French Poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)

Today I received a copy of Arthur Rimbaud Complete Works, translated by Paul Schmidt, I had ordered from ebay. Very exciting, his prose poetry is among the best ever written, and his is the classic, tragic story of the decadent, explosive poet. Strangely enough, most of his literary output was created before the tender age of 18, and he abandoned creative writing altogether before he was 21.

I have read some of his work before, and I particularly enjoyed 'A Season In Hell', arguably his best collection of prose poetics, and widely believed to be his creative swan song, his final writings. A brief excerpt from 'A Season In Hell', from the piece entitled 'Second Delirium: The Alchemy Of The Word':

"I became a fabulous opera. I saw that everyone in the world was doomed to happiness. Action isn't life; it's merely a way of ruining a kind of strength, a means of destroying nerves. Morality is water on the brain.

It seemed to me that everyone should have had several other lives as well. This gentleman doesn't know what he's doing; he's an angel. That family is a litter of puppy dogs. With some men, I often talked out loud with a moment from one of their other lives - that's how I happened to love a pig.

Not a single one of the brlliant arguments of madness - the madness that gets locked up - did I forget; I could go through them all again, I've got the system down by heart.

It affected my health. Terror loomed ahead. I would fall again and again into a heavy sleep, which lasted several days at a time, and when I woke up, my sorrowful dreams continued. I was ripe for fatal harvest, and my weakness led me down dangerous roads to the edge of the world, to the Cimmerian shore, the haven of whirlwinds and darkness."

Anticipating the arrival of the book, I had Netflix deliver a copy of 'Total Eclipse', starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Arthur Rimbaud. The movie (which I haven't seen yet) apparently details Rimbaud's relationship with poet Paul Verlaine. I am looking forward to watching the movie and then diving into the book, hopefully enhancing the experience of each.

Trow

Hidden away, deep in his mound, away from the eyes of man, he watches, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, sometimes numb. Other times, he creeps out from his mound, a stunted and twisted thing, into the shadows...

Sometimes he dances in the gusts along the cliff's edge - other times his knife dances along a pale throat. Sometimes, he just rides his bulwand steed, prancing upon the breeze. Fingers flying across a fiddle may capture his soul, sometimes from afar - and other times he grabs the fiddler and holds him close; locked-up, for a year-and-a-day. Kept.

Sometimes his eyes burn into you from the darkness, and your soul shudders.

Someday you may open your eyes, and he will be there, and his knife may dance with you.


~ Paul Ingrassia


http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/trows/

New Cinquain Published

My latest cinquain poem, There and Back Again, has been published at Sketchbook. You can read it here: http://poetrywriting.org/Sketchbook5-3MayJun2010/Sketchbook_5-3_MayJune_2010_I_Paul_Ingrassia.htm.

My next cinquain, Empty Vessels, will be appearing in the July 31 issue of Every Day Poets. An excerpt from the EDP July Table of Contents announcement:

"We start the month going Loco with A J Smith and we have poems from lots of favourite EDP poets this month including Richard O’Donnell, Angel Zapata, Paul Ingrassia, Jennifer Stakes, Rumjhum Biswas, Fehmida Zakeer, Guy Belleranti – I could go on! Hey, it’s a going to be a great month at EDP!"

EDP publishes one poem daily, delivered to your email inbox. To make sure you do not miss out on a single poem by talented poets from around the world, subscribe at: http://www.everydaypoets.com/. If you plug my last name (Ingrassia) in the search box, you will find all my works that have been published at EDP, as well as some other posts in which I am mentioned or referenced. Additionally, one of my cinquain has been selected for inclusion in the first Best of EDP anthology, which should be released soon.

Collecting Crapsey continued

I bought a first edition copy (not sure if it was ever reprinted) of Mary Elizabeth Osborn's Adelaide Crapsey from ebay. This biography is from 1933 and is something I have wanted to read for a very long time. Definitely a score, as it is one of the few better known collectibles associated with Crapsey. It has a tight binding, complete pages, includes the dust jacket (wrapped in a preservative sleeve, like they do at libraries), and is even signed by the author. Some pages have tears on the edges, and the dust jacket has some missing bits around the edges, but overall it is in great shape. At $30 plus 3.50 shipping, it is a most welcome addition to my Crapsey collection.

Sipping Absinthe and Puffing the Breath of Bast

Hanging with the twin green faeries, blowing smoke rings and counting how many drops of ice water it takes to dissolve a sugar cube. Slipping into the funk of the surreal, irreal me, Patti Smith tells me 'bout Joe and then her Skunkdog, warming me up before an Apollyon Sun bathes my brain waves in techno-light. Merry Independence day, though not really sure just how independent my shit is. Are we free, for real, or just free-er than the rest? Free to bitch, to moan, to piss, eternally distracted from what the real problems are. T.K. sailed those waters on his Ship of Fools, but burning hands isn't the answer, as he learned, and we were all taught. Fucked up, really, the man knew his shit, but his delivery sucked. Man + technology = alcoholic + barrel of wine. Brilliant. And now, for something completely different... how fucked up is the oil fountain? I just don't even know what to say, just don't know, we did it now, we really fucked up, we really ass-fucked ourselves now, but who cares, right? Ain't shit we can do, 'cept bitch, and we know where that gets us, just, nowhere, but it feels good to pretend, don't it? Anyhow, back to our regularly scheduled programming of utter bullshit. Patti says dog - god - dog - god, Thomas says god leaves (and dies). I say fuck society and the deity it rode in on ~ or perhaps ~ fuck deity and the society it rode it on... but, I've been there, I've done that, you can find it here. On the bright side, the butterfly bush is beginning to bloom, and hummingbird feeders are like little fast-food franchises for my flittering friends. Gonna slip deeper now, time to blow more smoke rings and melt another sugar cube, time to sail away and keep lying to me, reassuring the happy-go-lucky me that it ain't that bad... really, dude... it ain't... that... bad...

Happy 4th of July with Jerry Only

Jerry Only of the Misfits sings the national anthem:

http://misfits.com/news-details/JerryAnthemfs.html

Happy Birthday to the best country in the world!