The Poet Laureate of MOMCOM - 2

Rimbaud - le Rambo

In the first post of this series we pondered one or so poets.

But specifically, we focused on Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (pronounced "Rambo") as the poet laureate of The Virgin MOMCOM.

Rambo was chosen because no ordinary, everyday poet could qualify for this MOMCOM who is no ordinary, everyday MOMCOM.

No, this requires a poet who recognizes the leading deceiver in the competition to destroy civilization, which to say the least, is no push over.

Many will say that Poe with his poem The Raven reached some mystical boundaries where many feared to tread, but be that as it may, our friend Poe did not cross over the Rubicon so far, did not pass from solid ground into the mist of ages, did not cast all his fate to the wind, and did not become the representative soul of the oil barons of The Private Empire.

To bolster that notion a wee bit today, let's look at a poem from the Rimster ...

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A Season in Hell

A while back,
if I remember right,
my life was one long party
where all hearts were open wide,
where all wines kept flowing.

One night,
I sat Beauty down on my lap.
And I found her galling.
And I roughed her up.

I armed myself against justice.

I ran away.

O witches,
O misery,
O hatred,
my treasure's been turned over to you!

I managed to make
every trace of human hope
vanish from my mind.

I pounced on every joy
like a ferocious animal
eager to strangle it.

I called for executioners
so that, while dying,
I could bite the butts
of their rifles.

I called for plagues
to choke me with sand,
with blood.

Bad luck was my god.

I stretched out in the muck.
I dried myself
in the air of crime.
And I played tricks on insanity.

And Spring brought me
the frightening
laugh of the idiot.

So, just recently,
when I found myself on the brink
of the final squawk!
it dawned on me to look again
for the key to that ancient party
where I might find
my appetite once more.

Charity is that key.
This inspiration
proves I was dreaming!

"You'll always be a hyena etc. . . ,"
yells the devil,
who'd crowned me
with such pretty poppies.

"Deserve death
with all your appetites,
your selfishness,
and all the capital sins!"

Ah! I've been through too much:
But, sweet Satan,
I beg of you,
a less blazing eye!

and while waiting for the new
little cowardly gestures yet to come,
since you like an absence
of descriptive or didactic skills
in a writer,

let me rip out these
few ghastly pages
from my notebook
of the damned.

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The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.