Immobile and mute, eyes lost in the distance? Who can resist golden houses’ calls: so rob!Įat! Behold the joyous night descends in spasms,ĭeep into the street. That nights before was starred red with bombs!īehold these droves of redheads shaking their asses: That teemed with Barbarians¹ only nights before.īehold the Holy City, the Western throne! PARISIAN ORGY OR THE REPOPULATION OF PARISĬowards, behold! Spill from the stations! Surreal: a nose seeking Venus in the deep dark sky. He listens to the hairs growing on his moist skin, In corners: sideboards with mouths like cantors Something like a bird softly stirs in his belly,Īround him, a jumble of beaten furniture sleeps He simmers by the fire, his arms in a knot, his lip hangingĭown to his belly: he feels his thighs slipping towards the fire, Now, squatted, shaking, toes curled, shiveringīrioche-yellow patches on paper windowpanes Over his hips, one hand on the handle of the chamberpot. Upset like an old man who’s swallowed his snuff,īecause he still must hike his nightshirt up Shifts his priestly belly beneath the sheets.Īnd sits up, knees against his trembling belly, Shoots him a migraine and briefly blinds him. Later, when he feels his stomach grumble, Favre: Jules Favre (1809–80), foreign minister famous for negotiating the French surrender to Prussia while, supposedly, in tears. In a letter to his friend Paul Demeny, Rimbaud introduced the poem as “a psalm on current events.” While Coppée’s poem concerns the Turks, Rimbaud’s antagonists are the leaders of France’s Third Republic who took did cut …”: an allusion to a French song of the era, “Il était un petit navire” (“A Little Boat”), that tells of a shipwrecked crew in dire straits.ġ Corots: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875), French painter noted for his landscapes. Red rustlings that won’t be leaves! This poem, “Chante de guerre parisien,” refers semiparodically to the “Chante de guerre circassian” of François Coppée (1842–1908), who was later a regular object of parody for Rimbaud in the Album Zutique. Undams an aqeductal flow of tears: a pinch They’re intimates of the Big Man, and Favre, Their tropes traipsing from seam to seam… Watch as they burst on our crumbling heaps: They’ve got shakos, sabers, and tom-toms,Īnd skiffs “ That nev-nev-never did cut …” May: a jubilee of nudity, asses on parade. David Wojnarowicz | Arthur Rimbaud in New York 1978/79
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