the wildering glances of a harlot fair
seen gliding toward us like the silver wake
of undulant moonlight on the quivering lake
when Phoebe bathes her languorous beauty there;

the last gold coins a gambler's fingers hold;
the wanton kiss of love-worn Adeline,
the wheedling songs that leave the will supine
— like far-off cries of sorrow unconsoled —

all these, o bottle deep, were never worth
the pungent balsams in thy fertile girth
stored for the pious poet's thirsty heart;

thou pourest hope and youth and strength anew,
— and pride, this treasure of the beggar-crew,
that lifts us like triumphant gods, apart!
Unknown Angry - 16 years, 10 months, 18 days ago

Then the woman with the strawberry mouth,
Squirming like a snake upon the coals,
Kneading her breasts against the iron of her corset,
Let flow these words scented with musk:
— "I have wet lips, and I know the art
Of losing old conscience in the depths of a bed.
I dry all tears on my triumphing breasts
And I make old men laugh with the laughter of children.
For those who see me naked, without any covering,
I am the moon and the sun and the sky and the stars!
I am so dexterous in voluptuous love, my dear, my wise one,
When I strangle a man in my dreadful arms,
Or abandon my breast to his biting,
So shy and lascivious, so frail and vigorous,
That on these cushions that swoon with passion
The powerless angels damn their souls for me!"

When she had sucked the pith from my bones
And, drooping, I turned towards her
To give her the kiss of love, I saw only
An old leather bottle with sticky sides and full of pus!
I shut both eyes in cold dismay
And when I opened them both to clear reality,
By my side, instead of that powerful puppet
Which seemed to have taken some lease of blood,
There shook vaguely the remains of a skeleton,
Which itself gave the cry of a weathercock
Or of a sign-board, at the end of a rod of iron,
Which the wind swings in winter nights.
Unknown Angry - 16 years, 10 months, 18 days ago

In charred and ashen fields without a leaf,
While I alone to Nature told my grief,
I sharpened, as I went, like any dart,
My thought upon the grindstone of my heart —
When by a troop of vicious demons led,
A great black cloud rushed down towards my head.
As loafers at a lunatic they leered
And in my face inquisitively peered.
With nods and signs, like dwarfed and apish elves,
They laughed, and winked, and spoke among themselves.
Unknown Angry - 16 years, 10 months, 18 days ago

You would take the whole world to bed with you,
Impure woman! Ennui makes your soul cruel;
To exercise your teeth at this singular game,
You need a new heart in the rack each day.
Your eyes, brilliant as shop windows
Or as blazing lamp-stands at public festivals,
Insolently use a borrowed power
Without ever knowing the law of their beauty.
Unknown Angry - 16 years, 10 months, 18 days ago

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it--it's the

only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks

your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually

drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be

drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of

a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again,

drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave,

the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything

that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is

singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and

wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be

drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be

continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."
Unknown Angry - 16 years, 11 months, 9 days ago