January 27, 2011

“I is another.”

Arthur Rimbaud, was a French poet that lived in the second half of the 19th century. He produced his best known works while still in his late teens, and was called "an infant Shakespeare". One of his letters to Paul Demeny he talks about his believe of who a poet is, saying "I am an Other", and there are several other poets that have this idea of themselves, that they are not themselves but someone else.

The following poem from Rimbaud is a very expressive and full of rage declaration of love to, what I believe could have been, his lost twins. What do you think?

My Little Lovers

A lacrymal tincture washes
The cabbage-green skies:
Under the drooling tree with tender shoots,
Your raincoats

White with special moons
With round eyes
Knock together your kneecaps
My ugly ones!

We loved one another at that time,
Blue ugly one!
We ate soft boiled eggs
And chickweed!

One evening you consecrated me poet,
Blond ugly one:
Come down here, that I can whip you
On my lap;

I vomited your brilliantine,
Black ugly one;
You would cut off my mandolin
On the edge of my brow

Bah! my dried saliva,
Red-headed ugly one
Still infects the trenches
Of your round breast!

O my little lovers,
How I hate you!
Plaster with painful blisters
Your ugly tits!

Trample on my old pots
Of sentiment;
—Up now! be ballerinas for me
For one moment!…

Your shoulder blades are out of joint,
O my loves!
A star on your limping backs,
Turn with your turns!

And yet it is for these mutton shoulders
That I have made rhymes!
I would like to break your hips
For having loved!

Insipid pile of stars that have failed,
Fill the corners!
—You will collapse in God, saddled
With ignoble cares!

Under special moons
With round eyes,
Knock together your kneecaps,
My ugly ones!

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