds arsenaux
Où dort enseveli le peuple des métaux,

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Toi dont la large main cache les précipices
Au somnambule errant au bord des édifices,

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Toi qui, magiquement, assouplis les vieux os
De l'ivrogne attardé foulé par les chevaux,

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Toi qui, pour consoler l'homme frêle qui souffre,
Nous appris à mêler le salpêtre et le soufre,

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Toi qui poses ta marque, ô complice subtil,
Sur le front du Crésus impitoyable et vil,

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Toi qui mets dans les yeux et dans le coeur des filles
Le culte de la plaie et l'amour des guenilles,

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Bâton des exilés, lampe des inventeurs,
Confesseur des pendus et des conspirateurs,

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Père adoptif de ceux qu'en sa noire colère
Du paradis terrestre a chassés Dieu le Père,

Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!

Prière

Gloire et louange à toi, Satan, dans les hauteurs
Du Ciel, où tu régnas, et dans les profondeurs
De l'Enfer, où, vaincu, tu rêves en silence!
Fais que mon âme un jour, sous l'Arbre de Science,
Près de toi se repose, à l'heure où sur ton front
Comme un Temple nouveau ses rameaux s'épandront!
---
I feel so sad and sick sometimes but only here. What to do?

Abel et Caïn

2009-05-08T11:00:00.000-07:00

The earth has made a full revolution and now things have changed. N. and I talked about how our lives have evolved since summer past, the summer full of drunken languor and hot smoke. This year it will be different they say, since I will be celebrating life instead of mourning loss. My beautiful one has the aches and pains and watching him suffer makes me sad. Soon he will be better, soon we will be together. My happiness is warm but my closet and basement need to be exorcised. There will be space, time, opportunity. I think it will all work out.

Baudelaire has focused Révolte on Biblical imagery, I suppose it's obvious. The last one made me think a lot about what it was like to be young and strangled with those kinds of heavy thoughts when the mind is not mature enough to handle them. This reminded me of many discussions in Sophomore Seminar where we determined that all denials and betrayals were necessary to bring about a prophesied event. God. Maybe my attempts at profundity are better left alone.

Abel and Cain
I.
Race of Abel, sleep, drink and eat;
God smiles on you complacently.

Race of Cain, in the muck
Crawls and dies miserably.

Race of Abel, your sacrifice
Flatters the nose of the Seraphim!

Race of Cain, your torment
Will it never have an end?

Race of Abel, see your seeds
And your cattle flourish;

Race of Cain, your entrails
Howl with hunger like an old dog.

Race of Abel, warm your belly
At your patriarchal hearth;

Race of Cain, in your den
Tremble with cold, poor jackal!

Race of Abel, love and multiply!
Even your gold has children.

Race of Cain, heart that burns,
Watch out for these great appetites.

Race of Abel, you think and grow
Like the bugs in the woods!

Race of Cain, along the roads
Drag your desperate family.

II.
Ah! Race of Abel, your carcass
Will fertilize the smoking soil!

Race of Cain, your labor
Has not been completed sufficiently;

Race of Abel, here is your disgrace:
The sword is vanquished by the spear!

Race of Cain, climb to the sky,
And hurl God to earth!

Abel et Caïn
I.
Race d'Abel, dors, bois et mange;
Dieu te sourit complaisamment.

Race de Caïn, dans la fange
Rampe et meurs misérablement.

Race d'Abel, ton sacrifice
Flatte le nez du Séraphin!

Race de Caïn, ton supplice
Aura-t-il jamais une fin?

Race d'Abel, vois tes semailles
Et ton bétail venir à bien;

Race de Caïn, tes entrailles
Hurlent la faim comme un vieux chien.

Race d'Abel, chauffe ton ventre
À ton foyer patriarcal;

Race de Caïn, dans ton antre
Tremble de froid, pauvre chacal!

Race d'Abel, aime et pullule!
Ton or fait aussi des petits.

Race de Caïn, coeur qui brûle,
Prends garde à ces grands appétits.

Race d'Abel, tu croîs et broutes
Comme les punaises des bois!

Race de Caïn, sur les routes
Traîne ta famille aux abois.

II.
Ah! race d'Abel, ta charogne
Engraissera le sol fumant!

Race de Caïn, ta besogne
N'est pas faite suffisamment;

Race d'Abel, voici ta honte:
Le fer est vaincu par l'épieu!

Race de Caïn, au ciel monte,
Et sur la terre jette Dieu!
---
I want to say that I have worked long and hard and that I deserve to let it all go and do a bunch of stupid things. But none of that is true. I value my semi-mature existence. Maybe?

Le Reniement de Saint Pierre

2009-05-07T05:33:00.000-07:00

I am tired and I don't care about anything. Right.

The Denial of Saint Peter
What is it that God does with this wave of curses
That rise every day towards his dear Seraphim?
Like a tyrant gorged with meat and wine,
He falls asleep to the sweet murmur of our hideous blasphemies.

The sobs of the martyrs and the tortured
Are without doubt an intoxicating symphony,
Since, despite the blood that their pleasure costs,
The skies have not yet had their fill!

—Ah! Jesus, remember the Garden of Olives!
In your simplicity you prayed on your knees
To he who in his sky laughs at the noise of the nails
That the vile hangman planted in your living flesh,

When you saw spitting on your divinity
The villainous body of guards and cooks,
And when you felt the thorns sink
Into your skull where great Humanity lived;

When the horrible heaviness of your broken body
Extended your two outstretched arms, when your blood
And your sweat poured from your fading brow,
When you were put before everyone like a target,

Did you dream of these days so brilliant and beautiful
When you cam to fulfill the eternal promise,
When you treaded, mounted on a sweet donkey,
The roads all strewn with flowers and branches,

When, heart all swollen with hope and courage,
You whipped all these vile traders with all your strength,
When you were finally master? Has the remorse not
Penetrated into your side further than the spear?

—Certainly, I would leave, as for me, satisfied
With a world where action is not the sister of a dream;
That I would use the sword and perish by the sword!
Saint Peter has renounced Jesus…he has done well!

Le Reniement de Saint Pierre
Qu'est-ce que Dieu fait donc de ce flot d'anathèmes
Qui monte tous les jours vers ses chers Séraphins?
Comme un tyran gorgé de viande et de vins,
II s'endort au doux bruit de nos affreux blasphèmes.

Les sanglots des martyrs et des suppliciés
Sont une symphonie enivrante sans doute,
Puisque, malgré le sang que leur volupté coûte,
Les cieux ne s'en sont point encore rassasiés!

— Ah! Jésus, souviens-toi du Jardin des Olives!
Dans ta simplicité tu priais à genoux
Celui qui dans son ciel riait au bruit des clous
Que d'ignobles bourreaux plantaient dans tes chairs vives,

Lorsque tu vis cracher sur ta divinité
La crapule du corps de garde et des cuisines,
Et lorsque tu sentis s'enfoncer les épines
Dans ton crâne où vivait l'immense Humanité;

Quand de ton corps brisé la pesanteur horrible
Allongeait tes deux bras distendus, que ton sang
Et ta sueur coulaient de ton front pâlissant,
Quand tu fus devant tous posé comme une cible,

Rêvais-tu de ces jours si brillants et si beaux
Où tu vins pour remplir l'éternelle promesse,
Où tu foulais, monté sur une douce ânesse,
Des chemins tout jonchés de fleurs et de rameaux,

Où, le coeur tout gonflé d'espoir et de vaillance,
Tu fouettais tous ces vils marchands à tour de bras,
Où tu fus maître enfin? Le remords n'a-t-il pas
Pénétré dans ton flanc plus avant que la lance?

— Certes, je sortirai, quant à moi, satisfait
D'un monde où l'action n'est pas la soeur du rêve;
Puissé-je user du glaive et périr par le glaive!
Saint Pierre a renié Jésus... il a bien fait!
---
Angst. Angst. Angst.

L'Amour et le Crâne

2009-05-06T08:12:00.001-07:00

Father, we have given you our spirits, will you not leave us our dignity? Troubling domestic situations hit home hard and my little one is taking it badly. All is not lost, no destitution...just a chance for new beginnings. I wish for their peace and happiness above all else. For everyone who shares my love and my blood. He sat up with me last night while I cried from sheer exhaustion. I won't be phased, but I have to carry my weaker half. I love him and he is perfect. I will be his forever.

The Love and the Skull
Old lamp-base

Love is seated on the skull
Of Humanity,
And on this defiled throne,
With a shameless laugh,

Cheerfully blows round bubbles
That rise in the air,
As if meeting the worlds
At the bottom of the ether.

The frail and luminous globe
Takes a great flight,
Punctures and spits out its skinny soul
Like a golden dream.

I hear the skull in every bubble
Praying and wailing:
—“This savage and ridiculous game,
When will it be finished?

Because that which your cruel mouth
Scatters in the air,
Monstrous assassin, this is my brain,
My blood and my flesh!”

L'Amour et le Crâne
Vieux cul-de-lampe

L'Amour est assis sur le crâne
De l'Humanité,
Et sur ce trône le profane,
Au rire effronté,

Souffle gaiement des bulles rondes
Qui montent dans l'air,
Comme pour rejoindre les mondes
Au fond de l'éther.

Le globe lumineux et frêle
Prend un grand essor,
Crève et crache son âme grêle
Comme un songe d'or.

J'entends le crâne à chaque bulle
Prier et gémir:
— «Ce jeu féroce et ridicule,
Quand doit-il finir?

Car ce que ta bouche cruelle
Eparpille en l'air,
Monstre assassin, c'est ma cervelle,
Mon sang et ma chair!»
---
It is wrong to be so stupidly selfish about such stupidly silly things while the nation crumbles and my own life is pierced. But I do. He will always help and protect me, and I will kiss his forehead while he sleeps and hold his hand forever and ever. We are good together. That is all.

Un Voyage à Cythère

2009-05-05T06:57:00.000-07:00

Tired and helpless, Tuesday morning. I want to be back in bed. The rain comes down and down and drowns our thoughts while I try to sort through this muddled mess. Next week they say the sun will shine again and all I want is to get my brown skin back. But right now I sit in this little box while I nurse last night's pains and they search for my replacement. Evil flowers are being gathered and presented for my own amusement. Ten a.m. I just want to be asleep.

A Voyage to Cythera
My heart, like a bird, flutters completely joyous
And glides freely around the ropes;
The ship rolled under a cloudless sky;
Like an angel drunk on a radiant sun.

What is that sad and gloomy island? —It is Cythera,
One tells us, a country famous in the songs
Banal Eldorado of all the old boys.
Look, after all, it a poor land.

—Island of sweet secrets and feasts of the heart!
The superb phantom of old Venus
Glides above your seas like an aroma
And charges the spirits with love and languor.

Beautiful island of green myrtle, full of blooming flowers,
Forever revered by all nations,
Where the sighs of hearts in adoration
Roll like incense over a garden of roses

Or the eternal cooing of a woodpigeon!
—Cythera was not more than a sparse land,
A stony desert troubled by bitter cries.
Yet I glimpsed a peculiar object!

This was not a temple in the shadows of a grove,
Where the young priestess, in love with flowers,
Went, body burning with secret heat,
Half-opening her robe to the passing breeze;

But there shaving the coast close enough
To trouble the birds with our white sails,
We saw that this was a gallows with three branches,
Standing out of the sky in black, like a cypress tree.

Ferocious birds perched on their food
Destroying with rage an already ripe hanged man,
Each driving, like a tool, his dirty beak
Into all the bleeding corners of that decay;

The eyes were two holes, and from the shattered stomach
The heavy intestines poured over the thighs,
And his executioner, gorged on hideous delights,
They had absolutely castrated him with rapping beaks.

Under the feet, a troop of jealous quadrupeds,
The muzzles turned up, swirling and prowling;
In the middle a greater beast moved
Like an enforcer around his aids.

Resident of Cythera, child of a sky so beautiful,
Silently you suffered these insults
In atonement for your infamous services
And the sins that have banned you from the tomb.

Ridiculous hanged man, your sorrows are mine!
I feel, at the sight of your swinging members,
Like vomit, rising through my teeth
The long venom river of these old pains;

Before you, poor devil with memory so dear,
I have felt all the beaks and all the jaws
Of the gnawing crows and the dark panthers
That once much loved to pummel my flesh.

—The sky was charming, the sea was even;
For me all was black and bloody from then on,
Alas! And I will have, like a thick shroud,
Heart buried in that allegory.

On your island, oh Venus! I have found nothing standing
But a symbolic gallows where my image hangs…
—Ah! Lord! Give me the strength and the courage
To contemplate my heart and my body without disgust!

Un Voyage à Cythère
Mon coeur, comme un oiseau, voltigeait tout joyeux
Et planait librement à l'entour des cordages;
Le navire roulait sous un ciel sans nuages;
Comme un ange enivré d'un soleil radieux.

Quelle est cette île triste et noire? — C'est Cythère,
Nous dit-on, un pays fameux dans les chansons
Eldorado banal de tous les vieux garçons.
Regardez, après tout, c'est une pauvre terre.

— Île des doux secrets et des fêtes du coeur!
De l'antique Vénus le superbe fantôme
Au-dessus de tes mers plane comme un arôme
Et charge les esprits d'amour et de langueur.

Belle île aux myrtes verts, pleine de fleurs écloses,
Vénérée à jamais par toute nation,
Où les soupirs des coeurs en adoration
Roulent comme l'encens sur un jardin de roses

Ou le roucoulement éternel d'un ramier!
— Cythère n'était plus qu'un terrain des plus maigres,
Un désert rocailleux troublé par des cris aigres.
J'entrevoyais pourtant un objet singulier!

Ce n'était pas un temple aux ombres bocagères,
Où la jeune prêtresse, amoureuse des fleurs,
Allait, le corps brûlé de secrètes chaleurs,
Entrebâillant sa robe aux brises passagères;

Mais voilà qu'en rasant la côte d'assez près
Pour troubler les oiseaux avec nos voiles blanches,
Nous vîmes que c'était un gibet à trois branches,
Du ciel se détachant en noir, comme un cyprès.

De féroces oiseaux perchés sur leur pâture
Détruisaient avec rage un pendu déjà mûr,
Chacun plantant, comme un outil, son bec impur
Dans tous les coins saignants de cette pourriture;

Les yeux étaient deux trous, et du ventre effondré
Les intestins pesants lui coulaient sur les cuisses,
Et ses bourreaux, gorgés de hideuses délices,
L'avaient à coups de bec absolument châtré.

Sous les pieds, un troupeau de jaloux quadrupèdes,
Le museau relevé, tournoyait et rôdait;
Une plus grande bête au milieu s'agitait
Comme un exécuteur entouré de ses aides.

Habitant de Cythère, enfant d'un ciel si beau,
Silencieusement tu souffrais ces insultes
En expiation de tes infâmes cultes
Et des péchés qui t'ont interdit le tombeau.

Ridicule pendu, tes douleurs sont les miennes!
Je sentis, à l'aspect de tes membres flottants,
Comme un vomissement, remonter vers mes dents
Le long fleuve de fiel des douleurs anciennes;

Devant toi, pauvre diable au souvenir si cher,
J'ai senti tous les becs et toutes les mâchoires
Des corbeaux lancinants et des panthères noires
Qui jadis aimaient tant à triturer ma chair.

— Le ciel était charmant, la mer était unie;
Pour moi tout était noir et sanglant désormais,
Hélas! et j'avais, comme en un suaire épais,
Le coeur enseveli dans cette allégorie.

Dans ton île, ô Vénus! je n'ai trouvé debout
Qu'un gibet symbolique où pendait mon image...
— Ah! Seigneur! donnez-moi la force et le courage
De contempler mon coeur et mon corps sans dégoût!
---
No real jobs to do here anymore, I am just biding my time and looking stupid. Soon he will just be another pebble on the beach. But the best-looking and brightest pebble of them all I guess.

La Béatrice

2009-05-04T06:07:00.000-07:00

I will continue to chug along until I have translated and posted every single poem. I am about six inches from the end and I am more determined than ever. The world floats on. No time for drama. Beatrice!

Beatrice
On the ashen ground, charred, without green,
As I complained one day to nature,
And in my thoughts, wandering by chance,
I slowly sharpened the dagger on my heart,
I see in full noon descending on my head
A gloomy cloud heavy with storm,
That carried a troop of lecherous demons,
Similar to the cruel and curious dwarves.
They put themselves to considering me coldly,
And, like passersby at a fool who they admire,
I listen to them laugh and whisper amongst themselves,
Exchanging many signs and many winks of the eye:

—“Let us contemplate at leisure that caricature
And that shadow of Hamlet imitating
The indecisive look and the hair in the wind.
Is it not a great pity to see this bon viveur,
This beggar, that vacationing minstrel, this rascal,
Because he knows how to play his role artistically,
Wants to interest in the song of his pains
The eagles, crickets, the streams and flowers,
And even to us, authors of these old rubrics
To recite by howling his public tirades?”

I could have (my pride as high as the mountains
Dominates the clouds and the cry of demons)
To simply divert my sovereign head,
If I had not seen among their obscene troop,
Crime that had not made the sun stagger!
The queen of my heart with the unparalleled look
Who laughed with them at my somber distress
And sometimes poured them some dirty caress.

La Béatrice
Dans des terrains cendreux, calcinés, sans verdure,
Comme je me plaignais un jour à la nature,
Et que de ma pensée, en vaguant au hasard,
J'aiguisais lentement sur mon coeur le poignard,
Je vis en plein midi descendre sur ma tête
Un nuage funèbre et gros d'une tempête,
Qui portait un troupeau de démons vicieux,
Semblables à des nains cruels et curieux.
À me considérer froidement ils se mirent,
Et, comme des passants sur un fou qu'ils admirent,
Je les entendis rire et chuchoter entre eux,
En échangeant maint signe et maint clignement d'yeux:

— «Contemplons à loisir cette caricature
Et cette ombre d'Hamlet imitant sa posture,
Le regard indécis et les cheveux au vent.
N'est-ce pas grand'pitié de voir ce bon vivant,
Ce gueux, cet histrion en vacances, ce drôle,
Parce qu'il sait jouer artistement son rôle,
Vouloir intéresser au chant de ses douleurs
Les aigles, les grillons, les ruisseaux et les fleurs,
Et même à nous, auteurs de ces vieilles rubriques,
Réciter en hurlant ses tirades publiques?»

J'aurais pu (mon orgueil aussi haut que les monts
Domine la nuée et le cri des démons)
Détourner simplement ma tête souveraine,
Si je n'eusse pas vu parmi leur troupe obscène,
Crime qui n'a pas fait chanceler le soleil!
La reine de mon coeur au regard nonpareil
Qui riait avec eux de ma sombre détresse
Et leur versait parfois quelque sale caresse.
---
I am riding high on something today.

Allégorie

2009-05-01T08:46:00.000-07:00

The month of May is upon us and now I watch this year's class undergo the same rites that I myself endured. It's strange. It's almost as if time has stood still for this past year and that only now am I actually thinking that I can move forward. I have been out of every loop I can possibly think of and I refuse to believe that this is a bad thing. I have focus, I have my love, I have a comfortable existence. Nine poems left to translate before this project is completed. Maybe I will contemplate it all in retrospect; maybe I won't think of it again after I post my very last. Who knows, who cares. I have no audience and that's fine.

Allegory
She is a beautiful woman with a rich neckline,
Who lets her hair drag in her wine,
The claws of love, the poisons of dives,
All slide and become dull on the granite of her skin,
She laughs at Death and taunts Debauchery,
These monsters whose hands, which always scratch and cut,
In their destructive games have yet respected
The rude majesty of this firm and upright body.
She walks like a goddess and reposes like a sultan;
She has the Muslim’s faith in pleasure,
And into her open arms, that her breasts fill,
She calls the race of humans with her eyes.
She believes, she knows, that virgin infertile
And yet necessary to the tread of the world,
That the beauty of body is a sublime gift
Which extracts pardon of all infamy.
She knows not of Hell or Purgatory
And when the hour comes to enter into the black Night
She will look at the face of Death
Like a newborn, —without hatred and without remorse.

Allégorie
C'est une femme belle et de riche encolure,
Qui laisse dans son vin traîner sa chevelure.
Les griffes de l'amour, les poisons du tripot,
Tout glisse et tout s'émousse au granit de sa peau.
Elle rit à la Mort et nargue la Débauche,
Ces monstres dont la main, qui toujours gratte et fauche,
Dans ses jeux destructeurs a pourtant respecté
De ce corps ferme et droit la rude majesté.
Elle marche en déesse et repose en sultane;
Elle a dans le plaisir la foi mahométane,
Et dans ses bras ouverts, que remplissent ses seins,
Elle appelle des yeux la race des humains.
Elle croit, elle sait, cette vierge inféconde
Et pourtant nécessaire à la marche du monde,
Que la beauté du corps est un sublime don
Qui de toute infamie arrache le pardon.
Elle ignore l'Enfer comme le Purgatoire,
Et quand l'heure viendra d'entrer dans la Nuit noire
Elle regardera la face de la Mort,
Ainsi qu'un nouveau-né, — sans haine et sans remords.
---
What?

La Fontaine de Sang

2009-04-30T07:16:00.001-07:00

I took my virgin voyage these week with two sailors and an open heart. We sat on the water in the sun and I managed to clear my mind completely for the first time in months and months. R. says the sensory overload converges into a beautiful, perfect oblivion. This is what I wanted. I love it, I love him and I will always love him. The past few days have been all pollen and sleep for him and in the meantime I make connections and bite my nails. I will be gone soon.

The Fountain of Blood
It sometimes seems to me that my blood pours in streams,
As a fountain in rhythmic sobs.
I hear it well which pours with a long murmur,
But I feel in vain to find the wound.

Through the city, like on a tournament field,
It goes, transforming the cobblestones into islets,
Quenching the thirst of every creature,
And everywhere coloring nature in red.

I have often asked specious wines
To allay for a day the terror that eats away at me;
Wine renders the eye clearer and the ear more perceptive!

I have searched for an oblivious sleep in love;
But love is for me only a mattress of needles
Made in order to give drink to these cruel girls!

La Fontaine de Sang
Il me semble parfois que mon sang coule à flots,
Ainsi qu'une fontaine aux rythmiques sanglots.
Je l'entends bien qui coule avec un long murmure,
Mais je me tâte en vain pour trouver la blessure.

À travers la cité, comme dans un champ clos,
Il s'en va, transformant les pavés en îlots,
Désaltérant la soif de chaque créature,
Et partout colorant en rouge la nature.

J'ai demandé souvent à des vins captieux
D'endormir pour un jour la terreur qui me mine;
Le vin rend l'oeil plus clair et l'oreille plus fine!

J'ai cherché dans l'amour un sommeil oublieux;
Mais l'amour n'est pour moi qu'un matelas d'aiguilles
Fait pour donner à boire à ces cruelles filles!
---
The world is caving in and I don't care.

Les Deux Bonnes Soeurs

2009-04-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

Ninety degrees in the shade, this April morning. The heat makes me remember everything I wanted to forget, but it still fills me with hope. The hormones make me tired and poisonous. I just want to get away and stay away and forget everything that ever happened here. But I cannot. Not while his things remind me that sometimes he is here. My skin is turning brown and the sun is getting higher and higher. This is exactly what I wanted.

The Two Good Sisters
Debauchery and Death are two lovable girls,
Lavish with kisses and riches of health,
Whose thighs, ever virgin and draped with rags
Under eternal labor have never given birth.

To the sinister poet, enemy of families,
Favorite of hell, poorly paid courtier,
Tombs and brothels manifest beneath their arbor
A bed which remorse has never frequented.

And the coffin and the alcove fertile in blasphemies
Offer us in their turn, like two good sisters,
Terrible pleasures and horrible sweets.

When do you wish to bury me, Debauchery with the filthy arms?
Oh Death, when will you come, her rival in attraction,
To graft your black cypress on her foul myrtle?

Les Deux Bonnes Soeurs
La Débauche et la Mort sont deux aimables filles,
Prodigues de baisers et riches de santé,
Dont le flanc toujours vierge et drapé de guenilles
Sous l'éternel labeur n'a jamais enfanté.

Au poète sinistre, ennemi des familles,
Favori de l'enfer, courtisan mal renté,
Tombeaux et lupanars montrent sous leurs charmilles
Un lit que le remords n'a jamais fréquenté.

Et la bière et l'alcôve en blasphèmes fécondes
Nous offrent tour à tour, comme deux bonnes soeurs,
De terribles plaisirs et d'affreuses douceurs.

Quand veux-tu m'enterrer, Débauche aux bras immondes?
Ô Mort, quand viendras-tu, sa rivale en attraits,
Sur ses myrtes infects enter tes noirs cyprès?
---
After you get what you want you don't want it anymore. Fuck.

Femmes damnées

2009-04-24T06:49:00.000-07:00

Feelings come and go and while I find myself still completely in love with him I still get these odd moments of sadness when I think to the future. The months have whipped by since we first touched and those remaining will be gone just as quickly. We will both be in the heat, but we will be apart and I don't know how I will handle this. I try to convince myself that it won't matter but at the same time I know that I am no good at fooling myself.

Damned Women
Like pensive cattle lying on the sand,
They turn their eyes toward the horizon of the seas,
And their feet seeking each other and their clasped hands
Feel sweet languor and bitter shudders.

Some, hearts besotted with long confidences,
In the depths of the groves where streams gossip,
Go spelling out the love of timid childhood
And carving the green wood of the young trees;

Others, like sisters, walk slow and solemnly
Through rocks full of apparitions,
Where saint Anthony has seen springing like lava
The naked, crimson breasts of his temptations;

There are those, in the lights of the crumbling resin,
Who in the silent hollow of the old pagan dens
Call you to the relief of their howling fevers,
Oh Bacchus, allay the ancient remorse!

And others, whose throat loves the scapular,
Who, concealing a whip under their long robes,
Mix, in the somber wood and the solitary nights,
The froth of pleasure with the tears of torment.

Oh virgins, demons, monsters, martyrs,
Great spirits, contemptuous of reality,
Seekers of infinity, devotees and satyrs,
Sometimes full of cries, sometimes full of tears,

You who my soul has chased into your hell,
Poor sisters, I love you as much as I pity you,
For your gloomy sorrows, your insatiable thirsts,
And the urns of love of which your great hearts are full.

Femmes damnées
Comme un bétail pensif sur le sable couchées,
Elles tournent leurs yeux vers l'horizon des mers,
Et leurs pieds se cherchent et leurs mains rapprochées
Ont de douces langueurs et des frissons amers.

Les unes, coeurs épris des longues confidences,
Dans le fond des bosquets où jasent les ruisseaux,
Vont épelant l'amour des craintives enfances
Et creusent le bois vert des jeunes arbrisseaux;

D'autres, comme des soeurs, marchent lentes et graves
À travers les rochers pleins d'apparitions,
Où saint Antoine a vu surgir comme des laves
Les seins nus et pourprés de ses tentations;

II en est, aux lueurs des résines croulantes,
Qui dans le creux muet des vieux antres païens
T'appellent au secours de leurs fièvres hurlantes,
Ô Bacchus, endormeur des remords anciens!

Et d'autres, dont la gorge aime les scapulaires,
Qui, recélant un fouet sous leurs longs vêtements,
Mêlent, dans le bois sombre et les nuits solitaires,
L'écume du plaisir aux larmes des tourments.

Ô vierges, ô démons, ô monstres, ô martyres,
De la réalité grands esprits contempteurs,
Chercheuses d'infini dévotes et satyres,
Tantôt pleines de cris, tantôt pleines de pleurs,

Vous que dans votre enfer mon âme a poursuivies,
Pauvres soeurs, je vous aime autant que je vous plains,
Pour vos mornes douleurs, vos soifs inassouvies,
Et les urnes d'amour dont vos grands coeurs sont pleins.
---
And I will forever love him, and the south, and my own life plein de possibilité. In our day it was not so, no. We have everything we ever wanted and more. Why these feelings?

Une Martyre

2009-04-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

The past few days we have been too busy and too tired to play nice. The rain falls and I find myself completely devoid of things to say. After a drink or five he gets playful and affectionate and tells me that he will be mine forever. I believe him, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. This project is almost completed: it has been nearly a year since I took my first uncertain step. Things are much better, for now anyway.

A Martyr
Drawing by an unknown Master

In the midst of the bottles, the metallic fabrics
And the voluptuous furnishings,
The marbles, the pictures, the perfumed gowns
That trail in sumptuous folds,

In a warm chamber where, as in a greenhouse,
The air is dangerous and deadly,
Where the dying bouquets in their glass coffins
Exhale their final sighs,

A headless cadaver pours, like a river,
Onto the sated pillow,
A red and living blood, which the cloth drinks
With the eagerness of a field.

Similar to the pale visions that are birthed by shadow
And that enchain the eyes,
The head, with the heap of its dark mane
And with its precious jewels,

On the night table, like a buttercup,
Reposes; and, empty of thoughts,
A vague look white like twilight
Escapes from disgusted eyes.

On the bed, the naked torso unscrupulously spreads
In the most complete abandon
The secret splendor and fatal beauty
Which nature made a gift for it;

A pinkish stocking, trimmed with gold, on the leg,
Remains like a memory;
The garter, like a secret eye that burns,
Hurls a glittering look.

The unusual aspect of this solitude
And of a great languorous portrait,
With eyes provocative as its posture,
Reveals a dark love,

A guilty joy and strange celebrations
Full of infernal kisses,
Which delight the multitude of evil angels
Swimming in the folds of the curtains;

And yet to see the elegant gauntness
Of the shoulder with the stricken curve,
The hip a little pointed and the waist snappy
As an angry reptile,

She is still very young! —Had her exasperated soul
And her senses bitten by ennui
Opened themselves to the spoiled pack
Of lost and wandering desires?

The vindictive man who you could not, living,
Despite so much love, satisfy,
Did he fulfill on your inert and obliging flesh
The immensity of his desire?

Respond, impure cadaver! And by your stiff tresses
Lifting you with a feverish arm,
Tell me, dreadful head, have you on your cold teeth
Glued the supreme farewell?

—Far from a taunting world, far from the dirty mob,
Far from curious magistrates,
Sleep in peace, sleep in peace, strange creature,
In your mysterious tomb;

Your husband roams the world, and your immortal form
Watches over him when he sleeps;
As much as you, he will doubtless be faithful,
And constant until death.

Une Martyre
Dessin d'un Maître inconnu

Au milieu des flacons, des étoffes lamées
Et des meubles voluptueux,
Des marbres, des tableaux, des robes parfumées
Qui traînent à plis somptueux,

Dans une chambre tiède où, comme en une serre,
L'air est dangereux et fatal,
Où des bouquets mourants dans leurs cercueils de verre
Exhalent leur soupir final,

Un cadavre sans tête épanche, comme un fleuve,
Sur l'oreiller désaltéré
Un sang rouge et vivant, dont la toile s'abreuve
Avec l'avidité d'un pré.

Semblable aux visions pâles qu'enfante l'ombre
Et qui nous enchaînent les yeux,
La tête, avec l'amas de sa crinière sombre
Et de ses bijoux précieux,

Sur la table de nuit, comme une renoncule,
Repose; et, vide de pensers,
Un regard vague et blanc comme le crépuscule
S'échappe des yeux révulsés.

Sur le lit, le tronc nu sans scrupules étale
Dans le plus complet abandon
La secrète splendeur et la beauté fatale
Dont la nature lui fit don;

Un bas rosâtre, orné de coins d'or, à la jambe,
Comme un souvenir est resté;
La jarretière, ainsi qu'un oeil secret qui flambe,
Darde un regard diamanté.

Le singulier aspect de cette solitude
Et d'un grand portrait langoureux,
Aux yeux provocateurs comme son attitude,
Révèle un amour ténébreux,

Une coupable joie et des fêtes étranges
Pleines de baisers infernaux,
Dont se réjouissait l'essaim des mauvais anges
Nageant dans les plis des rideaux;

Et cependant, à voir la maigreur élégante
De l'épaule au contour heurté,
La hanche un peu pointue et la taille fringante
Ainsi qu'un reptile irrité,

Elle est bien jeune encor! — Son âme exaspérée
Et ses sens par l'ennui mordus
S'étaient-ils entr'ouverts à la meute altérée
Des désirs errants et perdus?

L'homme vindicatif que tu n'as pu, vivante,
Malgré tant d'amour, assouvir,
Combla-t-il sur ta chair inerte et complaisante
L'immensité de son désir?

Réponds, cadavre impur! et par tes tresses roides
Te soulevant d'un bras fiévreux,
Dis-moi, tête effrayante, a-t-il sur tes dents froides
Collé les suprêmes adieux?

— Loin du monde railleur, loin de la foule impure,
Loin des magistrats curieux,
Dors en paix, dors en paix, étrange créature,
Dans ton tombeau mystérieux;

Ton époux court le monde, et ta forme immortelle
Veille près de lui quand il dort;
Autant que toi sans doute il te sera fidèle,
Et constant jusques à la mort.
---
I miss all of the things that I never had.

La Destruction

2009-04-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

It is at times like these when I hope and pray that there is something, anything wrong with me and my body so that the anger and hatred I feel sometimes is not a result of my own weakening resolve. The two month mark has come and gone and as I think about the south I get a little nervous and impatient with him. Boys will be boys even when they are technically men. Too much beer and estrogen, not enough calories in my blood. Warm weather will meet us on Saturday and we will take to the sea. Please, Apollo, let the anger fade. I miss my family, miss my sister, I will miss my love and my home. But for the love of all that is good and fucking holy please let this building implode during the night. Sycophancy and inanity bore into my skull like the sounds of hell, and the indicative noises make me shrivel inside. Fuck fuck fuck.

Destruction
The Demon shakes ceaselessly at my side;
He swims around me like an intangible air;
I swallow him and feel he who burns my lungs
And fills them with an eternal and shameful desire.

Sometimes he takes, knowing my great love of Art,
The form of the most seductive women,
And, under specious pretexts of a hypocrite,
Accustoms my lips to the despicable potions.

Thus he takes me, far from the gaze of God,
Panting and broken with fatigue,
Onto the plains of Ennui, deep and deserted,

And throws into my confusion-filled eyes
Soiled clothing, open wounds,
And the bloody devices of Destruction!

La Destruction
Sans cesse à mes côtés s'agite le Démon;
II nage autour de moi comme un air impalpable;
Je l'avale et le sens qui brûle mon poumon
Et l'emplit d'un désir éternel et coupable.

Parfois il prend, sachant mon grand amour de l'Art,
La forme de la plus séduisante des femmes,
Et, sous de spécieux prétextes de cafard,
Accoutume ma lèvre à des philtres infâmes.

II me conduit ainsi, loin du regard de Dieu,
Haletant et brisé de fatigue, au milieu
Des plaines de l'Ennui, profondes et désertes,

Et jette dans mes yeux pleins de confusion
Des vêtements souillés, des blessures ouvertes,
Et l'appareil sanglant de la Destruction!
---
Enfer is a symphony of creaking stairs, mumbles, and odd whispery little gasps. No! Wait. That's this god-forsaken place.

Épigraphe pour un livre condamné

2009-04-14T07:02:00.000-07:00

Residual respect for the risen Savior, Sunday morning. I was not impressed. All these months spent with the chilling imagery of the unfeeling Catholic church had left me with expectations, expectations that the local WASP-y Mass did not meet. But I bear them no ill will. Easter was cold and bright and sad. But seasons change and so do we. Late night visits and grocery store I-love-yous keep me alive and optimistic. Leaving him will be hard but doable. I prepare myself for it every day and then I forget. Moving on and on and on.

Baudelaire opens Fleurs du Mal with a lost poem about a condemned book. I cannot yet gauge the tone of this section, but it seems to be more in the spirit of Spleen than anything else I have seen thus far.

Epigraph for a Condemned Book
Peaceful and pastoral reader,
Sober and naïve good man,
Throw away this saturnine book,
Orgiastic and melancholy.

If you have not done your rhetoric
With Satan, the crafty dean,
Throw it away! You will understand nothing,
Or you will think me hysterical.

But if, without letting itself be charmed,
Your eye knows to plunge into the abyss,
Read me, learn to love me;

Curious soul who suffers
And looks for your paradise,
Pity me! …Or else I curse you!

Épigraphe pour un livre condamné
Lecteur paisible et bucolique,
Sobre et naïf homme de bien,
Jette ce livre saturnien,
Orgiaque et mélancolique.

Si tu n'as fait ta rhétorique
Chez Satan, le rusé doyen,
Jette! tu n'y comprendrais rien,
Ou tu me croirais hysthérique.

Mais si, sans se laisser charmer,
Ton oeil sait plonger dans les gouffres,
Lis-moi, pour apprendre à m'aimer;

Âme curieuse qui souffres
Et vas cherchant ton paradis,
Plains-moi!... Sinon, je te maudis!

---
Tuesday morning rains and grows cold like my body. Weird aversions and plastic buttons, I don't understand. I am the only one. I want to finish this project. But where is all my time?

Le Vin des amants

2009-04-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

Tired. Pissy. Last night was love. Today makes me remember why I used to hate everything that moved. Ah so it goes.

The Lovers' Wine
Today space is splendid!
Without bit, without spurs, without bridle,
Let us go astride the wine
To a divine and enchanted sky!

Like two angels tortured
By an unrelenting fever
In the crystal blue of morning
Let us follow the distant mirage!

Idly balanced on the wing
Of the intelligent whirlwind,
In a parallel delirium,

My sister, swimming side by side,
We will flee without rest or respite
Towards the paradise of my dreams!

Le Vin des amants
Aujourd'hui l'espace est splendide!
Sans mors, sans éperons, sans bride,
Partons à cheval sur le vin
Pour un ciel féerique et divin!

Comme deux anges que torture
Une implacable calenture
Dans le bleu cristal du matin
Suivons le mirage lointain!

Mollement balancés sur l'aile
Du tourbillon intelligent,
Dans un délire parallèle,

Ma soeur, côte à côte nageant,
Nous fuirons sans repos ni trêves
Vers le paradis de mes rêves!
---
Things are changing.

Le Vin du solitaire

2009-04-09T07:32:00.000-07:00

These things will never cease to surprise me and right now all I fear is his absence. My body is back to the way it was when I was loved and celebrated. We still wait for summer.

The Solitary's Wine
The peculiar look of a courtesan
Which slips towards us like a white ray
That the undulating moon throws on a trembling lake,
When she wants to bathe her nonchalant beauty;

The last bag of coins in the fingers of a gambler;
A libertine kiss from skinny Adeline;
The sounds of music irritating and affectionate,
Like to the distant cry of human sorrow,

All that is not worth, oh deep bottle,
The penetrating balms that your fertile belly
Guards for the faded heart of the pious poet;

You pour hope for him, youth and life,
—And pride, this treasure of all poverty,
Which renders us triumphant and like to Gods!

Le Vin du solitaire
Le regard singulier d'une femme galante
Qui se glisse vers nous comme le rayon blanc
Que la lune onduleuse envoie au lac tremblant,
Quand elle y veut baigner sa beauté nonchalante;

Le dernier sac d'écus dans les doigts d'un joueur;
Un baiser libertin de la maigre Adeline;
Les sons d'une musique énervante et câline,
Semblable au cri lointain de l'humaine douleur,

Tout cela ne vaut pas, ô bouteille profonde,
Les baumes pénétrants que ta panse féconde
Garde au coeur altéré du poète pieux;

Tu lui verses l'espoir, la jeunesse et la vie,
— Et l'orgueil, ce trésor de toute gueuserie,
Qui nous rend triomphants et semblables aux Dieux!
---
Preemptive sorrow. I feel it. Never mind.
Happy birthday, Mon. Baudelaire! Your poetry lives.

Le Vin de l'assassin

2009-04-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

Last night I lost touch with my body, despite the hands that cradled me. The world has turned back to ice and we slummed along, wrapped up in too many things. We saw our future home and he spoke of the great adventures we will surely have while I lingered outside and discussed my imminent future with some faceless being. Skin touches skin and I love him more and more each day. Bedtime came and I was interrupted by my past and horrible thoughts of ever having to be without him. He held me close and said:

"Don't think about that. As far as I am concerned I will be here forever."

I cried and cried. Not because I am unhappy but because I have never felt stranger and funnier in my entire existence. Gods.

The Murderer's Wine
My wife is dead, I am free!
Therefore I can drink my fill.
When I returned without any money,
Her cries tore me to fibers.

I am as happy as a king;
The air is clear, the sky admirable…
We had a similar summer
When I fell in love!

The horrible thirst that tears me
I would have needed, in order to satisfy it
As much wine as could be held
In her tomb; —there is not much to say:

I have thrown her into the bottom of a well,
And I have even pushed over her
All the stones of the wall.
—I will forget her if I can!

In the name of the oaths of tenderness,
From which nothing can untie us,
And in order to reconcile us
As in the beautiful time of our intoxication,

I begged her for a rendezvous,
Evening, on an obscure road.
She came — foolish creature!
We are all more or less mad!

She was pretty again,
Though quite fatigued! And me,
I loved her too much! That is why
I said to her: Get out of this life!

No one can understand me. Does any
Among these stupid drunkards
Dream in their morbid nights
Of making a shroud from wine?

That crook unassailable
As the iron machines
Never, neither in summer nor winter,
Has known true love,

With his black enchantments,
His infernal procession of alarms,
His bottles of poison, his tears,
His noises of chain and bones!

—Here I am free and alone!
I will be dead drunk this evening;
Then, without fear and without remorse,
I will lie down on the earth,

And I will sleep like a dog!
Chariot with heavy wheels
Loaded with rocks and mud,
The rabid wagon may well

Crush my shameful head
Or cut me down the middle.
I mock it like I do God,
Or the devil or the Holy Table!

Le Vin de l'assassin
Ma femme est morte, je suis libre!
Je puis donc boire tout mon soûl.
Lorsque je rentrais sans un sou,
Ses cris me déchiraient la fibre.

Autant qu'un roi je suis heureux;
L'air est pur, le ciel admirable...
Nous avions un été semblable
Lorsque j'en devins amoureux!

L'horrible soif qui me déchire
Aurait besoin pour s'assouvir
D'autant de vin qu'en peut tenir
Son tombeau; — ce n'est pas peu dire:

Je l'ai jetée au fond d'un puits,
Et j'ai même poussé sur elle
Tous les pavés de la margelle.
— Je l'oublierai si je le puis!

Au nom des serments de tendresse,
Dont rien ne peut nous délier,
Et pour nous réconcilier
Comme au beau temps de notre ivresse,

J'implorai d'elle un rendez-vous,
Le soir, sur une route obscure.
Elle y vint — folle créature!
Nous sommes tous plus ou moins fous!

Elle était encore jolie,
Quoique bien fatiguée! et moi,
Je l'aimais trop! voilà pourquoi
Je lui dis: Sors de cette vie!

Nul ne peut me comprendre. Un seul
Parmi ces ivrognes stupides
Songea-t-il dans ses nuits morbides
À faire du vin un linceul?

Cette crapule invulnérable
Comme les machines de fer
Jamais, ni l'été ni l'hiver,
N'a connu l'amour véritable,

Avec ses noirs enchantements,
Son cortège infernal d'alarmes,
Ses fioles de poison, ses larmes,
Ses bruits de chaîne et d'ossements!

— Me voilà libre et solitaire!
Je serai ce soir ivre mort;
Alors, sans peur et sans remords,
Je me coucherai sur la terre,

Et je dormirai comme un chien!
Le chariot aux lourdes roues
Chargé de pierres et de boues,
Le wagon enragé peut bien

Ecraser ma tête coupable
Ou me couper par le milieu,
Je m'en moque comme de Dieu,
Du Diable ou de la Sainte Table!
---

For once, it may be high time for me to spend some time alone with myself and the mess I have made.

Le Vin de chiffonniers

2009-04-06T07:06:00.000-07:00

This weekend, sick as dogs in a perpetually moving world. Nyquil cocktails and arrogance, we were and are so beautiful. The passion remains and we plan the months together. Soon the sun will shine and the wind will blow just enough to make us happy. But right now I feel dizzy and the congestion kills. God help and protect us. I can't see the world in front of me.

The Ragpicker's Wine
Often in the red light of a street lamp
Whose flame the wind beats and whose glass it torments,
In the heart of an old suburb, miry labyrinth
Where humanity swarms in stormy ferment,

One sees a ragpicker who comes, nodding his head,
Stumbling, knocking into walls like a poet,
And, without having concern for the stool-pigeons, his subjects,
Pours out all his heart in glorious plans.

He takes oaths, issues of sublime laws,
Strikes the malicious down, picks up the victims,
And under the firmament like a suspended canopy
He gets drunk from the splendor of his own virtue.

Yes, these people pestered by household heartbreak
Ground by work and tormented by age
Exhausted and bent under a pile of debris,
Sorry vomiting of enormous Paris,

Come back, perfumed with the odor of casks,
Followed by companions, whitened in battle,
Whose mustaches hang like old flags.
The banners, the flowers and the triumphant arches

Stand before them, solemn magic!
And in the dizzying and luminous debauchery
Of bugles, suns, shouts and drums,
They bring the glory to the people drunk with love!

It is thus that through frivolous Humanity
The wine rolls gold, dazzling Wealth;
By the throat of man he sings his exploits
And reigns by his gifts as the true king.

In order to drown the resentment and cradle the apathy
Of all these old damned who die in silence,
God, touched with remorse, had made sleep;
Man added Wine, sacred son of the Sun!

Le Vin de chiffonniers
Souvent à la clarté rouge d'un réverbère
Dont le vent bat la flamme et tourmente le verre,
Au coeur d'un vieux faubourg, labyrinthe fangeux
Où l'humanité grouille en ferments orageux,

On voit un chiffonnier qui vient, hochant la tête,
Butant, et se cognant aux murs comme un poète,
Et, sans prendre souci des mouchards, ses sujets,
Epanche tout son coeur en glorieux projets.

Il prête des serments, dicte des lois sublimes,
Terrasse les méchants, relève les victimes,
Et sous le firmament comme un dais suspendu
S'enivre des splendeurs de sa propre vertu.

Oui, ces gens harcelés de chagrins de ménage
Moulus par le travail et tourmentés par l'âge
Ereintés et pliant sous un tas de débris,
Vomissement confus de l'énorme Paris,

Reviennent, parfumés d'une odeur de futailles,
Suivis de compagnons, blanchis dans les batailles,
Dont la moustache pend comme les vieux drapeaux.
Les bannières, les fleurs et les arcs triomphaux

Se dressent devant eux, solennelle magie!
Et dans l'étourdissante et lumineuse orgie
Des clairons, du soleil, des cris et du tambour,
Ils apportent la gloire au peuple ivre d'amour!

C'est ainsi qu'à travers l'Humanité frivole
Le vin roule de l'or, éblouissant Pactole;
Par le gosier de l'homme il chante ses exploits
Et règne par ses dons ainsi que les vrais rois.

Pour noyer la rancoeur et bercer l'indolence
De tous ces vieux maudits qui meurent en silence,
Dieu, touché de remords, avait fait le sommeil;
L'Homme ajouta le Vin, fils sacré du Soleil!
---

Oddly enough, these unforseen events are not unwelcome.

L'Ame du Vin

2009-04-02T12:58:00.000-07:00

Goodbye Paris, it's been nice to know you. It's hard to gauge Le Vin this early on but it's shaping up to be much less melodramatic than Spleen. I wonder if it is because I don't dwell like I used to. This section only has five poems, and then on to Fleurs du Mal, Révolte, and La Mort. I am starting to wonder if I will finish this project in time, since I have slightly less than two months to work my way through. But I don't grudge anyone this, my free time is spent happily. The wine to me is less about sadness and escape and more about joy and warm kisses on a rainy street. We are madly in love, he says. You are different, he says. I am happy but sometimes I wonder what it will be like to leave him. For once it is I who must go and not the other way around. I try to think about the immediate and I refuse to sully my happiness with thoughts of details. All the big things are okay. That's what matters.

The Wine is introduced as an entity in this poem, and we will soon see how this living thing treats those who choose to consume it. I know what it means to me, that is all.

The Soul of Wine
One evening, the soul of wine sang in the bottles:
“Man, I send to you, oh dear disadvantaged,
From under my prison of glass and my ruby wax,
A song full of light and brotherhood!

I know how much is necessary, on the flaming hill,
Of sorrow, sweat and burning sun
To engender my life and to give me soul;
But I will not be ungrateful or wicked,

Because I feel tremendous joy when I fall
Into the throat of a man worn down by his work,
And his chest is a sweet tomb
Where I please myself much more than in my cold vault.

Do you hear the refrains of Sundays ring out
And the hope that warbles in my palpitating breast?
Elbows on the table and rolling up your sleeves,
You will glorify me and you will be content;

I will light the eyes of your enraptured wife;
To your son I will return his strength and his color
And I will be for this frail athlete of life
The oil that tones the muscles of the wrestlers.

I will fall into you, vegetable ambrosia,
Precious grain thrown by the eternal sower,
So that poetry will be born from our love
That will shoot up towards God like a rare flower!”

L'Ame du Vin
Un soir, l'âme du vin chantait dans les bouteilles:
«Homme, vers toi je pousse, ô cher déshérité,
Sous ma prison de verre et mes cires vermeilles,
Un chant plein de lumière et de fraternité!

Je sais combien il faut, sur la colline en flamme,
De peine, de sueur et de soleil cuisant
Pour engendrer ma vie et pour me donner l'âme;
Mais je ne serai point ingrat ni malfaisant,

Car j'éprouve une joie immense quand je tombe
Dans le gosier d'un homme usé par ses travaux,
Et sa chaude poitrine est une douce tombe
Où je me plais bien mieux que dans mes froids caveaux.

Entends-tu retentir les refrains des dimanches
Et l'espoir qui gazouille en mon sein palpitant?
Les coudes sur la table et retroussant tes manches,
Tu me glorifieras et tu seras content;

J'allumerai les yeux de ta femme ravie;
À ton fils je rendrai sa force et ses couleurs
Et serai pour ce frêle athlète de la vie
L'huile qui raffermit les muscles des lutteurs.

En toi je tomberai, végétale ambroisie,
Grain précieux jeté par l'éternel Semeur,
Pour que de notre amour naisse la poésie
Qui jaillira vers Dieu comme une rare fleur!»

---

My love and my peace, how long I have waited for you! I see you embodied now, yes. But the most important thing is that I know you are possible.

Le Crépuscule du matin

2009-03-25T07:09:00.000-07:00

Is it wise to judge my life in these discrete periods of time? June/December was Spleen, January/March was Paris. I could almost feel it in my body, the dramatic shift from hatred to peace. It would not be fair to credit one single thing with this, but to look at it much like a row of dominoes. Only the dominoes are good things that happen to me. Once the mistakes left and took the anger with them I forgot why everything mattered. His freckled shoulders are the empirical proof that life can start again and that settling is not something that has to be done. Not him, just the change he affected. We are both humans. That's why it works.

I now close the Parisian Scenes with a much more stable mind and much more peaceful heart. Oddly enough, Baudelaire chooses to make his last poem in this section about the morning. Where will he go? I don't know.

Morning Twilight
Reveille sang in the yards of the barracks,
And the morning wind blew over the lanterns.

It was the hour when the swarm of wicked dreams
Twist the brown youths on their pillows;
When, like a streaming eye that palpitates and quickens,
The lamp makes a red stain against the day;
When the soul, under the feet of a sour and heavy body,
Imitates the struggles of the lamp and the day.
Like a tearful face that the breezes dry,
The air is full of the shivering of escaping things,
And man is weary of writing and woman of loving.

Houses here and there began to smoke.
Women of pleasure, the pale eyelid,
Mouth open, sleeping their stupid sleep;
Beggar women, dragging their cold and meager breasts,
Blew on their embers and on their fingers.
It was the hour when among the cold and the poverty
Worsening the pains of the women in labor;
Like a sob cut off by a bloody foam
The rooster’s song in the distance tore the hazy air
A sea of fog bathed the buildings,
And the dying ones in the depths of the hospices
Heaved their last moans in erratic hiccoughs.
The debauchers re-entered, broken by their labors.

Dawn shivers in her green and rose gown
Moving slowly along the deserted Seine,
And somber Paris, rubbing his eyes,
Grasped his tools, hard-working old man.

Le Crépuscule du matin
La diane chantait dans les cours des casernes,
Et le vent du matin soufflait sur les lanternes.

C'était l'heure où l'essaim des rêves malfaisants
Tord sur leurs oreillers les bruns adolescents;
Où, comme un oeil sanglant qui palpite et qui bouge,
La lampe sur le jour fait une tache rouge;
Où l'âme, sous le poids du corps revêche et lourd,
Imite les combats de la lampe et du jour.
Comme un visage en pleurs que les brises essuient,
L'air est plein du frisson des choses qui s'enfuient,
Et l'homme est las d'écrire et la femme d'aimer.

Les maisons çà et là commençaient à fumer.
Les femmes de plaisir, la paupière livide,
Bouche ouverte, dormaient de leur sommeil stupide;
Les pauvresses, traînant leurs seins maigres et froids,
Soufflaient sur leurs tisons et soufflaient sur leurs doigts.
C'était l'heure où parmi le froid et la lésine
S'aggravent les douleurs des femmes en gésine;
Comme un sanglot coupé par un sang écumeux
Le chant du coq au loin déchirait l'air brumeux
Une mer de brouillards baignait les édifices,
Et les agonisants dans le fond des hospices
Poussaient leur dernier râle en hoquets inégaux.
Les débauchés rentraient, brisés par leurs travaux.

L'aurore grelottante en robe rose et verte
S'avançait lentement sur la Seine déserte,
Et le sombre Paris, en se frottant les yeux
Empoignait ses outils, vieillard laborieux.
---

I will greet you again in April, when the sun is out and the world has thawed.

Rêve parisien

2009-03-23T05:36:00.000-07:00

Holy Grail, my heart won't stop. Don't make me feel this way.

Parisian Dream

To Constantin Guys

I.
Of this terrible landscape,
Such as a mortal has never seen,
Again this morning the image
Vague and distant, ravishes me.

Sleep is full of miracles!
By an unusual whim
I have banished from these spectacles
The irregular vegetable,

And, painter proud of my genius,
I savored in my picture
The intoxicating monotony
Of metal, marble and water.

Babel of stairways and archways,
This was an infinite palace
Full of fountains and waterfalls
Falling into dull or burnished gold;

And heavy waterfalls,
Like curtains of crystal
Hung, dazzling,
From great metal walls.

Not trees, but colonnades
Surrounded the sleeping ponds
Where giant naiads,
Like women, mirrored themselves.

Sheets of water poured forth, blue,
Between red and green banks,
For millions of leagues,
Towards the borders of the universe.

There were incredible stones
And magic streams, there were
Immense glaciers dazzled
By all that they reflected!

Heedless and silent,
Ganges, in the firmament,
Pouring out the treasure of their urns
Into the diamond abyss.

Architect of my fairies,
I made, by my will,
Under a tunnel of gems
A tamed ocean to pass through;

And everything, even the color black,
Seems polished, clear, iridescent,
The liquid enshrined her glory
In the crystallized ray.

No star moreover, no relics
Of the sun, even at the bottom of the sky,
To illuminate these prodigies,
That shone with a personal fire!

And over these moving marvels
Glided (terrible novelty!
All for the eye, nothing for the ears!)
An eternal silence.

II.
In re-opening my flame-filled eyes
I have seen the horror of my hovel,
And felt, re-entering into my soul,
The point of cursed anxiety;

The pendulum with the gloomy accents
Brutally rang midday,
And the sky poured darkness
Over the sad drowsy world.

Rêve parisien

À Constantin Guys

I.
De ce terrible paysage,
Tel que jamais mortel n'en vit,
Ce matin encore l'image,
Vague et lointaine, me ravit.

Le sommeil est plein de miracles!
Par un caprice singulier
J'avais banni de ces spectacles
Le végétal irrégulier,

Et, peintre fier de mon génie,
Je savourais dans mon tableau
L'enivrante monotonie
Du métal, du marbre et de l'eau.

Babel d'escaliers et d'arcades,
C'était un palais infini
Plein de bassins et de cascades
Tombant dans l'or mat ou bruni;

Et des cataractes pesantes,
Comme des rideaux de cristal
Se suspendaient, éblouissantes,
À des murailles de métal.

Non d'arbres, mais de colonnades
Les étangs dormants s'entouraient
Où de gigantesques naïades,
Comme des femmes, se miraient.

Des nappes d'eau s'épanchaient, bleues,
Entre des quais roses et verts,
Pendant des millions de lieues,
Vers les confins de l'univers:

C'étaient des pierres inouïes
Et des flots magiques, c'étaient
D'immenses glaces éblouies
Par tout ce qu'elles reflétaient!

Insouciants et taciturnes,
Des Ganges, dans le firmament,
Versaient le trésor de leurs urnes
Dans des gouffres de diamant.

Architecte de mes féeries,
Je faisais, à ma volonté,
Sous un tunnel de pierreries
Passer un océan dompté;

Et tout, même la couleur noire,
Semblait fourbi, clair, irisé;
Le liquide enchâssait sa gloire
Dans le rayon cristallisé.

Nul astre d'ailleurs, nuls vestiges
De soleil, même au bas du ciel,
Pour illuminer ces prodiges,
Qui brillaient d'un feu personnel!

Et sur ces mouvantes merveilles
Planait (terrible nouveauté!
Tout pour l'oeil, rien pour les oreilles!)
Un silence d'éternité.

II.
En rouvrant mes yeux pleins de flamme
J'ai vu l'horreur de mon taudis,
Et senti, rentrant dans mon âme,
La pointe des soucis maudits;

La pendule aux accents funèbres
Sonnait brutalement midi,
Et le ciel versait des ténèbres
Sur le triste monde engourdi.
---
I don't want it. I don't get it. What about my ideal form is so goddamn inadequate all of a sudden? Waste your time, your time. Sleep, smile. Alexandria.

Brumes et pluies

2009-03-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

Sweet slide under sheets in the grey of morning. Yesterday it rained. Where is my warm atmosphere? Patience, patience. I have no reason to be blue. Sleepiness leads to weird sadness in the dark hours. But he always manages to chase it away. I know how it will end and that's why I am not afraid.

Mist and Rain
Oh ends of autumn, winters, springtimes soaked with mud,
Drowsing seasons! I love you and praise you
For enveloping thus my heart and my mind
In a vaporous shroud and a muddled grave.

In that great field where the cold south wind plays,
Where the weathervane grows hoarse in the long nights,
Better than in times of warm revival my soul
Will open widely its raven wings.

Nothing is sweeter to a heart full of gloomy things,
And on which the cold has long descended,
Oh pale seasons, queens of our climates,

Than the permanent look of your pale darknesses,
—If this is not, on a moonless evening, two by two,
Of pain sleeping on a risky bed.

Brumes et pluies
Ô fins d'automne, hivers, printemps trempés de boue,
Endormeuses saisons! je vous aime et vous loue
D'envelopper ainsi mon coeur et mon cerveau
D'un linceul vaporeux et d'un vague tombeau.

Dans cette grande plaine où l'autan froid se joue,
Où par les longues nuits la girouette s'enroue,
Mon âme mieux qu'au temps du tiède renouveau
Ouvrira largement ses ailes de corbeau.

Rien n'est plus doux au coeur plein de choses funèbres,
Et sur qui dès longtemps descendent les frimas,
Ô blafardes saisons, reines de nos climats,

Que l'aspect permanent de vos pâles ténèbres,
— Si ce n'est, par un soir sans lune, deux à deux,
D'endormir la douleur sur un lit hasardeux.

---

I want to crawl back into my bed.
My equinox, my friend.

Je n'ai pas oublié/La servante au grand coeur

2009-03-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

Oh my sweet, somber beautiful one. The days of throat-choking passion have passed and are replaced by big plans and doors closing. My life here is almost over. The jury is out and I am in. Too much imbibing and a game of hide-and-seek; I fell, I stood. I will bid them goodbye: the endearing, eccentric, asinine, wonderful people who I cherish and adore above all others. Where will you go? When I came here I found my home and now that I must leave it I get a little sad inside. R. and I talked about this the other night as the rain drowned our dark little porch. It will be over soon enough and I will not make the same mistakes as before. Christ, I am growing up. Who would have ever thought that?

I have not forgotten, near the city
I have not forgotten, near the city,
Our white house, small but calm,
Her plaster Pomona and her old Venus
Hiding their naked limbs in a meager grove,
And the sun, the evening, streaming and superb,
That, behind the window where her shower broke
Seemed, great open eye in the curious heaven,
To contemplate our long and silent dinners,
Spreading widely her beautiful candle-lights
Over the frugal tablecloth and the twill curtains.

Je n'ai pas oublié, voisine de la ville
Je n'ai pas oublié, voisine de la ville,
Notre blanche maison, petite mais tranquille;
Sa Pomone de plâtre et sa vieille Vénus
Dans un bosquet chétif cachant leurs membres nus,
Et le soleil, le soir, ruisselant et superbe,
Qui, derrière la vitre où se brisait sa gerbe
Semblait, grand oeil ouvert dans le ciel curieux,
Contempler nos dîners longs et silencieux,
Répandant largement ses beaux reflets de cierge
Sur la nappe frugale et les rideaux de serge.

The greathearted servant of whom you were jealous
The greathearted servant of whom you were jealous,
And who sleeps her sleep under humble grass,
We must however bring her some flowers,
The dead, the poor dead, have great pains,
And when October breathes, pruner of old trees,
His melancholy wind around their marbles,
Certainly, they mist find the living most ungrateful,
Sleeping, as they do, warmly in their sheets,
While, devoured by black dreams,
Without bedfellow, without good conversation,
Frozen old skeletons worked by the worm,
Feel the winter snows dripping
And the century flowing, without friends or family
Replacing the tatters that hang on their graves.
When the log whistles and sings, if the evening
Calms, I saw her sitting in the armchair,
If, on a cold blue night in December,
I found her crouching in a corner of my chamber,
Solemn, and coming from the depths of her eternal bed
To protect the grown child with her motherly eye,
What could I answer to that pious soul,
Seeing tears fall from her sunken eyelids?

La servante au grand coeur dont vous étiez jalouse
La servante au grand coeur dont vous étiez jalouse,
Et qui dort son sommeil sous une humble pelouse,
Nous devrions pourtant lui porter quelques fleurs.
Les morts, les pauvres morts, ont de grandes douleurs,
Et quand Octobre souffle, émondeur des vieux arbres,
Son vent mélancolique à l'entour de leurs marbres,
Certe, ils doivent trouver les vivants bien ingrats,
À dormir, comme ils font, chaudement dans leurs draps,
Tandis que, dévorés de noires songeries,
Sans compagnon de lit, sans bonnes causeries,
Vieux squelettes gelés travaillés par le ver,
Ils sentent s'égoutter les neiges de l'hiver
Et le siècle couler, sans qu'amis ni famille
Remplacent les lambeaux qui pendent à leur grille.
Lorsque la bûche siffle et chante, si le soir
Calme, dans le fauteuil je la voyais s'asseoir,
Si, par une nuit bleue et froide de décembre,
Je la trouvais tapie en un coin de ma chambre,
Grave, et venant du fond de son lit éternel
Couver l'enfant grandi de son oeil maternel,
Que pourrais-je répondre à cette âme pieuse,
Voyant tomber des pleurs de sa paupière creuse?
---
And all of this I cannot and will not ever forget.

L'Amour du mensonge

2009-03-13T05:44:00.000-07:00

Paraskevidekatriaphobia? Maybe not today. One month deep and perhaps a little wiser and more committed. The survey is out, my fingers are crossed. My mind is in a hundred different places, but not where it should be. I can see the passions bloom, but domesticity is a deadly force. Sushi over sex. Television before tenderness. But what's the alternative? Melodrama out the ears? No. I will keep things as they should be. I don't mind. He's not a trophy, just a vessel of warmth. Eh.

As the South comes closer I think to you, and how this could have been different. I am happy where I am.

The Love of Lies
When I see you pass, oh my lazy beloved,
To the song of the instruments that the ceiling shatters
Suspending your slow and harmonious walk,
And displaying the ennui of your penetrating gaze;

When I contemplate, in the gaslight that colors it,
Your pale brow, embellished by morbid appeal,
Where the evening torches ignite a dawn,
And your eyes appealing like those of a portrait,

I say to myself: How she is beautiful! And oddly fresh!
Massive memory, heavy and royal tower,
Crowns her, and her heart, bruised like a peach,
Is ripe, like her body, for the skillful lover.

Are you the autumn fruit with the sovereign flavor?
Are you a gloomy vase waiting for a few tears,
Perfume that makes one dream of distant oasises,
Soft pillow, or basket of flowers?

I know that there are eyes, of deepest melancholy,
That contain no precious secrets;
Beautiful boxes without jewels, medallions without relics,
Emptier, deeper than yourself, oh Heaven!

But does it not suffice that you are the semblance,
That delights a heart that runs from the truth?
What importance your stupidity or your indifference?
Mask or pretence, hail! I adore your beauty.

L'Amour du mensonge
Quand je te vois passer, ô ma chère indolente,
Au chant des instruments qui se brise au plafond
Suspendant ton allure harmonieuse et lente,
Et promenant l'ennui de ton regard profond;

Quand je contemple, aux feux du gaz qui le colore,
Ton front pâle, embelli par un morbide attrait,
Où les torches du soir allument une aurore,
Et tes yeux attirants comme ceux d'un portrait,

Je me dis: Qu'elle est belle! et bizarrement fraîche!
Le souvenir massif, royale et lourde tour,
La couronne, et son coeur, meurtri comme une pêche,
Est mûr, comme son corps, pour le savant amour.

Es-tu le fruit d'automne aux saveurs souveraines?
Es-tu vase funèbre attendant quelques pleurs,
Parfum qui fait rêver aux oasis lointaines,
Oreiller caressant, ou corbeille de fleurs?

Je sais qu'il est des yeux, des plus mélancoliques,
Qui ne recèlent point de secrets précieux;
Beaux écrins sans joyaux, médaillons sans reliques,
Plus vides, plus profonds que vous-mêmes, ô Cieux!

Mais ne suffit-il pas que tu sois l'apparence,
Pour réjouir un coeur qui fuit la vérité?
Qu'importe ta bêtise ou ton indifférence?
Masque ou décor, salut! J'adore ta beauté.
---

You are a symbol of my youth and that can never pass away.

Danse macabre

2009-03-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

A week ago today the world was coated in ice and the wind kept us confined to our cozy little bed. The week itself was full of indifference but the weekend shone. The sun hid but the air was warm and soft and fucking beautiful. Saturday: we ran in the cool of the evening and kissed under the indifferent sky, our spandex serving a different function. The bay was awash with new beginnings and good news. Grapefruit, running shoes, and his perfect freckled shoulders and eyes that match mine. What else do I need? Sunday: perfect laziness and stealth, languid Asia pushing her way back into our subconscious and the beer-flavored water seeping into our bloodstreams. The air smelled like everything I have ever loved and as the summer fast approaches he holds my hand and tells me that the warmth months will be the most beautiful. I believe him, I believe everyone and I want to shout with glee. The last several months have not been in vain. I am happy, I am happy.

Baudelaire, your imagery makes me melt, but yet we grow apart. It's almost time for this labor to end. The next one to Ernest Christophe, who you will also see here.

Danse macabre

To Ernest Christophe

Proud, as much as a living one, of her noble stature
With her large bouquet, her handkerchief and her gloves
She has the nonchalance and the flippancy
Of a skinny coquette with eccentric airs.

Did one ever see a slimmer waist at a ball?
Her excessive dress, in its royal fullness,
Collapses abundantly over a dry foot pinched
By a tasseled slipped, pretty as a flower.

The hive that plays along the edge of the clavicle,
Like a lustful stream that rubs the rocks,
Modesty defends from ridiculous laughs
The gloomy charms that she keeps hidden.

Her deep eyes are made from emptiness and darkness,
And her skull, artfully coiffed with flowers,
Oscillates idly over her frail vertebra.
Oh charms of nothingness crazily clothed.

No one will call you a caricature,
Who does not understand, drunken lovers of flesh,
The nameless elegance of the human frame.
You respond, great skeleton, to my most beloved taste!

Have you come to disturb, with your powerful grimace,
The celebration of Life? Or does some old desire,
Hastening again your living carcass,
Push you, credulous, into the Sabbath of Pleasure?

In the song of the violins, in the flames of the candles,
Do you hope to chase your jeering nightmare away
And have you come to ask the torrent of orgies
To cool the hell ignited in your heart?

Inexhaustible well of foolishness and faults!
Eternal alembic of ancient grief!
Toward the curved trellis of your ribs
I see, wandering again, the insatiable serpent.

To speak truly, I fear that your vanity
Will not find a price worthy of its efforts
Who, among these mortal hearts, understands mockery?
The charms of horror only inebriate the strong!

The abyss of your eyes, full of horrible thoughts,
Exhales the dizziness, and the careful dancers
Cannot contemplate without bitter nausea
The eternal smile of your thirty-two teeth.

Yet, who has not gripped a skeleton in his arms,
And who is not nourished by the things of the tomb?
What importance the perfume, the outfit or the dress?
He who turns up his nose shows that he believes himself beautiful.

Noseless Bayadere, irresistible gouge,
Say then to these dancers who were offended:
“Proud sweethearts, despite the art of powders and rouge
You all smell of death! Oh musky skeletons,

Withered Antinour, smooth-cheeked dandy,
Varnished corpses, leafless lovelaces,
The universal swing of the dance of death
Leads you to places which you know not!

From the cold quays of the Seine to the burning banks of the Ganges,
The mortal herd jumps and swoons, without seeing
The trumpet of the Angel through a hole in the ceiling
Gaping ominously like a black musket.

In all climates, under all suns, Death admires you
In your contortions, ridiculous Humanity
And often, like you, perfuming herself with myrrh,
Mixes her irony with your insanity!”

Danse macabre

À Ernest Christophe

Fière, autant qu'un vivant, de sa noble stature
Avec son gros bouquet, son mouchoir et ses gants
Elle a la nonchalance et la désinvolture
D'une coquette maigre aux airs extravagants.

Vit-on jamais au bal une taille plus mince?
Sa robe exagérée, en sa royale ampleur,
S'écroule abondamment sur un pied sec que pince
Un soulier pomponné, joli comme une fleur.

La ruche qui se joue au bord des clavicules,
Comme un ruisseau lascif qui se frotte au rocher,
Défend pudiquement des lazzi ridicules
Les funèbres appas qu'elle tient à cacher.

Ses yeux profonds sont faits de vide et de ténèbres,
Et son crâne, de fleurs artistement coiffé,
Oscille mollement sur ses frêles vertèbres.
Ô charme d'un néant follement attifé.

Aucuns t'appelleront une caricature,
Qui ne comprennent pas, amants ivres de chair,
L'élégance sans nom de l'humaine armature.
Tu réponds, grand squelette, à mon goût le plus cher!

Viens-tu troubler, avec ta puissante grimace,
La fête de la Vie? ou quelque vieux désir,
Eperonnant encor ta vivante carcasse,
Te pousse-t-il, crédule, au sabbat du Plaisir?

Au chant des violons, aux flammes des bougies,
Espères-tu chasser ton cauchemar moqueur,
Et viens-tu demander au torrent des orgies
De rafraîchir l'enfer allumé dans ton coeur?

Inépuisable puits de sottise et de fautes!
De l'antique douleur éternel alambic!
À travers le treillis recourbé de tes côtes
Je vois, errant encor, l'insatiable aspic.

Pour dire vrai, je crains que ta coquetterie
Ne trouve pas un prix digne de ses efforts
Qui, de ces coeurs mortels, entend la raillerie?
Les charmes de l'horreur n'enivrent que les forts!

Le gouffre de tes yeux, plein d'horribles pensées,
Exhale le vertige, et les danseurs prudents
Ne contempleront pas sans d'amères nausées
Le sourire éternel de tes trente-deux dents.

Pourtant, qui n'a serré dans ses bras un squelette,
Et qui ne s'est nourri des choses du tombeau?
Qu'importe le parfum, l'habit ou la toilette?
Qui fait le dégoûté montre qu'il se croit beau.

Bayadère sans nez, irrésistible gouge,
Dis donc à ces danseurs qui font les offusqués:
«Fiers mignons, malgré l'art des poudres et du rouge
Vous sentez tous la mort! Ô squelettes musqués,

Antinoüs flétris, dandys à face glabre,
Cadavres vernissés, lovelaces chenus,
Le branle universel de la danse macabre
Vous entraîne en des lieux qui ne sont pas connus!

Des quais froids de la Seine aux bords brûlants du Gange,
Le troupeau mortel saute et se pâme, sans voir
Dans un trou du plafond la trompette de l'Ange
Sinistrement béante ainsi qu'un tromblon noir.

En tout climat, sous tout soleil, la Mort t'admire
En tes contorsions, risible Humanité
Et souvent, comme toi, se parfumant de myrrhe,
Mêle son ironie à ton insanité!»
---

No, you are not everything to me, but I will enjoy your existence so long as it coincides with mine.

Le Jeu

2009-03-05T08:15:00.000-08:00

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!
---

I can feel the warmth, my one and only. Though perhaps not for long. I can be so sickeningly selfish. Yes.

Le Crépuscule du soir

2009-02-27T07:35:00.000-08:00

Nothing to say, my beautiful ones. Tomorrow my fate is theoretically sealed. Oh what to think, what to do? I anticipate better things than December past. The world floats on and so do I.

He sleeps in the solitude of my bed and I adopt the duties that were prescribed to me at birth.

Evening Twilight
Here is the charming evening, friend of the criminal;
It comes like an accomplice, in the steps of a wolf; the sky
Slowly closes like a great alcove,
And the impatient man changes into a tawny beast.

Oh evening, agreeable evening, desired by those
Whose arms, without lying, can say: Today
We have labored! —It is the evening that eases
The spirits devoured by a savage sorrow,
The stubborn scholar whose brow grows heavy,
And the bent workman who returns to his bed.
Meanwhile the unhealthy demons in the atmosphere
Wake up heavily, like businessmen,
And pound the shutters and the awnings while flying.
Toward the lights worried by the wind
Prostitution lights up in the streets;
Like an anthill she opens her exits;
Everywhere she clears a secret path,
Like the enemy who tries a surprise attack;
She moves in the breast of the sludgy city
Like a worm that steals from Man that which he eats.
One hears the Kitchens whistle this and that,
The theaters bark, the orchestras purr;
The guest tables, which gambling makes delightful,
Are filled with whores and swindlers, their accomplices,
And the thieves, who have neither respite nor mercy,
They go to begin their labor, they too,
And gently force doors and safes
In order to live a few days and clothe their mistresses.

Reflect, my soul, on this grave moment,
And close your ear to this roaring.
It is the hour when the sorrows of the sick ones grow bitter!
Somber Night takes them by the throat; they complete
Their destiny and go toward the common abyss;
The hospital fills with their sighs. —More than one
Will come no longer to look for the scented soup,
In the corner of the fire, the evening, next to a beloved soul.

Still most have never known
The sweetness of home and have never lived!

Le Crépuscule du soir
Voici le soir charmant, ami du criminel;
II vient comme un complice, à pas de loup; le ciel
Se ferme lentement comme une grande alcôve,
Et l'homme impatient se change en bête fauve.

Ô soir, aimable soir, désiré par celui
Dont les bras, sans mentir, peuvent dire: Aujourd'hui
Nous avons travaillé! — C'est le soir qui soulage
Les esprits que dévore une douleur sauvage,
Le savant obstiné dont le front s'alourdit,
Et l'ouvrier courbé qui regagne son lit.
Cependant des démons malsains dans l'atmosphère
S'éveillent lourdement, comme des gens d'affaire,
Et cognent en volant les volets et l'auvent.
À travers les lueurs que tourmente le vent
La Prostitution s'allume dans les rues;
Comme une fourmilière elle ouvre ses issues;
Partout elle se fraye un occulte chemin,
Ainsi que l'ennemi qui tente un coup de main;
Elle remue au sein de la cité de fange
Comme un ver qui dérobe à l'Homme ce qu'il mange.
On entend çà et là les cuisines siffler,
Les théâtres glapir, les orchestres ronfler;
Les tables d'hôte, dont le jeu fait les délices,
S'emplissent de catins et d'escrocs, leurs complices,
Et les voleurs, qui n'ont ni trêve ni merci,
Vont bientôt commencer leur travail, eux aussi,
Et forcer doucement les portes et les caisses
Pour vivre quelques jours et vêtir leurs maîtresses.

Recueille-toi, mon âme, en ce grave moment,
Et ferme ton oreille à ce rugissement.
C'est l'heure où les douleurs des malades s'aigrissent!
La sombre Nuit les prend à la gorge; ils finissent
Leur destinée et vont vers le gouffre commun;
L'hôpital se remplit de leurs soupirs. — Plus d'un
Ne viendra plus chercher la soupe parfumée,
Au coin du feu, le soir, auprès d'une âme aimée.

Encore la plupart n'ont-ils jamais connu
La douceur du foyer et n'ont jamais vécu!
---

Where do we go?

Le Squelette laboureur

2009-02-23T12:37:00.000-08:00

And things are infinitely better, if only on the surface. Oh precious one, frolic.

The Skeleton Laborer
I.
In the anatomical plates
That crawl over these powdery banks
Where many cadaverous books
Sleep like an ancient mummy,

Drawings in which the solemnity
And the knowledge of an old artist,
Although the subject is sad,
Has communicated Beauty,

One sees that which makes complete
These mysterious horrors,
Digging like the laborers,
The Skinned and the Skeletons.

II.
From this ground that you scour,
Gloomy and accepting peasants,
From all the effort of your vertebra,
Or from your flayed muscles,

Tell, what strange harvests,
Convicts snatched from a mass grave,
Do you draw, and by what farmer
Have you filled the barn?

Do you want (from a destiny too harsh
Bright and dreadful emblem!)
To show that in the same grave
The promised sleep is not certain;

That Nothingness is traitor towards us;
That all, even Death, lies to us,
And that continuously
Alas! Is it perhaps necessary for us

In some unknown country
To flay the sour earth
And move a heavy spade
Under our bare and bloody foot?

Le Squelette laboureur
I.
Dans les planches d'anatomie
Qui traînent sur ces quais poudreux
Où maint livre cadavéreux
Dort comme une antique momie,

Dessins auxquels la gravité
Et le savoir d'un vieil artiste,
Bien que le sujet en soit triste,
Ont communiqué la Beauté,

On voit, ce qui rend plus complètes
Ces mystérieuses horreurs,
Bêchant comme des laboureurs,
Des Ecorchés et des Squelettes.

II.
De ce terrain que vous fouillez,
Manants résignés et funèbres
De tout l'effort de vos vertèbres,
Ou de vos muscles dépouillés,

Dites, quelle moisson étrange,
Forçats arrachés au charnier,
Tirez-vous, et de quel fermier
Avez-vous à remplir la grange?

Voulez-vous (d'un destin trop dur
Epouvantable et clair emblème!)
Montrer que dans la fosse même
Le sommeil promis n'est pas sûr;

Qu'envers nous le Néant est traître;
Que tout, même la Mort, nous ment,
Et que sempiternellement
Hélas! il nous faudra peut-être

Dans quelque pays inconnu
Ecorcher la terre revêche
Et pousser une lourde bêche
Sous notre pied sanglant et nu?
---

He is the peace I need right now.

À une passante

2009-02-19T06:47:00.000-08:00

My old brother-in-arms kept the photos from the summer. It was there: the heat, the hate, and the unequaled beauty of it all. I got a little knot in my stomach from it until I realized the documented instances were discrete and there was no way I could convince myself that the entire summer had been such a sweet and sweaty experience. Did I hate most of it? At the time, yes. Now I want it back. Or maybe just the sunshine. Paris, change, so we can sleep under the stars and take each other next to the water. Change. Tell me the air will turn beautiful. Fuck it.

We sleep next to each other and wake in the gray of morning. He said we are strings, and not a chord. That is fine. I just want spring to be here.

We all fall in love with strangers, yes. So does Baudelaire.

To a Passerby
The deafening street howls around me.
Long, thin, in great mourning, majestic grief,
A woman passed, with a sumptuous hand
Raising, swinging the border and the hem;

Agile and noble, with her leg like a statue.
Me, I drank, contorted in excess,
In her eye, pallid heaven where the hurricane formed,
The sweetness that captivates and the pleasure that kills.

A flash of lightning…then night! —Elusive beauty
Whose look has made me suddenly return to life,
Shall I no longer see you in eternity?

Elsewhere, quite far from here! Too late! Perhaps never!
But I know not where you go, you know not where I go,
Oh you who I would have loved, oh you who knew it!

À une passante
La rue assourdissante autour de moi hurlait.
Longue, mince, en grand deuil, douleur majestueuse,
Une femme passa, d'une main fastueuse
Soulevant, balançant le feston et l'ourlet;

Agile et noble, avec sa jambe de statue.
Moi, je buvais, crispé comme un extravagant,
Dans son oeil, ciel livide où germe l'ouragan,
La douceur qui fascine et le plaisir qui tue.

Un éclair... puis la nuit! — Fugitive beauté
Dont le regard m'a fait soudainement renaître,
Ne te verrai-je plus que dans l'éternité?

Ailleurs, bien loin d'ici! trop tard! jamais peut-être!
Car j'ignore où tu fuis, tu ne sais où je vais,
Ô toi que j'eusse aimée, ô toi qui le savais!
---

My soul freezes in this shit.

Les Aveugles

2009-02-16T07:16:00.000-08:00

Oh, b-day and v-day, sex, sex, sex. Mild panic, but the happiest moments I have felt in months. What is wrong with me? Nothing anymore, Penelope. Sugar rush and love, love, love.

The Blind
Contemplate them, my soul; they are very frightening!
Similar to mannequins; vaguely ridiculous;
Terrible, unusual like sleepwalkers;
Hurling their dark globes one knows not where.

Their eyes, from which the divine spark has departed,
Like they were looking into the distance, remained raised
To the sky; one never sees them toward the cobblestones
Dreamily tilt their weighty heads.

So they cross the limitless night,
This brother of eternal silence. Oh city!
Hanging around us you sing, laugh and bellow,

In love with pleasure to the point of atrocity,
See! I crawl as well! But, stupider than they,
I say: What do they look for in Heaven, all these blind ones?

Les Aveugles
Contemple-les, mon âme; ils sont vraiment affreux!
Pareils aux mannequins; vaguement ridicules;
Terribles, singuliers comme les somnambules;
Dardant on ne sait où leurs globes ténébreux.

Leurs yeux, d'où la divine étincelle est partie,
Comme s'ils regardaient au loin, restent levés
Au ciel; on ne les voit jamais vers les pavés
Pencher rêveusement leur tête appesantie.

Ils traversent ainsi le noir illimité,
Ce frère du silence éternel. Ô cité!
Pendant qu'autour de nous tu chantes, ris et beugles,

Eprise du plaisir jusqu'à l'atrocité,
Vois! je me traîne aussi! mais, plus qu'eux hébété,
Je dis: Que cherchent-ils au Ciel, tous ces aveugles?
---

I want to shout with joy and caution. He has no poetry, no music and that is the best thing of all.

Les Petites Vieilles

2009-02-12T11:02:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to desperately to get back to things, but lethargy kills. Lots of sitting and thinking and wishing. This morning, lots of forms and repetitions. I want to be something but first I must conquer the paperworkdeath. Eh, so it goes. No matter. This next poem made me the kind of ill that I cherish above all else.

The last post saw a poem about beggars in Paris, and this one seems to accompany it. But unlike Baudelaire's tribute to the old men, his song to the old women proves much more sympathetic. There is no fear, just a bit of sadness and perhaps even empathy. Maybe it's safer to him because he knows deep in his heart that he is more like the first group than the second. He seems more concerned with how these women got this way than what they are like currently. Also, the second to last stanza had the same effect on me that the last six lines of Paysage had. I don't cry. I haven't cried since that warm Saturday and that was all a joke. I feel better, better. Apollo has come out to play and we worship the sun god for the mercy he shows us all. Warm weather, stay and make me glad that I breathe.

The Little Old Ladies

To Victor Hugo

I.
In the sinuous folds of the old cities,
Where all, even horror, turns into enchantment,
I watch, obeying my unlucky humors,
For unusual beings, decrepit and charming.

These broken monsters were women long ago,
Eponine or Lais! Shattered monsters, hunchbacked
Or twisted, love them! They still have souls.
Under holey petticoats and under cold cloth

They crawl, flagellated by the sinful winds,
Trembling in the rolling clatter of the omnibus,
And squeezing on their flank, like a relic,
A small bag embroidered with flowers or rebuses,

They trot, just the same as marionettes,
Dragging themselves, like the injured animals do,
Or dance, without wanting to dance, poor bells
Pulled by a pitiless Demon! Entirely cracked

That they are, they have eyes piercing like gimlets,
Glistening like the holes where water sleeps in the night;
They are the divine eyes of the little girl
Who is surprised and who laughs at all that shines.

—Have you observed how many old women’s coffins
Are often as small as those of children?
Clever Death puts in these same caskets
A symbol of strange and captivating taste,

And when I glimpse a feeble phantom
Crossing the swarming scene of Paris,
It always seems to me that this fragile being
Goes all softly toward a new cradle;

Unless, mulling over geometry,
I seek, in the appearance of these dissentious members,
How many times the worker varies
The form of the box where one puts all the bodies.

—These eyes are wells made from a million tears,
Crucibles that a cooled metal spangled…
These mysterious eyes have invincible charms
For he who austere Misfortune has nursed!

II.
Vestale enamored with dead Frascati;
Priestess of Thalia, alas! Whose prompter
Buried knows her name, evaporated celebrity
That Tivoli once shaded in his flower,

Everything intoxicates me; but among these fragile beings
There are some who, making honey from sorrow,
Have said to Devotion who lent them their wings:
Powerful hippogriff, guide me to the sky!

One, drilled to misfortune by her country,
Another, overburdened with sorrows by her husband,
Another, a Madonna pierced by her child,
All would have been able to make a river with their tears!

III.
Ah! I have followed these little old women!
One, among others, at the hour where the sun falls
Bloodies the sky with rose-red wounds,
Thoughtful, sitting remote on the bank,

In order to hear one of these concerts, rich with brass,
With which the soldiers sometimes flood our gardens,
And which, in these golden evenings where one feel alive again,
Pours heroism into the heart of the cities.

That one, still upright, proud and feeling like the Law,
Greedily smelled this bright and martial song;
Her eye sometimes opened like the eye of an old eagle;
Her marble brow had the air made for laurel!

IV
Thus you walk along, stoic and without complaint,
Through the chaos of the living cities,
Mothers with bleeding hearts, courtesans or saints,
Whose names were once supported by everyone.

You who were grace or who were glory,
No one recognizes you! An uncivil drunkard
Insults you in passing with ridiculous love;
On your heels a vile, cowardly child gambols.

Ashamed of existing, shriveled shadows,
Fearful, back bent, you walk along the walls;
And no one greets you, strange destined ones!
Splinters of humanity ripe for eternity!

But me, me who watches you tenderly from afar,
The eye anxious, fixed on your uncertain steps,
All as if I were your father, oh marvel!
I taste hidden pleasures unbeknownst to you:

I see your untrained passions bloom;
Somber or luminous, I live your missing days;
My multiplied heart enjoys all of your vices!
My soul shines with all of your virtues!

Ruins! My family! Oh congeneric minds!
I bid you a solemn goodbye every night!
Where will you be tomorrow, octogenarian Eves,
On whom weighs the heavy claw of God?

Les Petites Vieilles

À Victor Hugo

I
Dans les plis sinueux des vieilles capitales,
Où tout, même l'horreur, tourne aux enchantements,
Je guette, obéissant à mes humeurs fatales,
Des êtres singuliers, décrépits et charmants.

Ces monstres disloqués furent jadis des femmes,
Eponine ou Laïs! Monstres brisés, bossus
Ou tordus, aimons-les! ce sont encor des âmes.
Sous des jupons troués et sous de froids tissus

Ils rampent, flagellés par les bises iniques,
Frémissant au fracas roulant des omnibus,
Et serrant sur leur flanc, ainsi que des reliques,
Un petit sac brodé de fleurs ou de rébus;

Ils trottent, tout pareils à des marionnettes;
Se traînent, comme font les animaux blessés,
Ou dansent, sans vouloir danser, pauvres sonnettes
Où se pend un Démon sans pitié! Tout cassés

Qu'ils sont, ils ont des yeux perçants comme une vrille,
Luisants comme ces trous où l'eau dort dans la nuit;
Ils ont les yeux divins de la petite fille
Qui s'étonne et qui rit à tout ce qui reluit.

— Avez-vous observé que maints cercueils de vieilles
Sont presque aussi petits que celui d'un enfant?
La Mort savante met dans ces bières pareilles
Un symbole d'un goût bizarre et captivant,

Et lorsque j'entrevois un fantôme débile
Traversant de Paris le fourmillant tableau,
Il me semble toujours que cet être fragile
S'en va tout doucement vers un nouveau berceau;

À moins que, méditant sur la géométrie,
Je ne cherche, à l'aspect de ces membres discords,
Combien de fois il faut que l'ouvrier varie
La forme de la boîte où l'on met tous ces corps.

— Ces yeux sont des puits faits d'un million de larmes,
Des creusets qu'un métal refroidi pailleta...
Ces yeux mystérieux ont d'invincibles charmes
Pour celui que l'austère Infortune allaita!

II
De Frascati défunt Vestale enamourée;
Prêtresse de Thalie, hélas! dont le souffleur
Enterré sait le nom; célèbre évaporée
Que Tivoli jadis ombragea dans sa fleur,

Toutes m'enivrent; mais parmi ces êtres frêles
Il en est qui, faisant de la douleur un miel,
Ont dit au Dévouement qui leur prêtait ses ailes:
Hippogriffe puissant, mène-moi jusqu'au ciel!

L'une, par sa patrie au malheur exercée,
L'autre, que son époux surchargea de douleurs,
L'autre, par son enfant Madone transpercée,
Toutes auraient pu faire un fleuve avec leurs pleurs!

III
Ah! que j'en ai suivi de ces petites vieilles!
Une, entre autres, à l'heure où le soleil tombant
Ensanglante le ciel de blessures vermeilles,
Pensive, s'asseyait à l'écart sur un banc,

Pour entendre un de ces concerts, riches de cuivre,
Dont les soldats parfois inondent nos jardins,
Et qui, dans ces soirs d'or où l'on se sent revivre,
Versent quelque héroïsme au coeur des citadins.

Celle-là, droite encor, fière et sentant la règle,
Humait avidement ce chant vif et guerrier;
Son oeil parfois s'ouvrait comme l'oeil d'un vieil aigle;
Son front de marbre avait l'air fait pour le laurier!

IV
Telles vous cheminez, stoïques et sans plaintes,
À travers le chaos des vivantes cités,
Mères au coeur saignant, courtisanes ou saintes,
Dont autrefois les noms par tous étaient cités.

Vous qui fûtes la grâce ou qui fûtes la gloires,
Nul ne vous reconnaît! un ivrogne incivil
Vous insulte en passant d'un amour dérisoire;
Sur vos talons gambade un enfant lâche et vil.

Honteuses d'exister, ombres ratatinées,
Peureuses, le dos bas, vous côtoyez les murs;
Et nul ne vous salue, étranges destinées!
Débris d'humanité pour l'éternité mûrs!

Mais moi, moi qui de loin tendrement vous surveille,
L'oeil inquiet, fixé sur vos pas incertains,
Tout comme si j'étais votre père, ô merveille!
Je goûte à votre insu des plaisirs clandestins:

Je vois s'épanouir vos passions novices;
Sombres ou lumineux, je vis vos jours perdus;
Mon coeur multiplié jouit de tous vos vices!
Mon âme resplendit de toutes vos vertus!

Ruines! ma famille! ô cerveaux congénères!
Je vous fais chaque soir un solennel adieu!
Où serez-vous demain, Eves octogénaires,
Sur qui pèse la griffe effroyable de Dieu?
---

You are ice, iron and a hundred other things. I wish it could always be this way.

Les Sept vieillards

2009-02-09T07:45:00.000-08:00

So forgive the three weeks of silence, loves. I have had more important things on my mind. Too many games and cigarettes and multiple choices that leave me stranded and sleepy. But it's all over now. R. and I were powering through and kicking it, scoring triumphantly and fist-bumping all the way to 556. After we were done we slept and wandered around thinking about what we would now do. I have projects, purpose. And even beauty, did we see that coming? I think not.

No more falling in love with anyone or anything. Or so I thought. But Apollo blessed us all this weekend and told the sun to shine. Seniors sleep and rejoice and suck the life-water from the Nalgenes by their beds in an effort to chase the aches away. Congratulations, you guys. You worked hard, you deserve this happiness. Soon you must go into the universe, and I with you. Almost there, what am I doing? Last year was so very, very long ago.

More Parisian fields. No more LSATdeath. For good this time.

The Seven Old Men

To Victor Hugo

Swarming city, city full of dreams,
Where the ghost clings to the passerby in broad daylight!
Everywhere mysteries flow like sap
Into the narrow canals of the mighty giant.

One morning, while in the sad street
The houses, whose height the mist extends,
Simulated the two banks of a heightened river,
And which, décor similar to the soul of an actor,

A filthy yellow fog flooded all the space,
I was following, stiffening my nerves like a hero
And discussing with my already weary soul,
The suburb shaken by the heavy carts.

Suddenly, an old man whose yellow rags
Imitated the color of a rainy sky,
And whose appearance would have made alms rain,
Without the malice that shone in his eyes,

Appeared to me. One would have said his pupils were dipped
In venom; his look sharpened the cold,
And his long bristly beard, stiff as a blade,
Protruded, parallel to that of Judas.

He was not bent, but broken, his spine
Making a perfect right angle with his leg,
So much that his cane, completing his expression,
Gave him the shape and the clumsy step

Of a crippled quadruped or a three-legged Jew.
He went entangling himself in the snow and the mud,
Like he himself crushed the dead under his old shoes,
Hostile to the universe rather than indifferent.

His equal followed him: beard, eye, back, staff, rags,
No trait distinguished them, they came from the same hell,
This twin centarian, and these bizarre ghosts
Walked with the same steps toward an unknown aim.

Of what despicable plot was I then the object,
Or what mean fortune thus humiliated me?
For I counted seven times, one minute to the next,
This sinister old man who multiplied himself!

Let the one who laughs at my concern
And who is not seized by a brotherly shudder
Consider well that despite so much degeneration
These seven horrid monsters had the appearance of the eternal!

Could I have, without dying, surveyed the eighth,
Inexorable double, ironic and fatal
Filthy Phoenix, son and father of himself?
—But I turned my back on the hellish procession.

Exasperated like a drunkard who sees double,
I reentered, I closed my door, terrified,
Sick and dejected, spirit feverish and troubled,
Wounded by the mystery and the absurdity!

Vainly my reason wished to take the helm;
The moving tempest diverted its efforts,
And my soul danced, danced, old barge
Without masts, on a monstrous and boundless sea!

Les Sept vieillards

À Victor Hugo

Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves,
Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant!
Les mystères partout coulent comme des sèves
Dans les canaux étroits du colosse puissant.

Un matin, cependant que dans la triste rue
Les maisons, dont la brume allongeait la hauteur,
Simulaient les deux quais d'une rivière accrue,
Et que, décor semblable à l'âme de l'acteur,

Un brouillard sale et jaune inondait tout l'espace,
Je suivais, roidissant mes nerfs comme un héros
Et discutant avec mon âme déjà lasse,
Le faubourg secoué par les lourds tombereaux.

Tout à coup, un vieillard dont les guenilles jaunes
Imitaient la couleur de ce ciel pluvieux,
Et dont l'aspect aurait fait pleuvoir les aumônes,
Sans la méchanceté qui luisait dans ses yeux,

M'apparut. On eût dit sa prunelle trempée
Dans le fiel; son regard aiguisait les frimas,
Et sa barbe à longs poils, roide comme une épée,
Se projetait, pareille à celle de Judas.

II n'était pas voûté, mais cassé, son échine
Faisant avec sa jambe un parfait angle droit,
Si bien que son bâton, parachevant sa mine,
Lui donnait la tournure et le pas maladroit

D'un quadrupède infirme ou d'un juif à trois pattes.
Dans la neige et la boue il allait s'empêtrant,
Comme s'il écrasait des morts sous ses savates,
Hostile à l'univers plutôt qu'indifférent.

Son pareil le suivait: barbe, oeil, dos, bâton, loques,
Nul trait ne distinguait, du même enfer venu,
Ce jumeau centenaire, et ces spectres baroques
Marchaient du même pas vers un but inconnu.

À quel complot infâme étais-je donc en butte,
Ou quel méchant hasard ainsi m'humiliait?
Car je comptai sept fois, de minute en minute,
Ce sinistre vieillard qui se multipliait!

Que celui-là qui rit de mon inquiétude
Et qui n'est pas saisi d'un frisson fraternel
Songe bien que malgré tant de décrépitude
Ces sept monstres hideux avaient l'air éternel!

Aurais-je, sans mourir, contemplé le huitième,
Sosie inexorable, ironique et fatal
Dégoûtant Phénix, fils et père de lui-même?
— Mais je tournai le dos au cortège infernal.

Exaspéré comme un ivrogne qui voit double,
Je rentrai, je fermai ma porte, épouvanté,
Malade et morfondu, l'esprit fiévreux et trouble,
Blessé par le mystère et par l'absurdité!

Vainement ma raison voulait prendre la barre;
La tempête en jouant déroutait ses efforts,
Et mon âme dansait, dansait, vieille gabarre
Sans mâts, sur une mer monstrueuse et sans bords!
---

Stealing time and fire, pray for grace, blood and pretty much everything else.

Le Cygne

2009-01-20T10:58:00.000-08:00

So we have a new president now. I am very happy...excited is not the word. I have been powering along, mostly ennui-free which is great. With M. and B. gone I have no reason to go to those places and do those awkward, damaging things. Life is quieter now, but better. New year, new life, right?

This is one of Baudelaire's more famous poems. I wish it were pertinent to the situation at hand, but I guess I should be glad that it isn't. It's about old Paris and the mess that everyone has made of it. Perhaps this could be a reflection on our own country? Eh, we shall see.

The Swan
To Victor Hugo

I.
Andromache, I think of you! This little river,
Sad and scanty mirror where once shone
The immense majesty of your widow’s grief,
This lying Simoeis that grew by your tears,

Has suddenly impregnated my fertile memory,
As I crossed the new Carousel.
The old Paris is no longer (the form of a city
Changes more quickly, alas! Than the heart of a mortal);

I see only in spirit this entire camp of huts,
This pile of rough tents and boles,
The grasses, the large blocks turned green by the water of puddles,
And, shining in the windows, the muddled bric-a-brac.

There once was a menagerie here;
I saw here, one morning, at the hour where under the clouds
Cold and clear Work awakens, where the road
Pushes a somber hurricane into the silent air,

A swan that has escaped from his cage,
And, with his webbed feet chafing the dry pavement,
Drags his white plumage over the rough ground.
Close to a waterless stream the beast opened his beak

Nervously bathed his wings in the powder,
And said, heart full of his beautiful native lake”
“Water, when then will you rain? When will you thunder, lightning?”
I see that poor wretch, strange and fatal myth,

Toward the sky sometimes, like Ovid’s man,
Toward the sky ironic and cruelly blue,
Stretching his hungry head on his convulsive neck
As if he addressed reproaches to God!

II.
Paris changes! But nothing in my melancholy
Has moved! New palaces, scaffolding, blocks,
Old suburbs, all become allegory to me
And my dear memories are heavier than the rocks.

So in front of this Louvre an image oppresses me:
I think of my great swan, with his crazed movements,
Like exiles, ridiculous and sublime
And gnawed by a relentless desire! And then of you,

Andromache, fallen from the arms of a great husband,
Vile livestock, under the hand of superb Pyrrhus,
Bent in ecstasy behind an empty tomb
Widow of Hector, wife of Helenus!

I think of the negress, thinner and consumptive
Trudging through the mud, and searching, with haggard eye,
For the absent coconuts of magnificent Africa
Behind the immense wall of fog;

To whoever has lost what he has never found
Never! To the one who drinks of tears
And suckles Grief like a kind she-wolf!
To the scrawny orphans drying out like flowers!

Thus in the forest where my spirit is exiled
An old Memory rings at full horn blast!
I think of sailors forgotten on an island,
Of captives, of the vanquished! …of many others more!

Le Cygne
À Victor Hugo

I.
Andromaque, je pense à vous! Ce petit fleuve,
Pauvre et triste miroir où jadis resplendit
L'immense majesté de vos douleurs de veuve,
Ce Simoïs menteur qui par vos pleurs grandit,

A fécondé soudain ma mémoire fertile,
Comme je traversais le nouveau Carrousel.
Le vieux Paris n'est plus (la forme d'une ville
Change plus vite, hélas! que le coeur d'un mortel);

Je ne vois qu'en esprit tout ce camp de baraques,
Ces tas de chapiteaux ébauchés et de fûts,
Les herbes, les gros blocs verdis par l'eau des flaques,
Et, brillant aux carreaux, le bric-à-brac confus.

Là s'étalait jadis une ménagerie;
Là je vis, un matin, à l'heure où sous les cieux
Froids et clairs le Travail s'éveille, où la voirie
Pousse un sombre ouragan dans l'air silencieux,

Un cygne qui s'était évadé de sa cage,
Et, de ses pieds palmés frottant le pavé sec,
Sur le sol raboteux traînait son blanc plumage.
Près d'un ruisseau sans eau la bête ouvrant le bec

Baignait nerveusement ses ailes dans la poudre,
Et disait, le coeur plein de son beau lac natal:
«Eau, quand donc pleuvras-tu? quand tonneras-tu, foudre?»
Je vois ce malheureux, mythe étrange et fatal,

Vers le ciel quelquefois, comme l'homme d'Ovide,
Vers le ciel ironique et cruellement bleu,
Sur son cou convulsif tendant sa tête avide
Comme s'il adressait des reproches à Dieu!

II.
Paris change! mais rien dans ma mélancolie
N'a bougé! palais neufs, échafaudages, blocs,
Vieux faubourgs, tout pour moi devient allégorie
Et mes chers souvenirs sont plus lourds que des rocs.

Aussi devant ce Louvre une image m'opprime:
Je pense à mon grand cygne, avec ses gestes fous,
Comme les exilés, ridicule et sublime
Et rongé d'un désir sans trêve! et puis à vous,

Andromaque, des bras d'un grand époux tombée,
Vil bétail, sous la main du superbe Pyrrhus,
Auprès d'un tombeau vide en extase courbée
Veuve d'Hector, hélas! et femme d'Hélénus!

Je pense à la négresse, amaigrie et phtisique
Piétinant dans la boue, et cherchant, l'oeil hagard,
Les cocotiers absents de la superbe Afrique
Derrière la muraille immense du brouillard;

À quiconque a perdu ce qui ne se retrouve
Jamais, jamais! à ceux qui s'abreuvent de pleurs
Et tètent la Douleur comme une bonne louve!
Aux maigres orphelins séchant comme des fleurs!

Ainsi dans la forêt où mon esprit s'exile
Un vieux Souvenir sonne à plein souffle du cor!
Je pense aux matelots oubliés dans une île,
Aux captifs, aux vaincus!... à bien d'autres encor!
---

Victor Hugo, one of my most favorite authors. Summertime I would slink into beerhouses in the middle of the night looking for supplies and catch myself playing a modern-day Esmeralda. Who would have thought me so vain?

À une Mendiante rousse

2009-01-16T13:03:00.000-08:00

So I did the math and I realized that I only have about 40 poems left until this whole thing is through. I guess this means I will accomplish my goal, unless of course some kind of tragic situation befalls me. I am a little sad; I have grown used to these poems and this blog. I will also have to find another project to keep me from having to realize that I have to do something with my life. So it goes.

This poem is horribly translated. Uh oh.

To a Red-haired Beggar
White girl with red hair,
Whose dress by its holes
Lets show the poverty
And the beauty,

For me, sickly poet,
Your morbid young body,
Full of red patches
Has its softness.

You bear more gallantly
Than a romance queen
Her velvet boots
Your heavy clogs.

In the place of too-short tatters,
Let a magnificent court dress
Train in long and loud folds
Over your heels;

In the place of holey stockings
Let the eyes of the sly
Over your leg a dagger of gold
Still glisten;

Let poorly fastened knots
Unveil for our sins
Your two beautiful breasts, radiant
Like eyes;

In order to undress you let
Your arms require begging
And drive away with mischievous blows
The puckish fingers,

Pearls from the most beautiful waters,
Sonnets by master Belleau
Put into irons by your romantics
Offered ceaselessly,

Troop of rhymers
Dedicating their first fruits to you
And contemplating your shoes
Under the stairs,

Many a boy besotted by fate,
Many a lord and many a Ronsard
For amusement would spy on
Your chilly hole!

You would count in your bed
More kisses than lilies
And you would arrange under your laws
More than one Valois!

—However, you go begging
Some old scraps lying
In the threshold of some Vefour
Of the crossroads;

You go ogling at
The cheap jewels
Which I cannot, oh! Pardon!
Make a gift for you.

Go then, without any other ornament,
Perfume, pearls, diamonds,
Than your meager nudity,
Oh my beauty!

À une Mendiante rousse
Blanche fille aux cheveux roux,
Dont la robe par ses trous
Laisse voir la pauvreté
Et la beauté,

Pour moi, poète chétif,
Ton jeune corps maladif,
Plein de taches de rousseur,
À sa douceur.

Tu portes plus galamment
Qu'une reine de roman
Ses cothurnes de velours
Tes sabots lourds.

Au lieu d'un haillon trop court,
Qu'un superbe habit de cour
Traîne à plis bruyants et longs
Sur tes talons;

En place de bas troués
Que pour les yeux des roués
Sur ta jambe un poignard d'or
Reluise encor;

Que des noeuds mal attachés
Dévoilent pour nos péchés
Tes deux beaux seins, radieux
Comme des yeux;

Que pour te déshabiller
Tes bras se fassent prier
Et chassent à coups mutins
Les doigts lutins,

Perles de la plus belle eau,
Sonnets de maître Belleau
Par tes galants mis aux fers
Sans cesse offerts,

Valetaille de rimeurs
Te dédiant leurs primeurs
Et contemplant ton soulier
Sous l'escalier,

Maint page épris du hasard,
Maint seigneur et maint Ronsard
Epieraient pour le déduit
Ton frais réduit!

Tu compterais dans tes lits
Plus de baisers que de lis
Et rangerais sous tes lois
Plus d'un Valois!

— Cependant tu vas gueusant
Quelque vieux débris gisant
Au seuil de quelque Véfour
De carrefour;

Tu vas lorgnant en dessous
Des bijoux de vingt-neuf sous
Dont je ne puis, oh! Pardon!
Te faire don.

Va donc, sans autre ornement,
Parfum, perles, diamant,
Que ta maigre nudité,
Ô ma beauté!
---

And today was the day that I realized that I love absolutely no one. It's okay, I think.

Lola de Valence/La Lune offensée

2009-01-15T08:06:00.000-08:00

For some odd reason I have never really realized the disparity between my work environment and what I do while I am in said environment. I spend the day with my thoughts and this beautiful poetry. But the world around me is mundane and trite to the point of desperation. This is no judgment on those around me: if it makes them happy then they should continue onward. But as for me, my arms are broken having embraced the clouds. Or something. Sometimes I wonder if I truly am the way I perceive myself and not just as trite as the rest of them. Eh.

Now that Spleen is done I am trying to retroactively analyze it and figure out if there is some common theme or story going on. I spent the whole time I was translating just sitting around, drinking and moping. Now I must get my ass in gear. Still dreaming of logic games and analytic reasoning puzzles. Fuck it.

Baudelaire wrote another poem on a painting. OMG for realz. It is a tribute to Édouard Manet's "Lola of Valencia"

Lola of Valencia
Among so many beauties that one can see everywhere,
I survey well, friends, that desire hesitates;
But one sees sparkling in Lola of Valencia
The unexpected charm of a black and rosy jewel.

Lola de Valence
Entre tant de beautés que partout on peut voir,
Je contemple bien, amis, que le désir balance;
Mais on voit scintiller en Lola de Valence
Le charme inattendu d'un bijou rose et noir.

The Offended Moon
Oh Moon that our fathers discreetly adored,
From the height of the blue countries where, radiant seraglio,
The stars follow you in smart attire,
My old Cynthia, lamp of our sanctums,

Do you see the lovers on their prosperous pallets,
Showing the cold enamel of their mouths while sleeping?
The poet bumping his head on his work?
Or the vipers coupling on the dry grass?

Under your yellow domino, and your hidden foot,
Do you go, as before, from evening to morning,
Kissing the quaint graces of Endymion?

—“I see your mother, child of this impoverished century,
Who tilts a heavy heap of years toward her mirror,
And artfully plasters the breast that nourished you!”

La Lune offensée
Ô Lune qu'adoraient discrétement nos pères,
Du haut des pays bleus où, radieux sérail,
Les astres vont te suivre en pimpant attirail,
Ma vieille Cynthia, lampe de nos repaires,

Vois-tu les amoureux sur leurs grabats prospères,
De leur bouche en dormant montrer le frais émail?
Le poète buter du front sur son travail?
Ou sous les gazons secs s'accoupler les vipères?

Sous ton domino jaune, et d'un pied clandestin,
Vas-tu, comme jadis, du soir jusqu'au matin,
Baiser d'Endymion les grâces surannées?

— «Je vois ta mère, enfant de ce siècle appauvri,
Qui vers son miroir penche un lourd amas d'années,
Et plâtre artistement le sein qui t'a nourri!»
---

So please, the mediocrity of your existence is not such that you must abandon all hope. Unfortunately, the climate tells us otherwise. I want out, out. Soon enough, I guess. No more rage, if nothing else. Just a healthy amount of concern.

Le Soleil

2009-01-09T06:05:00.000-08:00

Any and all free time that I can possibly foresee for the next month will be eaten up by a dashing young gentleman and his dashing young pile of LSAT books. I see this as a blessing. The less time for idleness, the less time for melodrama. It is just a very strange schedule that I have not quite gotten used to yet. The masses return on Sunday and I hope they won't interfere with the zen I have somehow managed to feel for the last week or so. Last night I sat knitting and listening to audio versions of some of Baudelaire's poems. Oddly enough, it was more relaxing than listening to music. Go figure.

This next poem is one we spent a decent amount of time on in class. It was also one of the few for which we had to turn in a written translation. However, it never really struck me much. Ah well, here it is.

The Sun
Along the old suburb, where hang in the shacks
The shutters, shelter of the secret lusts,
When the cruel sun strikes with increasing strokes
Over the city and the fields, over the roofs and the crops,
I go alone to practice my fanciful fencing,
Sniffing in all the corners the chances of rhyme,
Stumbling over words as over cobblestones
Colliding sometimes with verses dreamed long ago.

This nutritive father, enemy of chlorosis,
Awakens in the fields the verses like roses;
He makes worries vanish toward the sky,
And fills the minds and the hives with honey.
It is he who rejuvenates the crutch-bearers
And makes them sweet and joyful like young girls,
And commands the harvest to grow and to ripen
In the immortal heart that always wants to blossom!

When, like a poet, he descends into the cities,
He ennobles the fate of the more loathsome things,
And introduces himself as a king, without noise and without servants,
Into all the hospitals and into all the palaces.

Le Soleil
Le long du vieux faubourg, où pendent aux masures
Les persiennes, abri des sécrètes luxures,
Quand le soleil cruel frappe à traits redoublés
Sur la ville et les champs, sur les toits et les blés,
Je vais m'exercer seul à ma fantasque escrime,
Flairant dans tous les coins les hasards de la rime,
Trébuchant sur les mots comme sur les pavés
Heurtant parfois des vers depuis longtemps rêvés.

Ce père nourricier, ennemi des chloroses,
Eveille dans les champs les vers comme les roses;
II fait s'évaporer les soucis vers le ciel,
Et remplit les cerveaux et les ruches le miel.
C'est lui qui rajeunit les porteurs de béquilles
Et les rend gais et doux comme des jeunes filles,
Et commande aux moissons de croître et de mûrir
Dans le coeur immortel qui toujours veut fleurir!

Quand, ainsi qu'un poète, il descend dans les villes,
II ennoblit le sort des choses les plus viles,
Et s'introduit en roi, sans bruit et sans valets,
Dans tous les hôpitaux et dans tous les palais.

Paysage

2009-01-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

I seem to be turning over a new leaf, since my soul no longer seems crushed by this permeating ennui. I don't think about it as much. It's been about a week since the new year began and things seems to be going well, although they are marching along quite unremarkably. I am trying to focus on the practical things instead of wasting my time with stupid boys. It seems to be okay so far. Who knows, really.

Now that Spleen is over, the imagery has shifted. Baudelaire spent the first hundred or so poems focusing on the melodrama that seems to have been eating away at his soul but now he seems to have decided to look outward into the world around him and contemplate himself as a poet with respect to the streets of Paris and even the countryside. I had a brief conversation with T. about this on New Year's Eve: he is writing his senior paper on the significance of the environment on the poet in Tableaux Parisiens (please correct me if I am wrong) and I must confess that that the idea had never really struck me before. I am a very internal person and I do not give the world around me enough credit. But it's something to think about it and for the time being. I guess we did not read enough from this section during class to understand the overall significance of whatever was going on. But here's to second chances!

Paysage is one that we actually did translate in class and it had the misfortune of being beaten and left for dead by the other members. When I had read it on my own the last six lines had almost made me cry. Then M. had to ruin it by making fun of the way I read it. My kingdom for a warm atmosphere: it's freezing here but I feel better, better.

Landscape
I wish, in order to chastely compose my bucolics,
To lie beside the sky, like the astrologers,
And, near the bell towers to listen while dreaming
To their solemn hymns, carried by the wind.
Chin in hands, high in my attic,
I will see the workshop that sings and that chatters;
The chimneys, the bell towers, these masts of the city,
And the great skies that make one dream of eternity.

It is sweet, through the haze, to see appear
The star in the blue, the lamp in the window
The rivers of coal climb up into the firmament
And the moon pours her pale enchantment.
I will see the springtimes, summers, autumns;
And when the winter will come with monotonous snow,
I will close all doors and shutters
To build my fairy palaces in the night.
Then I will dream of bluish horizons,
Of gardens, water fountains weeping into the alabasters,
Of kisses, of birds singing evening and morning,
And all that which is more childish in the Idyll.
The Riot, storming vainly at my windowpane,
Will not raise my forehead from my desk;
For I will be plunged into that pleasure
Of evoking the springtime with my willpower,
Of pulling a sun from my heart, and of making
From my burning thoughts a warm atmosphere.

Paysage
Je veux, pour composer chastement mes églogues,
Coucher auprès du ciel, comme les astrologues,
Et, voisin des clochers écouter en rêvant
Leurs hymnes solennels emportés par le vent.
Les deux mains au menton, du haut de ma mansarde,
Je verrai l'atelier qui chante et qui bavarde;
Les tuyaux, les clochers, ces mâts de la cité,
Et les grands ciels qui font rêver d'éternité.

II est doux, à travers les brumes, de voir naître
L'étoile dans l'azur, la lampe à la fenêtre
Les fleuves de charbon monter au firmament
Et la lune verser son pâle enchantement.
Je verrai les printemps, les étés, les automnes;
Et quand viendra l'hiver aux neiges monotones,
Je fermerai partout portières et volets
Pour bâtir dans la nuit mes féeriques palais.
Alors je rêverai des horizons bleuâtres,
Des jardins, des jets d'eau pleurant dans les albâtres,
Des baisers, des oiseaux chantant soir et matin,
Et tout ce que l'Idylle a de plus enfantin.
L'Emeute, tempêtant vainement à ma vitre,
Ne fera pas lever mon front de mon pupitre;
Car je serai plongé dans cette volupté
D'évoquer le Printemps avec ma volonté,
De tirer un soleil de mon coeur, et de faire
De mes pensers brûlants une tiède atmosphère.
---
This is the best I have felt in awhile. Nothing can hurt me anymore, I don't think.

L'Horloge

2009-01-05T21:02:00.000-08:00

Oh, and what the fuck do I do now?

The Clock
Clock! Sinister, frightening, impassible god,
Whose finger threatens us and says to us: “Remember!
The vibrating sorrows in your terror-filled heart
Will plant themselves quickly as in a target;

The vaporous Pleasure will flee toward the horizon
As a sylph in the back of the wings;
Every instant devours a morsel of delight
That each man grants for his entire season.

Three thousand six hundred times per hour, the Second
Whispers: Remember! —Quick, with his voice
Of an insect, Now says: I am In the Past,
And I have pumped your life with my filthy trunk!

Remember! Souviens-toi! Prodigal! Esto memor!
(My metal throat speaks all languages.)
The minutes, playful mortal, are of gangue
That one must not let go without extracting the gold!

Remember that Time is a greedy gambler
Who wins without cheating, every time! It is the law.
The day fades; the night grows; Remember!
The abyss is always thirsty; the water-clock empties.

Sometimes it will strike the hour where divine Chance,
Where noble Virtue, your still-virgin wife,
Where even Repentance (oh! The final inn!),
Where all will tell you Die, old coward! It is too late!”

L'Horloge
Horloge! dieu sinistre, effrayant, impassible,
Dont le doigt nous menace et nous dit: «Souviens-toi!
Les vibrantes Douleurs dans ton coeur plein d'effroi
Se planteront bientôt comme dans une cible;

Le Plaisir vaporeux fuira vers l'horizon
Ainsi qu'une sylphide au fond de la coulisse;
Chaque instant te dévore un morceau du délice
À chaque homme accordé pour toute sa saison.

Trois mille six cents fois par heure, la Seconde
Chuchote: Souviens-toi! — Rapide, avec sa voix
D'insecte, Maintenant dit: Je suis Autrefois,
Et j'ai pompé ta vie avec ma trompe immonde!

Remember! Souviens-toi! prodigue! Esto memor!
(Mon gosier de métal parle toutes les langues.)
Les minutes, mortel folâtre, sont des gangues
Qu'il ne faut pas lâcher sans en extraire l'or!

Souviens-toi que le Temps est un joueur avide
Qui gagne sans tricher, à tout coup! c'est la loi.
Le jour décroît; la nuit augmente; Souviens-toi!
Le gouffre a toujours soif; la clepsydre se vide.

Tantôt sonnera l'heure où le divin Hasard,
Où l'auguste Vertu, ton épouse encor vierge,
Où le Repentir même (oh! la dernière auberge!),
Où tout te dira Meurs, vieux lâche! il est trop tard!»
---
My famous last words, right?

L'Irrémédiable

2009-01-02T10:26:00.000-08:00

I finished Spleen before the end of the year but a combination of laziness, sickness, and trips to the netherworld prevented me from posting. So here it is. The second-to-last.

I hear things and they are probably not true. Sometimes I feel like the Universe is caught up in an elaborate scheme so to make me pay dearly for my sins. It's still funny, I guess. I learn new things. I was in love. Now I just look stupid. Send your sympathy. Shit, I need it.

The Irremediable
I.
An Idea, a Form, a Being
Left the blue and fell
Into a leaded, muddy Styx
Where no eye of Heaven can penetrate;

An Angel, careless voyager
Who has been tempted by the love of the deformed,
In the depths of an enormous nightmare
Struggling like a swimmer,

And fighting, gloomy fear!
Against an enormous backwash
Which goes singing like the madmen
And pirouettes in the darkness;

An unfortunate enchanted one
In his futile trials
In order to flee from a place full of reptiles,
Looking for the light and the key;

A damned one descending without light
To the edge of an abyss where odor
Betrays the humid depth
Of eternal steps without rails,

Where the watch of the viscid monsters
Whose large eyes of phosphorous
Make a night still more black
And only render themselves visible;

A ship taken in the pole
Like in a pit of crystal,
Looking for by what fatal strait
It has come into that prison;

—Clean emblems, perfect picture
Of an irremediable fortune
Which makes one think that the Devil
Always does what he does well!

II.
Clear and somber head-to-head
A heart became its mirror!
Wells of Truth, clear and black
Where a pallid star trembles,

An ironic beacon, infernal
Torch of satanic graces,
Relief and glory only,
—Conscience in Evil!

L'Irrémédiable
I.
Une Idée, une Forme, un Etre
Parti de l'azur et tombé
Dans un Styx bourbeux et plombé
Où nul oeil du Ciel ne pénètre;

Un Ange, imprudent voyageur
Qu'a tenté l'amour du difforme,
Au fond d'un cauchemar énorme
Se débattant comme un nageur,

Et luttant, angoisses funèbres!
Contre un gigantesque remous
Qui va chantant comme les fous
Et pirouettant dans les ténèbres;

Un malheureux ensorcelé
Dans ses tâtonnements futiles
Pour fuir d'un lieu plein de reptiles,
Cherchant la lumière et la clé;

Un damné descendant sans lampe
Au bord d'un gouffre dont l'odeur
Trahit l'humide profondeur
D'éternels escaliers sans rampe,

Où veillent des monstres visqueux
Dont les larges yeux de phosphore
Font une nuit plus noire encore
Et ne rendent visibles qu'eux;

Un navire pris dans le pôle
Comme en un piège de cristal,
Cherchant par quel détroit fatal
Il est tombé dans cette geôle;

— Emblèmes nets, tableau parfait
D'une fortune irrémédiable
Qui donne à penser que le Diable
Fait toujours bien tout ce qu'il fait!

II.
Tête-à-tête sombre et limpide
Qu'un coeur devenu son miroir!
Puits de Vérité, clair et noir
Où tremble une étoile livide,

Un phare ironique, infernal
Flambeau des grâces sataniques,
Soulagement et gloire uniques,
— La conscience dans le Mal!
---

And the past year's mistakes: M, J, Mii, S, A, N, B, Aii
God help and protect me.

L'Héautontimorouménos

2008-12-28T13:31:00.000-08:00

Beautiful. Now too much pain, right.

The Self-Tormentor

To J.G.F.

I will strike you without anger
And without hatred, like a butcher,
Like Moses the rock
And I will make from your eyelid,

In order to water my Sahara
The water of suffering flow.
My desire, swollen with hope
Floats upon your salty tears

Like a vessel that takes to sea,
And in my heart that they will make drunk,
Your dear sobs will ring
Like a drum that beats the charge!

Am I not a false chord
In the divine symphony,
Thanks to the voracious Irony
That shakes me and bites me?

She is in my voice, the squalling!
That is all my blood, this black poison!
I am the sinister mirror
Where the Megaera looks upon herself.

I am the wound and the blade!
I am the blow and the cheek!
I am the members and the wheel,
And the victim and the hangman!

I am the vampire of my heart,
—One of these great forsaken
Condemned to the eternal laughter
And who can no longer smile!

L'Héautontimorouménos

À J.G.F.

Je te frapperai sans colère
Et sans haine, comme un boucher,
Comme Moïse le rocher
Et je ferai de ta paupière,

Pour abreuver mon Saharah
Jaillir les eaux de la souffrance.
Mon désir gonflé d'espérance
Sur tes pleurs salés nagera

Comme un vaisseau qui prend le large,
Et dans mon coeur qu'ils soûleront
Tes chers sanglots retentiront
Comme un tambour qui bat la charge!

Ne suis-je pas un faux accord
Dans la divine symphonie,
Grâce à la vorace Ironie
Qui me secoue et qui me mord

Elle est dans ma voix, la criarde!
C'est tout mon sang ce poison noir!
Je suis le sinistre miroir
Où la mégère se regarde.

Je suis la plaie et le couteau!
Je suis le soufflet et la joue!
Je suis les membres et la roue,
Et la victime et le bourreau!

Je suis de mon coeur le vampire,
— Un de ces grands abandonnés
Au rire éternel condamnés
Et qui ne peuvent plus sourire!

Recueillement

2008-12-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

I am done with Spleen et Ideal, but now I need to get these all up before the end of the year. I am off to the south circa 9 pm this evening. Love, love. It's too cold here. I feel better, right. More relieved. I guess that comes from never having to see certain people ever again.

Contemplation
Be wise, oh my Grief, and have more peace.
You asked for the Evening; it descends; here it is:
A dark atmosphere envelops the city,
Carrying peace to some, to others concern.

While the foul multitude of mortals,
Under the whip of Pleasure, this merciless hangman,
Goes gathering remorse in the slavish celebration,
My Grief, give me your hand; come here,

Far from them. See the lost Years bend,
Over the balconies of heaven, in outdated robes;
Smiling Regret springing from the depths of the waters;

The dying sun sleeps under an arch,
And, trails to the East like a long shroud,
Listen, my beloved, listen to the sweet Night walking.

Recueillement
Sois sage, ô ma Douleur, et tiens-toi plus tranquille.
Tu réclamais le Soir; il descend; le voici:
Une atmosphère obscure enveloppe la ville,
Aux uns portant la paix, aux autres le souci.

Pendant que des mortels la multitude vile,
Sous le fouet du Plaisir, ce bourreau sans merci,
Va cueillir des remords dans la fête servile,
Ma Douleur, donne-moi la main; viens par ici,

Loin d'eux. Vois se pencher les défuntes Années,
Sur les balcons du ciel, en robes surannées;
Surgir du fond des eaux le Regret souriant;

Le soleil moribond s'endormir sous une arche,
Et, comme un long linceul traînant à l'Orient,
Entends, ma chère, entends la douce Nuit qui marche.

---

The next three poems are longish and signify the end.

Le Gouffre/Les Plaintes d'un Icare

2008-12-22T07:41:00.000-08:00

Winter kills but the solstice should bring new life. If the last few months have taught me anything it is that I should not be in the public eye. I told him "tread with a light foot and a quiet look" but somehow I managed to ignore my own advice. The Moon has left me here, taking his nothingness and his translucent eyes back to the North where one would argue that he belongs. And what, and what then? I cried for a long time, a long long time. I told him not to fear aging and to shine like I knew that he could. Someday he will return but I will be no longer. Off to a warm atmosphere where people care about the changes that I want to bring. It's been nearly three weeks since my Hell began and I am praying that it ends before I do. Please, I implore your mercy, you the only one that I love.

The Abyss
Pascal had his abyss, it moved with him.
—Alas! All is abysmal—action, desire, dream,
Speech! And on my hair which stands up straight
I feel the wind of Fear pass many times.

On high, down below, everywhere, the depth, the shore,
The silence, the awful and captivating space…
On the background of my nights God with his skillful finger
Draws a nightmare, multiform and without respite.

I have the fear of sleep like one has fear of a great hole,
All full of vague horror, leads one where he knows not,
I see only infinity through all the windows,

And my spirit, all haunted by vertigo,
Is jealous of the insensitivity of nothingness.
—Ah! Never to take leave of the Numbers and the Beings!

Le Gouffre
Pascal avait son gouffre, avec lui se mouvant.
— Hélas! tout est abîme, — action, désir, rêve,
Parole! Et sur mon poil qui tout droit se relève
Mainte fois de la Peur je sens passer le vent.

En haut, en bas, partout, la profondeur, la grève,
Le silence, l'espace affreux et captivant...
Sur le fond de mes nuits Dieu de son doigt savant
Dessine un cauchemar multiforme et sans trêve.

J'ai peur du sommeil comme on a peur d'un grand trou,
Tout plein de vague horreur, menant on ne sait où;
Je ne vois qu'infini par toutes les fenêtres,

Et mon esprit, toujours du vertige hanté,
Jalouse du néant l'insensibilité.
— Ah! ne jamais sortir des Nombres et des Êtres!

The Complaints of an Icarus
The lovers of prostitutes
Are happy, fresh and satiated,
As for me, my arms are broken
Having embraced the clouds.

It is thanks to the unequaled stars,
Which all blaze in the depths of the sky,
That my burned-up eyes see
Only the memories of suns.

In vain I have desired in the space
To find the end and the middle;
I do not know under what fiery eye
I feel my wings break;

And burned by the love of the beautiful,
I will not have the sublime honor
Of giving my name to the abyss
That will serve me as a tomb.

Les Plaintes d'un Icare
Les amants des prostituées
Sont heureux, dispos et repus;
Quant à moi, mes bras sont rompus
Pour avoir étreint des nuées.

C'est grâce aux astres nonpareils,
Qui tout au fond du ciel flamboient,
Que mes yeux consumés ne voient
Que des souvenirs de soleils.

En vain j'ai voulu de l'espace
Trouver la fin et le milieu;
Sous je ne sais quel oeil de feu
Je sens mon aile qui se casse;

Et brûlé par l'amour du beau,
Je n'aurai pas l'honneur sublime
De donner mon nom à l'abîme
Qui me servira de tombeau.
---

I mourned his loss over cough syrup and humiliation. Now devoid of most of my hearing and more or less all of my hindsight. To M. I said I was sorry and that I felt the crippling feeling of injustice over his departure. Lies, lies. I rejoice in his fall, ha ha. They say that hell hath no fury and by gods, they are right.

Sur Le Tasse en prison d'Eugène Delacroix

2008-12-16T08:04:00.000-08:00

Oh moon of my life, sleep in my bed and forget about me. I said I loved you and it may or may not be true depending on how I feel at any given moment. I know that you would love me if you were capable of loving anyone at all. I heard what you said last night and it made sense. It just didn't make me happy. The world has turned. I don't like these feelings. I miss you already and I never wanted to.

Now something almost completely unrelated.

On Tasso in Prison by Eugene Delacroix
The poet in the dungeon, disheveled, sickly,
Nervously rolling a manuscript under his foot,
Measures with a look that terror enflames
The staircase of vertigo where his soul is broken.

The heady laughs that fill the prison
Invite his reason toward the strange and absurd;
Doubt surrounds him, and ludicrous Fear,
Hideous and multiform, circles around him.

This genius locked up in a sick hovel,
These grimaces, these cries, these specters that swarm him
Swirl, assembled behind his ear,

This dreamer who the horror of his dwelling awakens,
So that is your emblem, soul in obscure dreams,
Which the Actual smothered between its four walls.

Sur Le Tasse en prison d'Eugène Delacroix
Le poète au cachot, débraillé, maladif,
Roulant un manuscrit sous son pied convulsif,
Mesure d'un regard que la terreur enflamme
L'escalier de vertige où s'abîme son âme.

Les rires enivrants dont s'emplit la prison
Vers l'étrange et l'absurde invitent sa raison;
Le Doute l'environne, et la Peur ridicule,
Hideuse et multiforme, autour de lui circule.

Ce génie enfermé dans un taudis malsain,
Ces grimaces, ces cris, ces spectres dont l'essaim
Tourbillonne, ameuté derrière son oreille,

Ce rêveur que l'horreur de son logis réveille,
Voilà bien ton emblème, Âme aux songes obscurs,
Que le Réel étouffe entre ses quatre murs!
---

Last afternoon we leaned our hips against the railing on the Great Hall and listened to the warbled cries of the youngest ones. They sang with the optimism that can only come with ignorance and glimpses of the beauty in this world. They were both there and so was I. Nothing to do. It brought a chill to the crowd as we all joined metaphorical hands and longed for streams of water and praised the newly-born Savior. It was the way it should have been.

For once it is love and longing that chokes my throat and not rage.

Le Coucher du Soleil Romantique

2008-12-15T08:11:00.000-08:00

Where is your happiness, your joy and your light? Around this time of year everyone breaks and my co-dependent ways spring into action. Suicide, sex and stupidity...we all become one and we then we fall. I don't know what to do or say or think. I want to break down too but I cannot. I wanted to build myself as a symbol of hope and stability. For once I can shake the taste of the past.

I loved you for your emptiness and your fear of aging but now I think that I cannot. Not when you told me to leave you be. Instead I drink and laugh and fall onto the hard dirt of my own bad decisions. I love you, I love you, but this cannot be. You cannot love. That's okay. The sun sets, I rise and you fall down.

The Setting of the Romantic Sun
How the sun is beautiful when it is newly risen,
He throws his greetings to us like an explosion!
—Blessed is that one who can with love
Salute his setting more glorious than a dream!

I remember!…I have seen all, flower, spring, furrow,
Swooning under his eye like a palpitating heart…
—Let us run toward the horizon, it is late, let us run quickly,
To catch at least a slanting ray!

But I vainly pursue the retreating God;
Irresistible Night establishes his empire,
Dark, damp, grievous and full of shivers;

An odor of the tomb swims in the dark,
At my fearful foot crumples, on the edge of the marsh,
Unpredicted toads and chilly snails.

Le Coucher du Soleil Romantique
Que le soleil est beau quand tout frais il se lève,
Comme une explosion nous lançant son bonjour!
— Bienheureux celui-là qui peut avec amour
Saluer son coucher plus glorieux qu'un rêve!

Je me souviens!... J'ai vu tout, fleur, source, sillon,
Se pâmer sous son oeil comme un coeur qui palpite...
— Courons vers l'horizon, il est tard, courons vite,
Pour attraper au moins un oblique rayon!

Mais je poursuis en vain le Dieu qui se retire;
L'irrésistible Nuit établit son empire,
Noire, humide, funeste et pleine de frissons;

Une odeur de tombeau dans les ténèbres nage,
Et mon pied peureux froisse, au bord du marécage,
Des crapauds imprévus et de froids limaçons.
---

Chase the gods, you fools. Their friends are marrying and giving birth. Mine kill themselves and rape one another. What.

La Rançon/Bien loin d'ici

2008-12-11T07:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we talked like humans...all three of us. Together for the first time since we congregated in the sweltering sympathy of August. Fortune has not smiled upon them, less so on one than the other. For one the anger has passed and is replaced by affectionate apathy. Toward the other the rage rears its head every now and again. We spoke of trials and victories, drunken stupors and a Refusal to Mourn. He understood. Where before he had treated my imposition as agenda, now it just came across as an unfortunate result of circumstance. I wish I had not wasted so much time being angry. One week to go before he disappears probably forever.

I am finding there is a difference between the oppression the world throws at you and the ennui that happens inside. I don't really like either.

The Ransom
Man has, in order to pay his ransom,
Two fields of tuff, deep and rich,
That he must turn over and cultivate
With the iron of reason;

In order to obtain the lesser rose,
In order to extort a few ears of corn,
With the salted tears of his dreary brow
He must water them ceaselessly.

One is Art, and the other is Love.
—To produce a favorable judge,
When of strict justice
The terrible day will appear,

He must show them barns
Full of crops, and flowers
Whose shapes and colors
Win the suffrage of the Angels.

La Rançon
L'homme a, pour payer sa rançon,
Deux champs au tuf profond et riche,
Qu'il faut qu'il remue et défriche
Avec le fer de la raison;

Pour obtenir la moindre rose,
Pour extorquer quelques épis,
Des pleurs salés de son front gris
Sans cesse il faut qu'il les arrose.

L'un est l'Art, et l'autre l'Amour.
— Pour rendre le juge propice,
Lorsque de la stricte justice
Paraîtra le terrible jour,

Il faudra lui montrer des granges
Pleines de moissons, et des fleurs
Dont les formes et les couleurs
Gagnent le suffrage des Anges.

Very Far From Here
This here is the sacred cabin
Where that much arrayed maiden,
Tranquil and ever prepared,

Fanning her breasts with her hand,
Her elbow in the cushions,
Listens to the fountains crying:

This is Dorothy’s bedroom.
—The breeze and the water sing in the distance,
Their song colliding with sobs
In order to cradle that spoiled child.

From top to bottom, with great care
Her delicate skin is scrubbed
With fragrant oil and benzoin.
—From the flowers that swoon in a corner.

Bien loin d'ici
C'est ici la case sacrée
Où cette fille très parée,
Tranquille et toujours préparée,

D'une main éventant ses seins,
Et son coude dans les coussins,
Écoute pleurer les bassins:

C'est la chambre de Dorothée.
— La brise et l'eau chantent au loin
Leur chanson de sanglots heurtée
Pour bercer cette enfant gâtée.

Du haut en bas, avec grand soin.
Sa peau délicate est frottée
D'huile odorante et de benjoin.
— Des fleurs se pâment dans un coin.
---

I need to get out of here too.

Le Jet d'eau

2008-12-10T06:11:00.000-08:00

And real death makes fake death feel stranger.

The Water Fountain
Your beautiful eyes are weary, poor love!
Rest a long time, without reopening them,
In that nonchalant pose
Where pleasure has surprised you.
In the courtyard the fountain of water which babbles,
And keeps quiet neither night nor day,
Sweetly supports the ecstasy
Wherein love has plunged me this evening.

The bouquet blooms
Into a thousand flowers,
Where cheerful Phoebe
Puts her colors,
Falls like a shower
Of large tears.

Thus your soul that burns
In the blazing flash of passion,
That dashes forward, fast and bold,
Toward the great enchanted heavens.
But then it pours forth, dying,
In a wave of sad languor,
That by an invisible slope
Descends down to the bottom of my heart.

The bouquet blooms
Into a thousand flowers,
Where cheerful Phoebe
Puts her colors,
Falls like a shower
Of large tears.

Oh you, who the night renders so beautiful,
It is sweet to me, leaning on your breasts,
To hear the eternal lament
Which sobs in the fountains!
Moon, echoing water, blessed night,
Trees that shiver around us,
Your pure melancholy
Is the mirror of my love.

The bouquet blooms
Into a thousand flowers,
Where cheerful Phoebe
Puts her colors,
Falls like a shower
Of large tears.

Le Jet d'eau
Tes beaux yeux sont las, pauvre amante!
Reste longtemps, sans les rouvrir,
Dans cette pose nonchalante
Où t'a surprise le plaisir.
Dans la cour le jet d'eau qui jase,
Et ne se tait ni nuit ni jour,
Entretient doucement l'extase
Où ce soir m'a plongé l'amour.

La gerbe épanouie
En mille fleurs,
Où Phoebé réjouie
Met ses couleurs,
Tombe comme une pluie
De larges pleurs.

Ainsi ton âme qu'incendie
L'éclair brûlant des voluptés
S'élance, rapide et hardie,
Vers les vastes cieux enchantés.
Puis elle s'épanche, mourante,
En un flot de triste langueur,
Qui par une invisible pente
Descend jusqu'au fond de mon coeur.

La gerbe épanouie
En mille fleurs,
Où Phoebé réjouie
Met ses couleurs,
Tombe comme une pluie
De larges pleurs.

Ô toi, que la nuit rend si belle,
Qu'il m'est doux, penché vers tes seins,
D'écouter la plainte éternelle
Qui sanglote dans les bassins!
Lune, eau sonore, nuit bénie,
Arbres qui frissonnez autour,
Votre pure mélancolie
Est le miroir de mon amour.

La gerbe épanouie
En mille fleurs,
Où Phoebé réjouie
Met ses couleurs,
Tombe comme une pluie
De larges pleurs.
---

I am never alone. And for once this is making me unhappy.

Les Yeux de Berthe

2008-12-09T07:43:00.000-08:00

We are tired and in terrible moods. Last night we mourned with a bottle of wine and a few vague memories. Now she is afraid to keep on living. I don't know what to think, what to say. Everything that comes out of my mouth is stupid.

"I love you and will always love you and I could not put into words how to describe what you do to me when you think about death."

Too late now, on so many levels.

Sleep and smoke to your will. I have no reason to do otherwise.

The Eyes of Berthe
You can scorn the most celebrated eyes,
Beautiful eyes of my child, where filters and flies
A certain good something, sweet like Night!
Beautiful eyes, pour over me your delightful darkness!

Beautiful eyes of my child, mysteries adored,
You greatly resemble these magic grottos
Where, behind the heap of sluggish shadows,
Neglected treasures sparkle faintly!

My child has unlit eyes, deep and extensive,
Like you, great Night, clear like you!
Their fires are these thoughts of Love, mixed with Faith,
That sparkle in the depths, sultry or celibate.

Les Yeux de Berthe
Vous pouvez mépriser les yeux les plus célèbres,
Beaux yeux de mon enfant, par où filtre et s'enfuit
Je ne sais quoi de bon, de doux comme la Nuit!
Beaux yeux, versez sur moi vos charmantes ténèbres!

Grands yeux de mon enfant, arcanes adorés,
Vous ressemblez beaucoup à ces grottes magiques
Où, derrière l'amas des ombres léthargiques,
Scintillent vaguement des trésors ignorés!

Mon enfant a des yeux obscurs, profonds et vastes,
Comme toi, Nuit immense, éclairés comme toi!
Leurs feux sont ces pensers d'Amour, mêlés de Foi,
Qui pétillent au fond, voluptueux ou chastes.
---

Happy birthday, venal muse. May you eternally frolic in the solitude of someone else's heart.

Le Rebelle

2008-12-08T08:20:00.000-08:00

And here it is. I would have thought this moment would have been about counting the painful-yet-oddly-triumphant episodes of Saturday past. Little questions, no answers, just guesses. Rehashing, relapsing, and love bites underneath the sullen sheets that protect us from the elements and the consequences of our actions. But no.

Young life is lost, love. Gone, gone, gone. I hate the universe and my own selfishness. Pray for the family of the departed. No names here, not ever. But pray.

The Rebel
A furious Angel pounces from the sky like an eagle,
Grabs a fistful of the miscreant’s hair,
And said, shaking him: “You will know the rule!
(Because I am your good Angel, do you hear?) I wish it!

Know that he must love, without grimacing,
The poor, the malicious, the deformed, the stupid,
So that you can make for Jesus, when he passes,
A triumphant carpet with your charity.

Such is Love! Before your heart becomes indifferent,
Rekindle your ecstasy in the glory of God;
It is the true Pleasure with the enduring charms!”

And the Angel, chastising as much, my faith! That he loves,
Torments the anathema with his giant fists;
But the damned one still responds: “I will not!”

Le Rebelle
Un Ange furieux fond du ciel comme un aigle,
Du mécréant saisit à plein poing les cheveux,
Et dit, le secouant: «Tu connaîtras la règle!
(Car je suis ton bon Ange, entends-tu?) Je le veux!

Sache qu'il faut aimer, sans faire la grimace,
Le pauvre, le méchant, le tortu, l'hébété,
Pour que tu puisses faire à Jesus, quand il passe,
Un tapis triomphal avec ta charité.

Tel est l'Amour! Avant que ton coeur ne se blase,
À la gloire de Dieu rallume ton extase;
C'est la Volupté vraie aux durables appas!»

Et l'Ange, châtiant autant, ma foi! qu'il aime,
De ses poings de géant torture 1'anathème;
Mais le damné répond toujours: «Je ne veux pas!»
---

And then let me sing of you in a new way. Go into the universe. I hope you find it safe and warm.

Hymne

2008-12-04T07:35:00.000-08:00

For the first time in about 7 years, no real prospects and no real anxiety. The LSAT yes, but that's healthy and encouraged. I am something better, and they could care less. I don't need the most important test of my life to be overshadowed by someone with no brains and too much attitude. Panic Attack Part Deux last night but my friends are lovely and they will always see me through. Cigarettes, chocolate cake, and sympathy. Love, love, love. This morning is brighter, for once I am not wearing black or grey.

Been working out more, burning the calories and the midnight oil. I have forgotten how skinny I am under the layers of clothes I wear everywhere and all the time. But I still want my warm atmosphere.

And a little bit of positivity from our good friend Baudelaire!

Hymn
To the much beloved, to the very beautiful
Who fills my heart with light,
To the angel, to immortal idol,
Salutation in immortality!

She pours into my life
Like air imbued with salt,
And into my insatiable soul
Pours the taste of the eternal.

Ever-fresh sachet that perfumes
The atmosphere of a beloved nook,
Forgotten censer that smokes
In secret through the night,

How, incorruptible love,
Can I express you truthfully?
Speck of musk that lies, invisible,
In the depth of my eternity!

To the very good, to the very beautiful
Who causes my joy and my health,
To the angel, to the immortal idol,
Salutation in immortality!

Hymne
À la très chère, à la très belle
Qui remplit mon coeur de clarté,
À l'ange, À l'idole immortelle,
Salut en l'immortalité!

Elle se répand dans ma vie
Comme un air imprégné de sel,
Et dans mon âme inassouvie
Verse le goût de l'éternel.

Sachet toujours frais qui parfume
L'atmosphère d'un cher réduit,
Encensoir oublié qui fume
En secret à travers la nuit,

Comment, amour incorruptible,
T'exprimer avec vérité?
Grain de musc qui gis, invisible,
Au fond de mon éternité!

À la très bonne, à la très belle
Qui fait ma joie et ma santé,
À l'ange, à l'idole immortelle,
Salut en l'immortalité!

La Voix

2008-12-03T05:57:00.001-08:00

Tired, worried. I miss being beautiful. My skin was made for sunlight and my hair for warm climates. Not this bullshit.

The Voice
My cradle leaned against the library,
Sullen Babel, novels, science, fabliau,
Everything, Latin cinder and Greek dust,
Mingled. I was as tall as a folio.
Two voices spoke to me. The one, firm and insidious,
Said: “The Earth is a pastry full of sweetness;
I can (and your pleasure would be so without end!)
Make you an appetite of equal size.”
And the other: “Come! Oh! Come travel in dreams,
Beyond the possible, beyond the known!”
And that one sang like the wind of the strands,
Crying phantom, one knows not where it came from,
Who caresses the ear and yet frightens it.
I answered you: “Yes! Sweet voice!” It is from
That time that one can, alas! Name my wound
And my fatality. Behind the façade
Of immense existence, in the blackest part of the abyss,
I distinctly see unusual worlds,
And ecstatic victim of my clairvoyance,
I drag along the serpents that bite my shoes.
And it is since this time, similar to the prophets,
I love so tenderly the desert and the sea;
I laugh in the mourning and cry in the festivities,
And search for a sweet taste in the bitterest of wine;
That I take very often the facts for the lies,
And that, eyes in the heavens, I fall into holes.
But the voice consoles me and says: “Guard your dreams:
Sages do not have so beautiful ones as fools!”

La Voix
Mon berceau s'adossait à la bibliothèque,
Babel sombre, où roman, science, fabliau,
Tout, la cendre latine et la poussière grecque,
Se mêlaient. J'était haut comme un in-folio.
Deux voix me parlaient. L'une, insidieuse et ferme,
Disait: «La Terre est un gâteau plein de douceur;
Je puis (et ton plaisir serait alors sans terme!)
Te faire un appétit d'une égale grosseur.»
Et l'autre: «Viens! oh! viens voyager dans les rêves,
Au delà du possible, au delà du connu!»
Et celle-là chantait comme le vent des grèves,
Fantôme vagissant, on ne sait d'où venu,
Qui caresse l'oreille et cependant l'effraie.
Je te répondis: «Oui! douce voix!» C'est d'alors
Que date ce qu'on peut, hélas! nommer ma plaie
Et ma fatalité. Derrière les décors
De l'existence immense, au plus noir de l'abîme,
Je vois distinctement des mondes singuliers,
Et, de ma clairvoyance extatique victime,
Je traîne des serpents qui mordent mes souliers.
Et c'est depuis ce temps que, pareil aux prophètes,
J'aime si tendrement le désert et la mer;
Que je ris dans les deuils et pleure dans les fêtes,
Et trouve un goût suave au vin le plus amer;
Que je prends très souvent les faits pour des mensonges,
Et que, les yeux au ciel, je tombe dans des trous.
Mais la voix me console et dit: «Garde tes songes:
Les sages n'en ont pas d'aussi beaux que les fous!»
---

Wish I could feel something besides blah.

À une Malabaraise

2008-12-02T08:43:00.000-08:00

Lack of sleep has prevented me from participating in life as it is meant to be experienced. I am tired all the time. The LSATs are on Saturday and all I want to do is watch movies with cute boys and nap all day. I don't care. Seasonal affective disorder is getting to me. I have decided that while I am angsty pretty much all the time this is a new sort. This is not self-imposed. Mostly I am just cold all the fucking time and that puts me in a permanent bad mood. I also do not like being a punching bag for every stupid little drama that waltzes into a certain special someone's life.

I need a warm atmosphere. And here's one in theory...

To a Woman of Malabar
Your feet are as slender as your hands, and your hips
Are broad and make the prettiest white woman envious;
To the thoughtful artist your body is soft and dear;
Your great velvet eyes are darker than your flesh.
In the country warm and blue where God has given rise to you,
Your task is to light the pipe of your master,
To fill the flasks with cold water and perfumes,
To chase the prowling mosquitoes far from his bed,
And, as soon as morning makes the plane trees sing,

To buy at the bazaar pineapples and bananas,
All day, wherever you want, you lead your naked feet,
And lowly you hum old unknown tunes;
And when evening descends in a mantel of scarlet,
You lay your body sweetly on a mat,
Where your flowing dreams are full of hummingbirds,
And always, like you, gracious and flourishing.

Why, happy child, do you wish to see our France?
This overpopulated country that suffering knocks down,
And, entrusting your life to the strong arms of the sea,
Make great farewells to your dear tamarinds?
You, half-dressed in fragile muslins,
Shivering there under the snow and the hail,
Like you would mourn your sweet and total pleasures
If, with the brutal corset imprisoning your sides
You had to gather your supper in our sludge
And sell the perfume of your strange charms,
Thoughtful eye, following, in our dirty fog,
The scattered phantoms of the coconut trees!

À une Malabaraise
Tes pieds sont aussi fins que tes mains, et ta hanche
Est large à faire envie à la plus belle blanche;
À l'artiste pensif ton corps est doux et cher;
Tes grands yeux de velours sont plus noirs que ta chair.
Aux pays chauds et bleus où ton Dieu t'a fait naître,
Ta tâche est d'allumer la pipe de ton maître,
De pourvoir les flacons d'eaux fraîches et d'odeurs,
De chasser loin du lit les moustiques rôdeurs,
Et, dès que le matin fait chanter les platanes,

D'acheter au bazar ananas et bananes.
Tout le jour, où tu veux, tu mènes tes pieds nus,
Et fredonnes tout bas de vieux airs inconnus;
Et quand descend le soir au manteau d'écarlate,
Tu poses doucement ton corps sur une natte,
Où tes rêves flottants sont pleins de colibris,
Et toujours, comme toi, gracieux et fleuris.

Pourquoi, l'heureuse enfant, veux-tu voir notre France,
Ce pays trop peuplé que fauche la souffrance,
Et, confiant ta vie aux bras forts des marins,
Faire de grands adieux à tes chers tamarins?
Toi, vêtue à moitié de mousselines frêles,
Frissonnante là-bas sous la neige et les grêles,
Comme tu pleurerais tes loisirs doux et francs
Si, le corset brutal emprisonnant tes flancs
Il te fallait glaner ton souper dans nos fanges
Et vendre le parfum de tes charmes étranges,
Oeil pensif, et suivant, dans nos sales brouillards,
Des cocotiers absents les fantômes épars!
---

Almost done with the Spleen et Ideal section. We've come a long way, baby.

L'Avertisseur

2008-12-01T08:32:00.000-08:00

I hate you for being a stupid boy. And I hate myself for caring. I hope you die a thousand times.

The Alarm
All men worthy of this name
Have a yellow Serpent in their heart,
Installed as on a throne,
Who, if he says: “I will,” responds: “No!”

Plunge your eyes into the fixed eyes
Of Satyrs or of Nymphs,
The Fang says: “Think to your duty!”

Make children, plant trees,
Polish verses, sculpt marble,
The Fang says: “Will you live this evening?”

Whatever he plans or he hopes,
Man will not live a moment
Without enduring the warning
Of the insufferable Viper.

L'Avertisseur
Tout homme digne de ce nom
A dans le coeur un Serpent jaune,
Installé comme sur un trône,
Qui, s'il dit: «Je veux,» répond: «Non!»

Plonge tes yeux dans les yeux fixes
Des Satyresses ou des Nixes,
La Dent dit: «Pense à ton devoir!»

Fais des enfants, plante des arbres,
Polis des vers, sculpte des marbres,
La Dent dit: «Vivras-tu ce soir?»

Quoi qu'il ébauche ou qu'il espère,
L'homme ne vit pas un moment
Sans subir l'avertissement
De l'insupportable Vipère.
---

No point in hiding it, you all know what I mean. Fuck this. Fuck this so hard. I would give up but I don't know how.

Madrigal triste

2008-11-25T11:25:00.000-08:00

Everything has come to pass exactly how I wished it to. The mighty have fallen and I grow paler and my clothes get blacker by the day. But it's alright. I no longer feel the same about them or about my own self. It is better to be detached, right? I no longer see myself as participating in the world. Just kind of watching it fall down. He is coming back, though certainly not for me. This time I think I can deal.

This next poem initially hit me like a punch to the gut. I read it aloud for one of my friends and then realized what a sick person I really am. It's one of my favorites.

Sad Madrigal
I.
What importance is it to me that you are wise?
Be beautiful! And be sad! The tears
Add a charm to your face,
Like the river in the landscape;
The storm rejuvenates the flowers.

I love you most when joy
Escapes from your stricken brow;
When your heart drowns in the horror;
When on your present is spread
The dreadful cloud of the past.

I love you when your great eyes pour
Water hot like blood;
When, in spite of my hand that cradles you,
Your anguish, too heavy, pierces
Like a dying man’s groan.

I inhale, divine pleasure!
Deep, delicious hymn!
All the sobs of your breast,
And I believe that your heart is illuminated
In the pearls that pour from your eyes.

II.
I know that your heart, which overflows
With old, eradicated loves,
Still flares up like a forge,
And that you smolder in your breast
A bit of the pride of the damned;

But, my dear, as long as the dreams
Will not have reflected Hell,
And that in a nightmare without respite,
Dreaming of poisons and knives,
In love with powder and iron,

Opening to everyone with fear,
Deciphering misfortune everywhere,
Convulsing when the hour chimes,
You have not felt the embrace
Of the irresistible Disgust,

You cannot, slave, queen,
Who loves me only with terror
In the horror of the unhealthy night
Say to me, soul full of screams:
“I am your equal, oh my King!”

Madrigal triste
I.
Que m'importe que tu sois sage?
Sois belle! Et sois triste! Les pleurs
Ajoutent un charme au visage,
Comme le fleuve au paysage;
L'orage rajeunit les fleurs.

Je t'aime surtout quand la joie
S'enfuit de ton front terrassé;
Quand ton coeur dans l'horreur se noie;
Quand sur ton présent se déploie
Le nuage affreux du passé.

Je t'aime quand ton grand oeil verse
Une eau chaude comme le sang;
Quand, malgré ma main qui te berce,
Ton angoisse, trop lourde, perce
Comme un râle d'agonisant.

J'aspire, volupté divine!
Hymne profond, délicieux!
Tous les sanglots de ta poitrine,
Et crois que ton coeur s'illumine
Des perles que versent tes yeux.

II.
Je sais que ton coeur, qui regorge
De vieux amours déracinés,
Flamboie encor comme une forge,
Et que tu couves sous ta gorge
Un peu de l'orgueil des damnés;

Mais tant, ma chère, que tes rêves
N'auront pas reflété l'Enfer,
Et qu'en un cauchemar sans trêves,
Songeant de poisons et de glaives,
Éprise de poudre et de fer,

N'ouvrant à chacun qu'avec crainte,
Déchiffrant le malheur partout,
Te convulsant quand l'heure tinte,
Tu n'auras pas senti l'étreinte
De l'irrésistible Dégoût,

Tu ne pourras, esclave reine
Qui ne m'aimes qu'avec effroi,
Dans l'horreur de la nuit malsaine
Me dire, l'âme de cris pleine:
«Je suis ton égale, ô mon Roi!»

---

She cannot save you. I can but I won't. The anger is crippling me and it is getting me high. Take your poisons elsewhere. You infidels don't deserve this place.

L'Examen de minuit

2008-11-24T13:18:00.000-08:00

And what, what then?

Midnight Examination
The pendulum, striking midnight,
Ironically commits us
To remind ourselves what use
We made of the day that escaped:
—Today, fateful day,
Friday, thirteen, we have,
Despite all that we know,
Lead the life of a heretic.

We have blasphemed Jesus,
The most incontestable of Gods!
Like a parasite at the table
Of some monstrous Croesus
We have, in order to please the brute,
Worthy vassal of the Demons,
Abused that which we love,
And flattered that which repulses us;

We saddened, slavish hangman,
The frail that one wrongfully scorns;
Saluted the enormous Stupidity,
Stupidity with the brow of the bull,
Kissed the stupid Matter
With great devotion,
And of the decomposition
Blessed the pale light;

Finally, we have, in order to drown
The vertigo in the delirium,
We, proud priest of the Lyre,
Whose glory is in displaying
The exhilaration of ghastly things,
Drank without thirst and ate without hunger!…
—Quickly blow the lamp out, so that
We may hide in the darkness!

L'Examen de minuit
La pendule, sonnant minuit,
Ironiquement nous engage
À nous rappeler quel usage
Nous fîmes du jour qui s'enfuit:
— Aujourd'hui, date fatidique,
Vendredi, treize, nous avons,
Malgré tout ce que nous savons,
Mené le train d'un hérétique.

Nous avons blasphémé Jésus,
Des Dieux le plus incontestable!
Comme un parasite à la table
De quelque monstrueux Crésus,
Nous avons, pour plaire à la brute,
Digne vassale des Démons,
Insulté ce que nous aimons
Et flatté ce qui nous rebute;

Contristé, servile bourreau,
Le faible qu'à tort on méprise;
Salué l'énorme Bêtise,
La Bêtise au front de taureau;
Baisé la stupide Matière
Avec grande dévotion,
Et de la putréfaction
Béni la blafarde lumière.

Enfin, nous avons, pour noyer
Le vertige clans le délire,
Nous, prêtre orgueilleux de la Lyre,
Dont la gloire est de déployer
L'ivresse des choses funèbres,
Bu sans soif et mangé sans faim!...
— Vite soufflons la lampe, afin
De nous cacher dans les ténèbres!
---

Gleeful, but at great cost.

L'Imprévu

2008-11-22T21:22:00.000-08:00

Oh stupid boy, why bemoan the fact that no one cares when you pushed away the one who did? Ah, mixed signals, my nocturnal vault. The travel trails off, time to pretend. Time to go to sleep.

The Unexpected
Harpagon, who kept watch over his dying father,
Said to himself, dreamily, having lips already white:
“We have in the attic a sufficient number,
It seems to me, of old planks?”

Celimene coos and says: “My heart is good,
And naturally, God has made me very beautiful.”
—Her heart! Shriveled heart, smoked like a ham,
Cooked in the eternal flame!

A smoky journalist, who believes himself a torch,
Says to the poor, that he has drowned in the darkness:
“Where then do you glimpse him, this creature of Beauty,
This Redresser who you praise?”

Better than all, I know certain voluptuaries
Who yawn night and day, and lament, and cry,
Repeating, the helpless and the smug: “Yes, I wish
To be virtuous, in an hour!”

The clock, in his turn, says in a low voice: “He is ripe,
The damned! I warn in vain the poisoned flesh.
Man is blind, deaf, fragile like a wall
That an insect eats and inhabits!”

And then, Someone appears, who all had denied,
And who said to them, taunting and proud: “In my ciborium,
You have, I believe, communicated quite often
With the black Joyous Mass?

Each of you has built me a temple in his heart;
You have, in secret, kissed my filthy haunches!
You recognize Satan in his victorious laughter,
Enormous and disgusting like the world!

Have you then been able to believe, startled hypocrites,
That one teases the master, that one cheats him,
And that he naturally receives two awards,
To go to Heaven and to be rich?

The game must pay the old hunter
Who stands a long time waiting for the prey.
I go to take you through the thickness,
Companions of my sad delight,

Through the thickness of the earth and the rock,
Through the sorry pile of your cinder,
Into a palace as great as I, of a single block,
And which is not of tender stone;

Because it is made with universal Sin,
And contains my pride, my grief and my glory!”
—However, perched on top of the whole universe,
An angel sounds the victory

Of those whose hearts said: “Hallowed by your whip,
Lord! Blessed be the grief, oh Father!
My heart is not an empty plaything in your hands,
And your carefulness is infinite.”

The sound of the trumpet is so delicious,
On the solemn evenings of celestial harvests,
That it seeps like ecstasy into all those
To whom she sings praises.

L'Imprévu
Harpagon, qui veillait son père agonisant,
Se dit, rêveur, devant ces lèvres déjà blanches:
«Nous avons au grenier un nombre suffisant,
Ce me semble, de vieilles planches?»

Célimène roucoule et dit: «Mon coeur est bon,
Et naturellement, Dieu m'a faite très belle.»
— Son coeur! coeur racorni, fumé comme un jambon,
Recuit à la flamme éternelle!

Un gazetier fumeux, qui se croit un flambeau,
Dit au pauvre, qu'il a noyé dans les ténèbres:
«Où donc l'aperçois-tu, ce créateur du Beau,
Ce Redresseur que tu célèbres?»

Mieux que tous, je connais certain voluptueux
Qui bâille nuit et jour, et se lamente, et pleure,
Répétant, l'impuissant et le fat: «Oui, je veux
Etre vertueux, dans une heure!»

L'horloge, à son tour, dit à voix basse: «Il est mûr,
Le damné! J'avertis en vain la chair infecte.
L'homme est aveugle, sourd, fragile, comme un mur
Qu'habite et que ronge un insecte!»

Et puis, Quelqu'un paraît, que tous avaient nié,
Et qui leur dit, railleur et fier: «Dans mon ciboire,
Vous avez, que je crois, assez communié
À la Joyeuse Messe noire?

Chacun de vous m'a fait un temple dans son coeur;
Vous avez, en secret, baisé ma fesse immonde!
Reconnaissez Satan à son rire vainqueur,
Enorme et laid comme le monde!

Avez-vous donc pu croire, hypocrites surpris,
Qu'on se moque du maître, et qu'avec lui l'on triche,
Et qu'il soit naturel de recevoir deux prix,
D'aller au Ciel et d'être riche?

Il faut que le gibier paye le vieux chasseur
Qui se morfond longtemps à l'affût de la proie.
Je vais vous emporter à travers l'épaisseur,
Compagnons de ma triste joie,

À travers l'épaisseur de la terre et du roc,
À travers les amas confus de votre cendre,
Dans un palais aussi grand que moi, d'un seul bloc,
Et qui n'est pas de pierre tendre;

Car il est fait avec l'universel Péché,
Et contient mon orgueil, ma douleur et ma gloire!»
— Cependant, tout en haut de l'univers juché,
Un ange sonne la victoire

De ceux dont le coeur dit: «Que béni soit ton fouet,
Seigneur! que la douleur, ô Père, soit bénie!
Mon âme dans tes mains n'est pas un vain jouet,
Et ta prudence est infinie.»

Le son de la trompette est si délicieux,
Dans ces soirs solennels de célestes vendanges,
Qu'il s'infiltre comme une extase dans tous ceux
Dont elle chante les louanges.

La Prière d'un païen/Le Couvercle

2008-11-17T07:43:00.000-08:00

It has to stop, my friends. I mean it this time. No more downers or strange conversations. Loves.

The Prayer of a Pagan
Ah! Slacken not your passions;
Heat up my drowsy heart,
Pleasure, torture of the souls!
Diva! Supplicem exaudî!

Goddess scattered in the air,
Flame in our underground!
Fulfill a pining soul,
Who consecrates to you a song of bronze.

Pleasure, always be my queen!
Put on the mask of a siren
Made from flesh and velvet,

Or pour your heavy sleep on me
In wine shapeless and mystical,
Pleasure, flexible phantom!

La Prière d'un païen
Ah! ne ralentis pas tes flammes;
Réchauffe mon coeur engourdi,
Volupté, torture des âmes!
Diva! Supplicem exaudî!

Déesse dans l'air répandue,
Flamme dans notre souterrain!
Exauce une âme morfondue,
Qui te consacre un chant d'airain.

Volupté, sois toujours ma reine!
Prends le masque d'une sirène
Faite de chair et de velours,

Ou verse-moi tes sommeils lourds
Dans le vin informe et mystique,
Volupté, fantôme élastique!

The Cover
In whatever place he will go, on sea or on earth,
Beneath a sky of flame, or beneath a white sun,
Servant of Jesus, courtier of Cythera,
Dark beggar or sparkling Croesus,

City-dweller, country person, vagabond, sedentary,
That his little brain is active or is slow,
Everywhere the man suffers the terror of mystery,
And looks up only with a trembling eye.

Up, the Sky! This vaulted wall that suppresses him,
Ceiling illuminated by a comic opera
Where every wandering minstrel treads on blood-drenched soil;

Terror of the libertine, hope of the crazy recluse;
The Sky! Black cover of the great cooking-pot
Where boils the vast and elusive Humanity.

Le Couvercle
En quelque lieu qu'il aille, ou sur mer ou sur terre,
Sous un climat de flamme ou sous un soleil blanc,
Serviteur de Jésus, courtisan de Cythère,
Mendiant ténébreux ou Crésus rutilant,

Citadin, campagnard, vagabond, sédentaire,
Que son petit cerveau soit actif ou soit lent,
Partout l'homme subit la terreur du mystère,
Et ne regarde en haut qu'avec un oeil tremblant.

En haut, le Ciel! Ce mur de caveau qui l'étouffe,
Plafond illuminé par un opéra bouffe
Où chaque histrion foule un sol ensanglanté;

Terreur du libertin, espoir du fol ermite;
Le Ciel! Couvercle noir de la grande marmite
Où bout l'imperceptible et vaste Humanité.

Le Calumet de Paix

2008-11-14T05:55:00.000-08:00

I am venturing into uncharted territory since my print edition of Les Fleurs du Mal doesn't have the next ten or so poems. This next one is an imitation of Longfellow and quite a bit of a shift for Baudelaire since there is no sex or ennui, it seems. It is a wretched translation, probably.

The Peace Pipe
(Imitation of Longfellow)
Now Gitche Manitou, the Master of Life,
The Powerful, descended into the green prairie,
Into the immense prairie in the mountainous hillside,
And there, on the rocks of the Red Quarry,
Dominating all the space and bathed with light,
He held himself upright, vast and majestic.

Then he summoned the innumerable peoples,
More numerous than the grass and the sands.
With his terrible hand he broke off a piece
Of rock, from which he made a magnificent pipe,
Next, at the edge of a stream, from an enormous sheaf,
In order to make a tip, chose a long reed,

In order to fill it he took from the willow its bark,
And he, the All-Powerful, Creator of Strength,
Upright, he lit, like a divine beacon,
The Pipe of Peace. Standing in the Quarry
He smoked, upright, superb and bathed in light.
Now for the nations this was the great signal.

And slowly the divine smoke went up
In the sweet morning air, undulating, fragrant.
And first it was only a dark furrow;
Next the vapor made itself thicker and bluer,
Then it whitened; and went up, and grew without cease,
It went to break on the hard ceiling of the heavens,

From the furthest peaks of the Rocky Mountains,
To the lakes of the North with the noisy waves,
From Tawasentha, the unparalleled valley,
Up to Tuscaloosa, the perfumed forest,
All experienced the signal and immense smoke
Rising peacefully in the ruddy morning.

The Prophets said: “Do you see that band
Of vapor, that, similar to the commanding hand,
Oscillates and stands out in black on the sun?
It is Gitche Manitou, the Master of Life,
Who says to the four corners of the immense prairie:
“I call you all, warriors, to my counsel!”

On the path of the waters, on the route of the plains,
From the four quarters where blow the breaths
Of the wind, all the warriors of every tribe, all
Understood the signal of the moving cloud,
They came obediently to the Red Quarry
Where Gitche Manitou gave them appointment.

The warriors stood on the green prairie,
All equipped for war, with hardened face,
As colorful as autumn foliage;
And the hatred that makes all beings fight,
The hatred that burned the eyes of their ancestors
Still burned their eyes with a fatal flame.

And their eyes were full of hereditary hatred.
Now Gitche Manitou, Master of the Earth,
Considered them all with compassion,
Like a very good father, enemy of disorder,
Who sees his little ones battle and bite.
Such was Gitche Manitou for every nation.

He stretched his strong right hand over them
In order to captivate their heart and their narrow nature,
To chill their fever in the shadow of his hand;
Then he told them with his majestic voice,
Comparable to the voice of tumultuous waters
That falls and returns a monstrous, superhuman sound:

II.
“Oh my posterity, darling and deplorable!
Oh my children! Listen to divine reason.
It is Gitche Manitou, the Master of Life,
Who speaks to you! The one who in your land
Has put the bears, the beaver, the reindeer, and the bison.

I have made hunting and fishing easy for you;
By why does the hunter become an assassin?
The swamp populated with birds, made by me;
Why are you not content, indocile sons?
Why does man hunt his neighbor?

I am well and truly tired of your horrible wars.
Your prayers, even your wishes are infamies!
The danger is for you in your contrary tempers,
It is the union that is your strength. In brotherhood
Live then, and learn to keep yourselves in peace.

Soon you will received a Prophet from my hand
Who will come to instruct you and suffer with you.
His word will make a party from life;
But if you scorn his perfect wisdom,
Poor accursed children, all of you will disappear!

Release your bloody colors into the waves.
The reeds are numerous and the rock is heavy;
Each one can make his pipe. No more wars,
No more blood! From now on live like brothers,
And all, united, smoke the Pipe of Peace!”

III.
And suddenly all, throwing down their arms to the earth,
Washed the colors of war off in the stream
Which had shown on their cruel and triumphant brows.
Each one hollowed a pipe and gather from the shore
A long reed with which to skillfully embellish it.
And the Spirit smiled at his poor children!

Each one went home with a calm and delighted soul,
And Gitche Manitou, the Master of Life,
Rose up into the open door of the heavens.
—Through the splendid vapor of the clouds
The All-Powerful went up, content with his work,
Immense, perfumed, sublime, radiant!

Le Calumet de Paix
(Imité de Longfellow)

I.
Or Gitche Manito, le Maître de la Vie,
Le Puissant, descendit dans la verte prairie,
Dans l'immense prairie aux coteaux montueux;
Et là, sur les rochers de la Rouge Carrière,
Dominant tout l'espace et baigné de lumière,
Il se tenait debout, vaste et majestueux.

Alors il convoqua les peuples innombrables,
Plus nombreux que ne sont les herbes et les sables.
Avec sa main terrible il rompit un morceau
Du rocher, dont il fit une pipe superbe,
Puis, au bord du ruisseau, dans une énorme gerbe,
Pour s'en faire un tuyau, choisit un long roseau.

Pour la bourrer il prit au saule son écorce;
Et lui, le Tout-Puissant, Créateur de la Force,
Debout, il alluma, comme un divin fanal,
La Pipe de la Paix. Debout sur la Carrière
Il fumait, droit, superbe et baigné de lumière.
Or pour les nations c'était le grand signal.

Et lentement montait la divine fumée
Dans l'air doux du matin, onduleuse, embaumée.
Et d'abord ce ne fut qu'un sillon ténébreux;
Puis la vapeur se fit plus bleue et plus épaisse,
Puis blanchit; et montant, et grossissant sans cesse,
Elle alla se briser au dur plafond des cieux.

Des plus lointains sommets des Montagnes Rocheuses,
Depuis les lacs du Nord aux ondes tapageuses,
Depuis Tawasentha, le vallon sans pareil,
Jusqu'à Tuscaloosa, la forêt parfumée,
Tous virent le signal et l'immense fumée
Montant paisiblement dans le matin vermeil.

Les Prophètes disaient: «Voyez-vous cette bande
De vapeur, qui, semblable à la main qui commande,
Oscille et se détache en noir sur le soleil?
C'est Gitche Manito, le Maître de la Vie,
Qui dit aux quatre coins de l'immense prairie:
'Je vous convoque tous, guerriers, à mon conseil!'.»

Par le chemin des eaux, par la route des plaines,
Par les quatre côtés d'où soufflent les haleines
Du vent, tous les guerriers de chaque tribu, tous,
Comprenant le signal du nuage qui bouge,
Vinrent docilement à la Carrière Rouge
Où Gitche Manito leur donnait rendez-vous.

Les guerriers se tenaient sur la verte prairie,
Tous èquipés en guerre, et la mine aguerrie,
Bariolés ainsi qu'un feuillage automnal;
Et la haine qui fait combattre tous les êtres,
La haine qui brûlait les yeux de leurs ancêtres
Incendiait encor leurs yeux d'un feu fatal.

Et leurs yeux étaient pleins de haine héréditaire.
Or Gitche Manito, le Maître de la Terre,
Les considérait tous avec compassion,
Comme un père très-bon, ennemi du désordre,
Qui voit ses chers petits batailler et se mordre.
Tel Gitche Manito pour toute nation.

Il étendit sur eux sa puissante main droite
Pour subjuguer leur coeur et leur nature étroite,
Pour rafraîchir leur fièvre à l'ombre de sa main;
Puis il leur dit avec sa voix majestueuse,
Comparable à la voix d'une eau tumultueuse
Qui tombe et rend un son monstrueux, surhumain:

II.
«O ma postérité, déplorable et chérie!
O mes fils! écoutez la divine raison.
C'est Gitche Manito, le Maître de la Vie,
Qui vous parle! Celui qui dans votre patrie
A mis l'ours, le castor, le renne et le bison.

Je vous ai fait la chasse et la pêche faciles;
Pourquoi donc le chasseur devient-il assassin?
Le marais fut par moi peuple de volatiles;
Pourquoi n'êtes-vous pas contents, fils indociles?
Pourquoi l'homme fait-il la chasse à son voisin?

Je suis vraiment bien las de vos horribles guerres.
Vos prières, vos voeux mêmes sont des forfaits!
Le péril est pour vous dans vos humeurs contraires,
Et c'est dans l'union qu'est votre force. En frères
Vivez donc, et sachez vous maintenir en paix.

Bientôt vous recevrez de ma main un Prophète
Qui viendra vous instruire et souffrir avec vous.
Sa parole fera de la vie une fête;
Mais si vous méprisez sa sagesse parfaite,
Pauvres enfants maudits, vous disparaîtrez tous!

Effacez dans les flots vos couleurs meurtrières.
Les roseaux sont nombreux et le roc est épais;
Chacun en peut tirer sa pipe. Plus de guerres,
Plus de sang! Désormais vivez comme des frères,
Et tous, unis, fumez le Calumet de Paix!»

III.
Et soudain tous, jetant leurs armes sur la terre,
Lavent dans le ruisseau les couleurs de la guerre
Qui luisaient sur leurs fronts cruels et triomphants.
Chacun creuse une pipe et cueille sur la rive
Un long roseau qu'avec adresse il enjolive.
Et l'Esprit souriait à ses pauvres enfants!

Chacun s'en retourna l'âme calme et ravie,
Et Gitche Manito, le Maître de la Vie,
Remonta par la porte entr'ouverte des cieux.
— À travers la vapeur splendide du nuage
Le Tout-Puissant montait, content de son ouvrage,
Immense, parfumé, sublime, radieux!

Alchimie de la douleur/Horreur sympathique

2008-11-11T07:05:00.000-08:00

My kingdom for a warm atmosphere. I don't think man was meant for a life that requires him to wear more clothes to bed than he does when he walks around outside. My life may or may not be more worth living if I had the good fortune to dwell in a house where the heat worked. That said, it only seems to be a problem when I have to drag myself out of my warm bed and into the cruel morning air. Groargh. Maybe I will start sitting in the bathroom with the shower on. It would open up my pores.

I am rediscovering books.

The Alchemy of Grief
The one lights you with his fervor,
The other puts his grief into you, Nature!
That which says to the one: Sepulcher!
Says to the other: Life and splendor!

Unknown Hermes who assists me
And who always restrains me,
You render me the equal of Midas,
The saddest of alchemists;

For you I change gold into iron
And Heaven into Hell;
In the shroud of the clouds

I discover a beloved cadaver,
And on the celestial shores
I build great sarcophagi.

Alchimie de la douleur
L'un t'éclaire avec son ardeur,
L'autre en toi met son deuil, Nature!
Ce qui dit à l'un: Sépulture!
Dit à l'autre: Vie et splendeur!

Hermès inconnu qui m'assistes
Et qui toujours m'intimidas,
Tu me rends l'égal de Midas,
Le plus triste des alchimistes;

Par toi je change l'or en fer
Et le paradis en enfer;
Dans le suaire des nuages

Je découvre un cadavre cher,
Et sur les célestes rivages
Je bâtis de grands sarcophages.

Sympathetic Horror
From the bizarre and livid sky,
Tormented as your destiny,
What thoughts into your empty soul
Descend? Respond, libertine.

—Insatiably greedy
For the obscure and the uncertain,
I will not moan like Ovid
Chased from Latin paradise.

Skies torn up like the shores
In you my pride is reflected;
Your great clouds in mourning

Are the hearses of my dreams,
And your glimmers are the reflection
Of the Hell where my heart is pleased.

Horreur sympathique
De ce ciel bizarre et livide,
Tourmenté comme ton destin,
Quels pensers dans ton âme vide
Descendent? réponds, libertin.

— Insatiablement avide
De l'obscur et de l'incertain,
Je ne geindrai pas comme Ovide
Chassé du paradis latin.

Cieux déchirés comme des grèves
En vous se mire mon orgueil;
Vos vastes nuages en deuil

Sont les corbillards de mes rêves,
Et vos lueurs sont le reflet
De l'Enfer où mon coeur se plaît.

Le Goût du néant

2008-11-10T07:13:00.000-08:00

Baby, wishes she felt nothing. Just optimism and a turning of the stomach.

The Taste for Nothingness
Doleful spirit, once in love with the fight,
Hope, whose spur stirred up the fervor,
No longer wishes to mount you! Lie down without shame,
Old horse whose foot stumbles over every obstruction.

Resign yourself, my heart; sleep your beastly sleep.

Spirit vanquished, exhausted! For you, ancient marauder,
Love no longer has taste, no more than quarrel;
Goodbye then, songs of brass and sighs of the flute!
Pleasures, no longer tempt a somber and sulky heart!

Adorable Springtime has lost its scent!

And Time devours me minute by minute,
Like the immense snow a body taken with stiffness;
—I contemplate from on high the globe and the roundness
And there I no longer seek the shelter of a shack.

Avalanche, will you take me into your fall?

Le Goût du néant
Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte,
L'Espoir, dont l'éperon attisait ton ardeur,
Ne veut plus t'enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur,
Vieux cheval dont le pied à chaque obstacle butte.

Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute.

Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur,
L'amour n'a plus de goût, non plus que la dispute;
Adieu donc, chants du cuivre et soupirs de la flûte!
Plaisirs, ne tentez plus un coeur sombre et boudeur!

Le Printemps adorable a perdu son odeur!

Et le Temps m'engloutit minute par minute,
Comme la neige immense un corps pris de roideur;
— Je contemple d'en haut le globe en sa rondeur
Et je n'y cherche plus l'abri d'une cahute.
Avalanche, veux-tu m'emporter dans ta chute?
----

Parties, dramas, lies, lies, lies. My pale daisy, your eyes have lost their soul. I don't miss you, just the visceral reactions that you cause. I wanted to say that I loved the idea of you. But no. Stupid people, double standards, too much booze and angst.

Right.

Obsession

2008-11-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to our new President-Elect. I know you will try to heal this country. I just wish I had a more optimistic poem to post. Ah well. Such is the nature of M. Baudelaire.

Obsession
Great woods, you frighten me like cathedrals;
You howl like the organ; and in our cursed hearts,
Chambers of eternal grief where old groans quiver,
Answering the echoes of your De profundis.

I hate you, Ocean! Your leaps and your turmoil,
My spirit finds them within itself; this bitter laugh
Of the vanquished man, full of sobs and insults,
I hear it in the enormous laughter of the sea

As you would please me, oh night! Without these stars
Whose light speaks a known language!
Because I search the empty, and the dark, and the bare!

But the darkness herself is a canvas,
Where live, springing from my eye by the thousands,
Vanishing beings with familiar looks.

Obsession
Grands bois, vous m'effrayez comme des cathédrales;
Vous hurlez comme l'orgue; et dans nos coeurs maudits,
Chambres d'éternel deuil où vibrent de vieux râles,
Répondent les échos de vos De profundis.

Je te hais, Océan! tes bonds et tes tumultes,
Mon esprit les retrouve en lui; ce rire amer
De l'homme vaincu, plein de sanglots et d'insultes,
Je l'entends dans le rire énorme de la mer

Comme tu me plairais, ô nuit! sans ces étoiles
Dont la lumière parle un langage connu!
Car je cherche le vide, et le noir, et le nu!

Mais les ténèbres sont elles-mêmes des toiles
Où vivent, jaillissant de mon oeil par milliers,
Des êtres disparus aux regards familiers.
----

Oh stupid boy, I never think on you voluntarily. Get off your high horse and see the beauty on this earth.

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

2008-10-31T06:12:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-10-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-10-17T10:43:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-14T05:52:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-13T12:34:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-13T06:06:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-02T08:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-01T07:06:00.000-07:00

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.

Tristesses de la lune

2008-09-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

All I can say is that this poem was FUN to discuss in class, since no one in that entire room was okay with talking about anything even remotely taboo.

Sadness of the Moon
This evening the moon dreams with more laziness;
Like a beautiful woman, on numerous cushions,
With a light and distracted hand caresses
The contours of her breasts before going to sleep,

On the satin back of the soft avalanches,
Fading, she delivers herself to lengthy swoons,
And walks her eyes over white visions
That rise into the sky like blossoms.

When sometimes on this earth, in her idle languor,
She lets a secret tear slip out,
A pious poet, enemy of sleep,

Picks up this pale tear in the hollow of his hand,
With the iridescent reflection like a fragment of opal,
And places it in his heart far from the eyes of the sun.

Tristesses de la lune
Ce soir, la lune rêve avec plus de paresse;
Ainsi qu'une beauté, sur de nombreux coussins,
Qui d'une main distraite et légère caresse
Avant de s'endormir le contour de ses seins,

Sur le dos satiné des molles avalanches,
Mourante, elle se livre aux longues pâmoisons,
Et promène ses yeux sur les visions blanches
Qui montent dans l'azur comme des floraisons.

Quand parfois sur ce globe, en sa langueur oisive,
Elle laisse filer une larme furtive,
Un poète pieux, ennemi du sommeil,

Dans le creux de sa main prend cette larme pâle,
Aux reflets irisés comme un fragment d'opale,
Et la met dans son coeur loin des yeux du soleil.

Sonnet d'automne

2008-09-24T18:41:00.000-07:00

And here I am. Back from the North, exhausted, slightly weirded out, and somehow residually heartbroken.

Autumn Sonnet
They say to me, your eyes, clear like crystal:
“For you, strange love, what then is my merit?”
—Be charming and keep yourself quiet! My heart, which irritates all,
Except for the candor of the ancient animal,

I do not wish to show you her infernal secret,
Lullaby whose hands invited me to sleep,
Or her black legend written with the flame.
I hate the passion and the spirit does me evil!

Let us love quietly. Love in the sentry box,
Dark, ambushed, tenses his fatal bow.
I know the machines of her old arsenal:

Crime, horror and madness! —Oh pale daisy!
Are you not, like me, an autumn sun,
Oh my Marguerite, so white, so cold?

Sonnet d'automne
Ils me disent, tes yeux, clairs comme le cristal:
«Pour toi, bizarre amant, quel est donc mon mérite?»
— Sois charmante et tais-toi! Mon coeur, que tout irrite,
Excepté la candeur de l'antique animal,

Ne veut pas te montrer son secret infernal,
Berceuse dont la main aux longs sommeils m'invite,
Ni sa noire légende avec la flamme écrite.
Je hais la passion et l'esprit me fait mal!

Aimons-nous doucement. L'Amour dans sa guérite,
Ténébreux, embusqué, bande son arc fatal.
Je connais les engins de son vieil arsenal:

Crime, horreur et folie! — Ô pâle marguerite!
Comme moi n'es-tu pas un soleil automnal,
Ô ma si blanche, ô ma si froide Marguerite?

Le Revenant

2008-09-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

It will never be the beauty of drama that will know to satisfy a heart like mine.

Boy drama. Work drama. Well, at least my toe isn't broken like I thought it was.

Speak.

The Ghost
Like the angels with the tawny eye,
I will return to your alcove
And I will glide toward you silently
With the shadows of the night;

And I will give you, my brown one,
Kisses cold like the moon
Caresses of a serpent
Crawling around a grave.

When livid morning will come,
You will find my empty place,
Where until the night it will be cold.

As others by affection,
Over your life and over your youth,
Me, I wish to reign by terror.

Le Revenant
Comme les anges à l'oeil fauve,
Je reviendrai dans ton alcôve
Et vers toi glisserai sans bruit
Avec les ombres de la nuit;

Et je te donnerai, ma brune,
Des baisers froids comme la lune
Et des caresses de serpent
Autour d'une fosse rampant.

Quand viendra le matin livide,
Tu trouveras ma place vide,
Où jusqu'au soir il fera froid.

Comme d'autres par la tendresse,
Sur ta vie et sur ta jeunesse,
Moi, je veux régner par l'effroi.
---

Ah, your coldness is so beautiful to me.

Moesta et errabunda

2008-09-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

Still tired. But happier.

Moesta et errabunda
Tell me does your heart sometimes take flight, Agatha,
Far from the black ocean of the filthy city
Towards another ocean where splendor exploded,
Blue, clear, deep, as virginity.
Tell me does your heart sometimes take flight, Agatha?

Sea, massive sea, comfort our toil!
What demon has endowed the sea, husky singer
Who accompanies the great organ of the scolding winds,
Of that sublime purpose of lullaby singing.
Sea, massive sea, comfort our toil!

Take me, carriage! Remove me, frigate!
Far! Far! Here the mud is made of our tears!
Is it true sometimes the sad heart of Agatha
Says: Far from remorse, from crime, from pain,
Take me, carriage! Remove me, frigate!

How you are far, perfumed paradise,
Where under a clear sky all is only love and joy,
Where all that which one loves is worthy of being loved,
Where in the pure pleasure the heart drowns,
How you are far, perfumed paradise!

But the green paradise of childish loves,
The races, songs, kisses, bouquets,
The violins vibrating behind the hills,
With the pitchers of wine, the evening, in the groves,
—But the green paradise of childish loves

The innocent paradise, full of fleeting pleasures,
Is it already farther than India or China?
Can one recall it with mournful cries,
And bring it to life again with a silvery voice,
The innocent paradise, full of fleeting pleasures?

Moesta et errabunda
Dis-moi ton coeur parfois s'envole-t-il, Agathe,
Loin du noir océan de l'immonde cité
Vers un autre océan où la splendeur éclate,
Bleu, clair, profond, ainsi que la virginité?
Dis-moi, ton coeur parfois s'envole-t-il, Agathe?

La mer la vaste mer, console nos labeurs!
Quel démon a doté la mer, rauque chanteuse
Qu'accompagne l'immense orgue des vents grondeurs,
De cette fonction sublime de berceuse?
La mer, la vaste mer, console nos labeurs!

Emporte-moi wagon! enlève-moi, frégate!
Loin! loin! ici la boue est faite de nos pleurs!
— Est-il vrai que parfois le triste coeur d'Agathe
Dise: Loin des remords, des crimes, des douleurs,
Emporte-moi, wagon, enlève-moi, frégate?

Comme vous êtes loin, paradis parfumé,
Où sous un clair azur tout n'est qu'amour et joie,
Où tout ce que l'on aime est digne d'être aimé,
Où dans la volupté pure le coeur se noie!
Comme vous êtes loin, paradis parfumé!

Mais le vert paradis des amours enfantines,
Les courses, les chansons, les baisers, les bouquets,
Les violons vibrant derrière les collines,
Avec les brocs de vin, le soir, dans les bosquets,
— Mais le vert paradis des amours enfantines,

L'innocent paradis, plein de plaisirs furtifs,
Est-il déjà plus loin que l'Inde et que la Chine?
Peut-on le rappeler avec des cris plaintifs,
Et l'animer encor d'une voix argentine,
L'innocent paradis plein de plaisirs furtifs?

À une Dame créole

2008-09-17T07:19:00.000-07:00

This poem is short, but the next one is not so I am posting this by itself.

Someday I will learn that when one has to get up at 7:15 it is generally not a good idea to stay up till 3 the night before, no matter how good it feels at the time.

La-di-da. The LSATs are killing my brain and raping my creativity. I wish I knew what could be done about this.

To a Creole Woman
In the perfumed country that the sun caresses,
I have known under a canopy of trees all made crimson
And palms from which idleness rains down on the eyes,
A Creole lady with unknown charms.

Her skin is pale and warm, the brown enchantress
Has in the neck noble-mannered ways;
Great and slender walking like a huntress,
Her smile is tranquil and her eyes assured.

If you went, Madam, to the true land of glory,
On the banks of the Seine or the green Loire,
Beauty worthy of gracing the ancient manors,

You would make, in the shelter of shadowed sanctums
A thousand sonnets sprout in the hearts of poets,
Whom your great eyes would render more submissive than your slaves.

À une Dame créole
Au pays parfumé que le soleil caresse,
J'ai connu, sous un dais d'arbres tout empourprés
Et de palmiers d'où pleut sur les yeux la paresse,
Une dame créole aux charmes ignorés.

Son teint est pâle et chaud; la brune enchanteresse
A dans le cou des airs noblement maniérés;
Grande et svelte en marchant comme une chasseresse,
Son sourire est tranquille et ses yeux assurés.

Si vous alliez, Madame, au vrai pays de gloire,
Sur les bords de la Seine ou de la verte Loire,
Belle digne d'orner les antiques manoirs,

Vous feriez, à l'abri des ombreuses retraites
Germer mille sonnets dans le coeur des poètes,
Que vos grands yeux rendraient plus soumis que vos noirs.

-----

Also, bought this book. It is fucking magnificent.

Franciscae meae laudes

2008-09-16T05:46:00.000-07:00

So Baudelaire pulled a nasty trick and decided to write a poem in Latin. While my French is shaky at best, my Latin is completely and utterly non-existent. So I found This Website which gave me a French translation of the Latin. I don't know if Baudelaire wrote it but it's close enough I guess. My English is more horrendous than usual since it is in fact the second time this has been translated out. Oh yeah, and the formatting is also a hell of my own making.

“Praises” in honor of my Frances
I will sing of you in a new way,
Oh precious one, who frolics
In the solitude of my heart.

Be covered with garlands;
Oh exquisite woman
Grace that absolves the sins!

I will drink kisses
Like a beneficent Lethe
In you from where emanates a magnetic attraction.

When the storm of vices
Swept all the paths,
You appeared, Deity,

Like the savior star
Upon the ugly shipwrecks…
My heart is hung on your altars!

Pool full of virtue,
Source of eternal youth,
Return the words to my speechless lips!

That which is rotten, you have burned,
Too course, you have smoothed over;
Feeble, you have strengthened.

Hostel in my dearth,
Light in my night,
Guide me on the upright road.

Add now strength to my strength,
Bath of gentleness all perfumed
With sweet odors!

Sparkle about my loins,
Oh girdle of chastity,
Colored with seraphic water;

Cup brilliant with gems,
Salted bread, delicate dish,
Heavenly wine, oh Frances!

"Laudes" en l'honneur de ma Françoise
Sur un mode nouveau je te chanterai,
O mignonne qui t'ébats
Dans la solitude de mon coeur.

Sois couverte de guirlandes;
O femme exquise
Grâce à qui sont absous les péchés!

Je puiserai des baisers
Comme un bienfaisant Léthé
En toi d'où émane un attrait magnétique.

Quand la tempête des vices
Balayait tous les sentiers,
Tu parus, Déité,

Comme l'étoile salvatrice
Dans les naufrages amers ...
Que mon coeur soit pendu à tes autels!

Piscine pleine de vertu,
Source d'éternelle jeunesse,
Rends la parole à mes lèvres muettes!

Ce qui était pourri, tu l'as brûlé;
Trop grossier, tu l'as aplani;
Débile, tu l'as affermi.

Auberge dans ma disette,
Lumière dans ma nuit,
Guide-moi sur le droit chemin.

Ajoute maintenant des forces à mes forces,
Bain de douceur tout parfumé
D'odeurs suaves!

Étincelle autour de mes reins,
O ceinture de chasteté,
Teinte d'une eau séraphique;

Coupe brillante de pierreries,
Pain salé, mets délicat,
Vin divin, ô Françoise!

Franciscae meae laudes
Novis te cantabo chordis,
O novelletum quod ludis
In solitudine cordis.

Esto sertis implicata,
Ô femina delicata
Per quam solvuntur peccata!

Sicut beneficum Lethe,
Hauriam oscula de te,
Quae imbuta es magnete.

Quum vitiorum tempegtas
Turbabat omnes semitas,
Apparuisti, Deitas,

Velut stella salutaris
In naufragiis amaris.....
Suspendam cor tuis aris!

Piscina plena virtutis,
Fons æternæ juventutis
Labris vocem redde mutis!

Quod erat spurcum, cremasti;
Quod rudius, exaequasti;
Quod debile, confirmasti.

In fame mea taberna
In nocte mea lucerna,
Recte me semper guberna.

Adde nunc vires viribus,
Dulce balneum suavibus
Unguentatum odoribus!

Meos circa lumbos mica,
O castitatis lorica,
Aqua tincta seraphica;

Patera gemmis corusca,
Panis salsus, mollis esca,
Divinum vinum, Francisca!

Sisina/Vers pour le portrait de M. Honoré Daumier

2008-09-15T11:51:00.000-07:00

Tired.
But in an excellent way.

Sisina
Imagine Diana in gallant company,
Striding through the forests or beating the thickets,
Hair and breasts in the wind, drunk from the uproar,
Wondrous, defying the best cavaliers!

Have you seen Théroigne, lover of carnage,
Exciting to assault a barefoot mass,
The eye and the cheek on fire, playing her character,
And mounting, sword in hand, the royal staircase?

Such is Sisina! But the sweet warrior’s
Soul is as charitable as it is murderous;
Her courage, demented by powder and by drums,

Before the suppliants knows to put down the arms,
And her heart, ravaged by the flame, has always,
For he who proves worthy, a reservoir of tears.

Sisina
Imaginez Diane en galant équipage,
Parcourant les forêts ou battant les halliers,
Cheveux et gorge au vent, s'enivrant de tapage,
Superbe et défiant les meilleurs cavaliers!

Avez-vous vu Théroigne, amante du carnage,
Excitant à l'assaut un peuple sans souliers,
La joue et l'oeil en feu, jouant son personnage,
Et montant, sabre au poing, les royaux escaliers?

Telle la Sisina! Mais la douce guerrière
À l'âme charitable autant que meurtrière;
Son courage, affolé de poudre et de tambours,

Devant les suppliants sait mettre bas les armes,
Et son coeur, ravagé par la flamme, a toujours,
Pour qui s'en montre digne, un réservoir de larmes.

Verses for the Portrait of M. Honoré Daumier
The one whose image we offer to you,
And whose art, subtle above all,
Teaches us to laugh at ourselves,
That one, reader, is a sage.

He is a satirist, a mocker,
But the energy with which
He paints Evil and her repercussions
Proves the beauty of his heart.

His laughter is not the grimace
Of Melmoth or Mephisto
Under the torch of Alecto,
Which burns them, but which freezes us,

Their laughter, alas! Of gaiety
It is only a painful load;
He radiates it, straight and wide,
Like an omen of his goodness!

Vers pour le portrait de M. Honoré Daumier
Celui dont nous t'offrons l'image,
Et dont l'art, subtil entre tous,
Nous enseigne à rire de nous,
Celui-là, lecteur, est un sage.

C'est un satirique, un moqueur;
Mais l'énergie avec laquelle
Il peint le Mal et sa séquelle
Prouve la beauté de son coeur.

Son rire n'est pas la grimace
De Melmoth ou de Méphisto
Sous la torche de l'Alecto
Qui les brûle, mais qui nous glace,

Leur rire, hélas! de la gaieté
N'est que la douloureuse charge;
Le sien rayonne, franc et large,
Comme un signe de sa bonté!

Chanson d'Après-midi

2008-09-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

I suppose it's true that new prospects bring new life, even if said prospect will probably end up being nothing more than a fling if it even matures at all. That's alright. I have the power to forget, and since I am taking the day off tomorrow I won't have to worry about seeing him and worrying about it even more. Ach.

So it's 10 in the morning on what is technically my Friday. Afternoon song!

Afternoon Song
When your vicious eyebrows
Give you a funny air
Which is not that of an angel,
Sorceress with enticing eyes,

I adore you, my flighty one,
My terrible passion!
With the devotion
Of the priest for his idol.

The desert and the forest
Embalm your rough tresses,
Your head has the bearing
Of mystery and secrecy.

Over your flesh the perfumed prowled
As around a censer;
You charm the evening
Dark and turbulent nymph.

Ah! The strongest philters
Are less than your idleness,
And you know the caress
That makes the dead live again!

Your hips are in love
With your back and your breasts,
And you delight the cushions
With your languorous poses.

Sometimes, in order to pacify
Your mysterious rage,
You lavish, earnestly,
Bites and kisses;

You tear me, my brown one,
With a mocking laugh,
And you can put on my heart
Your eyes soft like the moon.

Under your satin slippers,
Under your charming silken feet
Me, I put my great joy,
My genius and my fortune,

My heart healed by you,
By you, light and color,
Warm explosion
Into my black Siberia.

Chanson d'Après-midi
Quoique tes sourcils méchants
Te donnent un air étrange
Qui n'est pas celui d'un ange,
Sorcière aux yeux alléchants,

Je t'adore, ô ma frivole,
Ma terrible passion!
Avec la dévotion
Du prêtre pour son idole.

Le désert et la forêt
Embaument tes tresses rudes,
Ta tête a les attitudes
De l'énigme et du secret.

Sur ta chair le parfum rôde
Comme autour d'un encensoir;
Tu charmes comme le soir
Nymphe ténébreuse et chaude.

Ah! les philtres les plus forts
Ne valent pas ta paresse,
Et tu connais la caresse
Ou fait revivre les morts!

Tes hanches sont amoureuses
De ton dos et de tes seins,
Et tu ravis les coussins
Par tes poses langoureuses.

Quelquefois, pour apaiser
Ta rage mystérieuse,
Tu prodigues, sérieuse,
La morsure et le baiser;

Tu me déchires, ma brune,
Avec un rire moqueur,
Et puis tu mets sur mon coeur
Ton oeil doux comme la lune.

Sous tes souliers de satin,
Sous tes charmants pieds de soie
Moi, je mets ma grande joie,
Mon génie et mon destin,

Mon âme par toi guérie,
Par toi, lumière et couleur!
Explosion de chaleur
Dans ma noire Sibérie!