Une Charogne - Charles Baudelaire

Une Charogne Rappelez-vous l'objet que nous vîmes, mon âme, Ce beau matin d'été si doux: Au détour d'un sentier une charogne infâme Sur un lit semé de cailloux, Les jambes en l'air, comme une femme lubrique, Brûlante et suant les poisons, Ouvrait d'une façon nonchalante et cynique Son ventre plein d'exhalaisons. Le soleil rayonnait sur cette pourriture, Comme afin de la cuire à point, Et de rendre au centuple à la grande Nature Tout ce qu'ensemble elle avait joint; Et le ciel regardait la carcasse superbe Comme une fleur s'épanouir. La puanteur était si forte, que sur l'herbe Vous crûtes vous évanouir. Les mouches bourdonnaient sur ce ventre putride, D'où sortaient de noirs bataillons De larves, qui coulaient comme un épais liquide Le long de ces vivants haillons. Tout cela descendait, montait comme une vague Ou s'élançait en pétillant; On eût dit que le corps, enflé d'un souffle vague, Vivait en se multipliant. Et ce monde rendait une étrange musique, Comme l'eau courante et le vent, Ou le grain qu'un vanneur d'un mouvement rythmique Agite et tourne dans son van. Les formes s'effaçaient et n'étaient plus qu'un rêve, Une ébauche lente à venir Sur la toile oubliée, et que l'artiste achève Seulement par le souvenir. Derrière les rochers une chienne inquiète Nous regardait d'un oeil fâché, Epiant le moment de reprendre au squelette Le morceau qu'elle avait lâché. Et pourtant vous serez semblable à cette ordure, À cette horrible infection, Etoile de mes yeux, soleil de ma nature, Vous, mon ange et ma passion! Oui! telle vous serez, ô la reine des grâces, Apres les derniers sacrements, Quand vous irez, sous l'herbe et les floraisons grasses, Moisir parmi les ossements. Alors, ô ma beauté! dites à la vermine Qui vous mangera de baisers, Que j'ai gardé la forme et l'essence divine De mes amours décomposés! — Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs Du Mal

A Carcass My love, do you recall the object which we saw, That fair, sweet, summer morn! At a turn in the path a foul carcass On a gravel strewn bed, Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman, Burning and dripping with poisons, Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way Its belly, swollen with gases. The sun shone down upon that putrescence, As if to roast it to a turn, And to give back a hundredfold to great Nature The elements she had combined; And the sky was watching that superb cadaver Blossom like a flower. So frightful was the stench that you believed You'd faint away upon the grass. The blow-flies were buzzing round that putrid belly, From which came forth black battalions Of maggots, which oozed out like a heavy liquid All along those living tatters. All this was descending and rising like a wave, Or poured out with a crackling sound; One would have said the body, swollen with a vague breath, Lived by multiplication. And this world gave forth singular music, Like running water or the wind, Or the grain that winnowers with a rhythmic motion Shake in their winnowing baskets. The forms disappeared and were no more than a dream, A sketch that slowly falls Upon the forgotten canvas, that the artist Completes from memory alone. Crouched behind the boulders, an anxious dog Watched us with angry eye, Waiting for the moment to take back from the carcass The morsel he had left. — And yet you will be like this corruption, Like this horrible infection, Star of my eyes, sunlight of my being, You, my angel and my passion! Yes! thus will you be, queen of the Graces, After the last sacraments, When you go beneath grass and luxuriant flowers, To molder among the bones of the dead. Then, O my beauty! say to the worms who will Devour you with kisses, That I have kept the form and the divine essence Of my decomposed love! — William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

What happens if you fall in love with a writer?

Lots of things might happen. That’s the thing about writers. They’re unpredictable. They might bring you eggs in bed for breakfast, or they might all but ignore you for days. They might bring you eggs in bed at three in the morning. Or they might wake you up for sex at three in the morning. Or make love at four in the afternoon. They might not sleep at all. Or they might sleep right through the alarm and forget to get you up for work. Or call you home from work to kill a spider. Or refuse to speak to you after finding out you’ve never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. Or spend the last of the rent money on five kinds of soap. Or sell your textbooks for cash halfway through the semester. Or leave you love notes in your pockets. Or wash you pants with Post-It notes in the pockets so your laundry comes out covered in bits of wet paper. They might cry if the Post-It notes are unread all over your pants. It’s an unpredictable life.

But what happens if a writer falls in love with you?

This is a little more predictable. You will find your hemp necklace with the glass mushroom pendant around the neck of someone at a bus stop in a short story. Your favorite shoes will mysteriously disappear, and show up in a poem. The watch you always wear, the watch you own but never wear, the fact that you’ve never worn a watch: they suddenly belong to characters you’ve never known. And yet they’re you. They’re not you; they’re someone else entirely, but they toss their hair like you. They use the same colloquialisms as you. They scratch their nose when they lie like you. Sometimes they will be narrators; sometimes protagonists, sometimes villains. Sometimes they will be nobodies, an unimportant, static prop. This might amuse you at first. Or confuse you. You might be bewildered when books turn into mirrors. You might try to see yourself how your beloved writer sees you when you read a poem about someone who has your middle name or prose about someone who has never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. These poems and novels and short stories, they will scatter into the wind. You will wonder if you’re wandering through the pages of some story you’ve never even read. There’s no way to know. And no way to erase it. Even if you leave, a part of you will always be left behind.

If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.

by mols

Notes about his Hands, Part 2

Amorous: hot breath, the bra unfastened, skin like a nest of thorns, scent of wood smoke, milk, a tussle of decomposing leaves
Savage: did not attend the termination
Redundant: the couch, the beer
Savage: this won’t hurt a bit
Amorous: the bodies of women on trains
Redundant: don’t ask me again
Savage: hot breath, the bra refastened, skin like a nest of thorns, rain, the shape of water
Remorseful: the flowers, the beer
Remorseful: Yours, Truly &
Redundant: the leaves are back on the trees

- Robyn Art

The Black Marks - Alison Mosshart

Hunter was 7 when he began to notice the first of the black oily marks scrawled on his bedroom wall next to the doorframe. They were straight horizontal lines about 6 inches long. Hunter noticed the marks first, when his father james scolded him for doing it. “Hunter, you do not draw on the walls of this house. That’s terrible behavior! You must never do this again,” he yelled. And Hunter cried.

James tried desperately to remove the marks from his son’s wall. The more he scrubbed, the darker they appeared. James tried to paint over them first with white, but they showed through. Next he tried orange. And then he tried blue. Finally he painted his son’s room red, and by then, gave up; the marks remained.

The first mark was about two and a half feet from the floor. The second was nearly three. The third mark however, was the most interesting mark. It was perfectly the height of Hunter.

Months passed and Hunter and James forgot about the marks. They grew used to them. Hunter had promised never again to write on the walls. But Hunter made this promise only to make his father happy. He knew he had not made them, and every morning when he woke up, Hunter looked at the marks curiously. He would crawl out of bed and run his hand along them on his way to the kitchen before school.

On the morning of his 8th birthday he woke up excited. James had promised Hunter a new bicycle for his birthday and Hunter woke up early hoping it would be waiting for him downstairs. Hunter seached the house tirelessly, the garage, the back yard, but stopped when he heard his father screaming for him. The sound of his fathers voice alarmed him. James was angry. Hunter walked to the base of the stairs with a confused and worried look on his face

i won’t blame you / instead / i will remember the kisses / our lips raw with love / and how you gave me / everything you had / and how i offered you what was left of me, / and i will remember your small room / the feel of you / the light in the window / your records / your books / our morning coffee / our noons / our nights / our bodies spilled together / sleeping / the tiny flowing currents  / immediate and forever  / your leg my leg  / your arm my arm / your smile and the warmth / of you / who made me laugh / again.

- Charles Bukowski, Raw With Love

I should've burned this house down.

I.
Our goldfish died this morning.
I wounded my fingers when I picked up
the broken fragments of the fishbowl
once I threw it against the kitchen wall.
It maddens me that you started lying
of what you think, what you feel
And what you had for dinner.

Remember that time in September.
We were arguing and I threw the fishbowl at you.
And we suddenly stopped
because Aurora might die.
So you rushed to get the teapot and filled it with water.
And we have forgotten why we were fighting in the first place.
But Aurora's dead now.
And I broke the fishbowl again.

Now everything's a mess.
And there's a water puddle in the kitchen floor.
Well I can clean that, but we're not a water puddle
on the kitchen floor.


II.
You are standing on the doorstep.
I wanted to slap you so hard my wrists breaks
but how can I go back to knitting
myself back together
every night when I go to bed
where I used to sleep with you
under paper lights and the shade of the Friday moon?

But the pile of dirty clothes is eating up the bed.
And I swear I really need to do the laundry.
I'm just afraid that the bed would feel empty.
And It's funny how I want you and don't want you back
sleeping on it.

III.
I was gonna tell you to leave but I told you that Aurora died instead.
You stopped me from talking further and
You still taste the same.
And I still feel weak in the knees and I said I was gonna slap you
But my hands hang on my sides.
And all I can do was bite your tongue.
But I didn't.

The afternoon was too warm my eyes felt droopy.
And I really wanted to believe that it's the weather.
And I really wanted to stop myself and scream at you.
But the walls missed you too much
Even the china and the carpet on the bedroom floor.
I wanted to send you away, out of my life

But my voice was black and white.
and your shirt seams were crumpled.
And the last thing I heard was bones cracking
and my eyelids shutting close.

Honeyglazed

I hear the tides caving in.

(Remember when our toes used to touch.
You said, "I can see universes under your skin."
But you never saw the stars exploding,
My galaxies imploding,
Black holes everywhere - sucking me in,
Sucking you in.
You floated into the abyss,
But I was drowning. You knew I couldn't swim.)

I walked and walked again.

(Remember when we used to lay side by side.
We traced constellations on your ceiling.
You said, "Nothing is as fine as the Cassiopeia on your spine."
But I only had four moles.
The fifth one, you made it.
Put out your cigarette on my flesh.
"How beautiful," you said.
I smiled, but I can still feel the sting.)

You stole the moon's gravity,

(Remember when our fingers used to intertwine.
You said, "I can see auroras in your eyes,"
But you can't even remember the color of my pupils.
That one rainy summer afternoon
When we had coffee on your mother's bed
I asked you, "If I wasn't oxygen, 
Would you still take me in?"
You just kissed me.)

And left me by the sea.

Wake

Blunt shards from the broken stained glass window
embroidered by bedbugs underneath her pillow
pierce through her lucid scalp, but not a trace of red.
Burgundy blots stain her silk and lace white bedding:
the aftermath of lust, the regrets of a virgin.