Rimbaud

[Alejandro C]

Mes Petites Amoureuses



Un hydrolat lacrymal lave
les cieux vert-chou:
sous l'arbre tendronnier qui bave,
vos caoutchoucs

Blancs de lunes particulieres
aux pialats ronds,
entrechoquez vos genouilleres
mes laiderons!

Nous nous aimions a cette epoque,
bleu laideron!
on mangeait des oeufs a la coque
et du mouron!

Un soir, tu me sacras poete,
blond laideron:
descends ici, que je te fouette
en mon giron;

J'ai defueule ta bandoline,
noir laideron;
tu couperais ma mandoline
au fil du front

Pouah! mes salives dessechees,
roux liaderon
infectent encor les tranchees
de ton sein rond!

O mes petites amoureuses,
que je vous hais!
plaquez de fouffes douloureuses
vos tetons laids!

Pietinez mes vieilles terrines
de sentiment;
-hop donc! soyez-moi ballerines
pour un moment!

Vos omoplates se deboitent,
o mes amours!
une etoile a vos reins qui boitent,
tournez vos tours!

Et c'est pourtant pour ces eclanches
que j'ai rime!
Je voudrais vous casser les hanches
d'avoir aime!

Fade amas d'etoiles ratees,
comblez les coins!
-vous creverez en dieu, batees
d'ignobles soins!

Sous les lunes particulieres
aux pialats ronds,
entrechoquez vos genouilleres,
mes laiderons!





This is one of my favorite Rimbaud poems, though certainly not his best. I chose to take french for four years with Rimbauds poetry specifically in mind. now that i have taken it, i still hardly understand it, though it does sound much better than the english translation when i read it aloud.

Rimbaud is the greatest of the french poets, and one of the greatest the world has ever seen. he is the original enfant terrible. his only real heir has been an american named William Burroughs. Do any of the rest of you know the name Arthur Rimbaud?

[Mano Dayak]

Yes, I do, although I have never read his stuff. Poetry isn't my speciality.

[Alejandro C]

well, Rimbaud is among my most admired people, probably second to Che. He was born in 1848(?) in charleville. He seemed to be a child prodigy, but one of the most unusual child prodigies- a poet. He quickly digested and became disgusted with most of the old and contemporary french poets. when he was 16 he had written some of the best french poems and sent them off to paris to well known poets. one of these was paul Verlaine who invited Rimbaud, who he thought was 18, to paris. Rimbaud came scowling into the streets cursing the established poets and insulting them to their faces while astounding them with his writing. he also broke up the Verlaine household after seducing veraline. He was arrested and sent back to charleville where he wrote more. he came back to paris and was arrested, for a short time and released, this was during the first paris commune in 1870. rimbaud then went to live with a group of artists and continuing with his experiments of drugs, esp. hashish and absinthe, he wrote the most advanced poetry paris had seen. He then goes back to charleville and writes two prose pieces- a season in hell and Illuminations.
this was all by the time he was 18. at age 19 he gives up poetry and goes to africa to become a mercenary and a gun-runner. He travels through mostly africa and parts of the middle east, where he gets cancer and dies upon returning to charleville.
Rimbaud, in the 3 or 4 years that he wrote poetry, completely changed the style, breath, and content of french poetry. Most people would give him the credit of creating 'modern' poetry in france.
Rimbaud has been adored by nearly every major artist from bob dylan, to picasso, to jim morrison, as well as all of the american 'beat' writers. He seems to be the child-father of modern art.
his life is just as interesting as his work, I recomend a biography called Rimbaud by Graham Robb. I promise you WILL NOT BE DISSAPOINTED. also his complete poetic works translated into english by Wyatt Mason (also has the french versions for those of you who dont need the english).
I can't say enough about him. so i'll leave you with the begining of my favorite of his works- A Season in Hell-

Jadis, si je me souviens bien, ma vie etait un festin ou s'ouvraient tous les coeurs, ou tous les vins coulaient.
Un soir, j'ai assis la Beaute sur mes genoux. - Et je l'ai trouvee amere. - Et je l'ai injuriee.
Je me suis arme contre la justice.
Je me suis enfui. O sorcieres, o misere, o haine, c'est a vous que mon tresor a ete confie!
Je parvins a faire s'evanouir dans mon esprit toute le'esperance humaine. Sur toute joie pour l'etrangler j'ai fait le bond sourd de la bete feroce.
J'ai appele les bourreaux pour, en perissant, mordre la crosse de leurs fusils. J'ai appele les fleaux, pour m'etouffer avec le sable, le sang. Le malheur a ete mon dieu. Je me suis allonge dans la boue. Je me suis seche a l'air du crime. Et j'ai joue de bons tours a la folie.
Et le printemps m'a apporte le'affreux rire de l'idiot.

OR in English:

Long ago, if memory serves, life was a feast where every heart was open, where every wine flowed.
One night, I sat Beauty on my knee. - And I found her bitter. - And I hurt her.
I took arms against justice.
I feld, entrusting my treasure to you , o witches, o misery, o hate.
I snuffed any hint of human hope from my consciousness. I made the muffled leap of a wild beast onto any hint of joy, to strangle it.
Dying I called to my executioners so I could bite the butts of their riffles. I called plagues to suffocate me with sand, blood. Misfortune was my god. I lay in the mud. I withered in criminal air. And I even tricked madness more than once.
And spring left me with an idiot's unbearable laughter.

[Alejandro C]

Here is a drawing and a painting of Rimbaud that I made

[Alejandro C]

that one's called Pagan Blood Returns/ this one is Alchemy:


by the way i don't have a scanner so these pictures are not the best