Baudelaire so full of woe,
Was desperately keen to show,
That at the heart of everything,
Dark Ennui was thriving.
The Devil behind him,
He grabbed his quill,
And wrote as his hand would ne’er be still –
Such torments, sins, social upheaval, to be later named;
………………………………………………
Enter Baudelaire (In a tone to suggest a man well acquainted with despair…)
Within the seat at my stomach’s heart,
Spleen sets forth his dire dart,
This arrow, this Ennui consumes me whole,
first mind then body and then my soul!
Pawn of Satan is my life now -
Though I’ve taken neither pledge nor vow,
I waltz with Death, his icy touch,
compelling me…er…very much…
The clock is ticking, as ever it will -
To the beat of the grind, the beat of the mill,
My Muse is sick – Death has taken a bride,
This poem is just a farcical ride –
Through torments too evil to freely disclose,
Through sex, opium, rocks and rolls…(ahem…)
So I’ll follow Satan to His dark underworld –
To Paris! Where my snake can unfurl…
And Paris is not as it may first appear,
A city, a people, a traveller can hold dear,
For Ennui showed me the black at the heart -
The maggot that tears the dead flesh apart.
Here I have tasted fair Magdelene’s art,
so rife in the shadows, I knew not where to start!
And once started I gluttoned on sex and excess,
And sex, and more sex, but alas I digress…
I walked the dark streets under cover of night,
Parry to murder, and bedmate of…shite…
So to settle my nerves and appease Ennui,
I took solace with a friend, the seductress, Wi[ne],
She thrilled me and filled me and lost me in dreams,
Of Greece and Rome and all Classical things,
And I learned for she taught that to pray is to feign,
A belief in such things one may never deign.
I learned such dark things as a pawn of Hell,
Though ever troubled, pallid, unwell…
I yearned for the pleasures of Sapphic delight,
And rode with Amazons towards History’s night,
I cursed at the church and turned my sad face –
To the Lord of Misrule, the Fall from Grace,
I asked Him to lead me to take me away,
To a world of freedom, a world with no day.
So I leave you all now with these tales of woe,
From which I’ve become so insufferably low (honest…)
The sun is descending on all that I am,
The world is in chaos and the culprit? MAN!
Yes, you hypocritical sinners one and all!
Damn you! Damn me! Damn the blessed Fall!
Now I take my leave, I’m too empty and numb -
To walk on this earth, so long!
Tiddy bum…
~Esther~