by phillipw | Feb 26, 2020 | AR, DE, LO, PA, RI, RO, VE
HMS Implacable “Because you loved me as it had to be.” ~ Paul Verlaine in “To Arthur Rimbaud” We love the thought of love and fate combined. We love the grand idea that lust is out Of our control like earthquakes. Disinclined To...
by phillipw | Feb 25, 2020 | AR, PA, RI, VE
Marriage Proposal Proposal: To exhume the bodies of Two poets, Arthur Rimbaud and Verlaine, And re-entomb them with the one above The other in a common grave—two men Together once again and once again, Forever, one on top. The digging will Be done in...
by phillipw | Feb 25, 2020 | AR, LO, PA, RI, VE
The Shining While Arthur wears a top hat, Paul has shoes Shined—nothing here of poetry. A pipe Pollutes the air, unpoetically. Booze Bridgeman Art Library Ain’t that poetic either, both guys ripe With body odor. Try to write some verse With...
by phillipw | Feb 24, 2020 | AR, PA, RI, VE
A Sentimental Conversation Rambunctiousness invaded Paris for A while when Rimbaud arrived, an army Of one belligerent. Soul of a whore And manners of a rapist of the smarmy Bourgeoisie made him a Communard of Less than a year’s time there. Arthur ran Away to...
by phillipw | Feb 24, 2020 | AR, PA, RI, VE
A Dining Room with Keyboard Music The fourteen months or so that Rimbaud spent In London aren’t enough to make the claim That he was England’s modern man who went To places other poets couldn’t name. Verlaine was pushing boundaries, too, in lines, But his modernity is...
by phillipw | Feb 24, 2020 | AR, PA, RI, VE
Miss Manners I am an ephemeral and a not too discontented citizen of a metropolis considered modern because all known taste has been avoided in the furnishings and the exterior of the houses as well as in the plan of the city. ~ Rimbaud on London A...
