So much more hungry than either him or her
I yearned for a taste of iambic pentameter
I went to the Poetry And Polenta Cafe
From a woodblock stage, someone did say
"On with the show, we must go
Now presenting...Artie Rimbow"
He wore a beret from head to toe
Houselights dimmed to lower than midnight
When the wool-covered poet began to recite
Let it come, let it come,
the time that one can fall in love with!
I've been patient so long
that I'm forever forgetting.
Fear and suffering
have departed for the skies.
And an unwholesome thirst
darkens my veins.
Let it come, let it come,
the time that one can fall in love with!
Like the meadow
consigned to oblivion,
grown and blossoming
with incense and darnels,
amid the fierce buzzing
of the filthy flies.
Let it come, let it come,
the time that one can fall in love with!
********************
Then I woke and began to edit
Hoping for this poem, I could take credit
Thinking "Artie Rimbow" was a complete fiction
I love when things are contrary to contradiction
I dreamt a scene about absurd youth
But what follows is absolute truth.
The poem was written in ≈ 1873 by Arthur Rimbaud
In French, the title was Chanson de la plus haute tour
(Song of the Highest Tower)
I handtyped the poem from my dog-eared, rain-stained
(but hardly read) copy of this book.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Why didn't you simply give the entire page
ReplyDeleteto nothing but the Arthur Rimbaud poem?
Sometimes, for me, simplicity is an impossibilty.
ReplyDeleteMaybe if Mrs. CarPeo had sent me the poem
but she is sleeping soundly at this hour.
The correct pronunciation of the first syllable
ReplyDeleteof Arthur's surname: it rhymes with Prom.
The second syllable is Bow, as in
Bow and Arrow.