Les Fleurs du Mal
During my Longhair-Rebelloious-Nightclub Bouncer – Jack Daniel- Days, I discovered Les Fleurs du Mal, by Charles Baudelaire. He was a 19th Century French poet who took part in the Revolution of 1848 and was known in artistic circles as a dandy. I devoured Les Fleures du Mal reading and rereading 176 pages of Richard Howards translation. It was as if Baudelaire had peered into the depth my soul. His words were intoxicating and true.
The Fountain of Blood
Sometimes I feel my blood is spilling out in sobs the way a fountain overflows. I know I hear it, sighing as it goes, and search my flesh, but cannot find the wound:
it turns the stones to archipelagoes, as if the city were a battleground, slaking the thirst of every living thing and dyeing all the world of nature red.
How often have I called for wine to drug, if only for a day, this wasting fear – my ears grow sharp on wine, my eyes grow clear!
In love I’ve sought an hour’s oblivion – but love to me is a pallet stuffed with pins that drains away my blood for whores to drink!
