Pieces of Rimbaud at 20

                                                                                                1.

                        The words I wanted to use were washed away in white enamel by the genies of a bad conscience needing relief.
                        Quietly, each sheath was given flight by ruined alchemy, spoiled magic.  When I raised the green-lit bottle to
                        my lips nothing is fluid but cold bodies adorned with mortar flowers, strange petunias maligned with itchy
                        lobes, each with their own special agenda, fluorescent and filthy!!    The taste is not, is simply numb.



                                                                                                  2.

                      There is a ceiling in this wretch of a hotel that my poor brother, Verlaine, has chosen for our abode--far too
                      high class for me.  Committing it to memory, it becomes cracked and flaky just in proportion to the aging of
                      my face, the caulk ravaged slowly.  I am now 60 years old, burning away in Africa, mercury bubbles shooting 
                      through marble shafts in my wretched brain!



                                                                                                     3.

                     I need no cities to feel at home.  Broken windows, stabs at my failed heart, the ruin of this Paris dump happen
                     in smooth funhouse cycles within me.  Not above, but near the chilly nape of my invisibly receding hairline,  I, 
                     who thought myself a Voyant, an angel, above all morality!!!  I grow old as the rainbow blade reflects the number
                     of hairs counted on my head.      


                                                                                                     Merdre.