RIMBAUD
"The poet makes himself a seer by a long, prodigious, and rational
disordering of all the senses. Every form of love, of suffering, of
madness; he searches himself, he consumes all the poisons in him, and
keeps only their quintessences."
Consider this post your chance to post whatever you like about poetry here and elsewhere in this world, to drop in favorite poems and songs in part or in whole that mean the world to you, to do whatever you like. Thanks, Joe.
"ONCE, IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME WELL"
Once, if my memory serves me well, my life was a banquet where every heart revealed itself, where every wine flowed.
One evening I took Beauty in my arms-- and I thought her bitter-- and I insulted her.
I steeled myself against justice.
I fled. O witches, O misery, O hate, my treasure was left in your care...
I have withered within me all human hope. With the silent leap of a sullen beast, I have downed and strangled every joy.
I have called for executioners; I want to perish chewing on their gun butts. I have called for plagues, to suffocate in sand and blood. Unhappiness has been my god. I have lain down in the mud, and dried myself off in the crime-infested air. I have played the fool to the point of madness.
And springtime brought me the frightful laugh of an idiot.
Now recently, when I found myself ready to croak! I thought to seek the key to the banquet of old, where I might find an appetite again.
That key is Charity. (This idea proves I was dreaming!)
"You will stay a hyena, etc....," shouts the demon who once crowned me with such pretty poppies. "Seek death with all your desires, and all selfishness, and all the Seven Deadly Sins."
Ah, I've taken too much of that; still, dear Satan, don't look so annoyed, I beg you! And while waiting for a few belated cowardices, since you value in a writer all lack of descriptive or didactic flair, I pass you these few foul pages from the diary of a Damned Soul.
"from A Season in Hell"
Arthur Rimbaud
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