Oyster Boy Review 17  
  Fall 2003
 
 
 
 
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Poems & One Letter by Arthur Rimbaud


Vi(o)lations

Arthur Rimbaud


Cock Sonnet

Ancient animals were squirting
their cocks greased
Our fathers displayed
by the folds of their sheaths
even on the run
in excrement and blood.
their members proudly
and the grain of their balls.
 
For the female of the Middle Ages
a solid cockswain
Even Kleber
apparently had
be she angel or swine
was always in mind;
with his slightly lying pants
the goods it took.
 
Furthermore, man
but the enormity of his member
A sterile time has struck:
is the proudest mammal
is amazingly misleading.
the horse and ox
 
have bridled their desire
to display their genital
in the shrubs of swarming
and nobody dares
pride anymore
children at play.


Ass Sonnet

Our asses are not like theirs.
unbuttoned men
or shamelessly bathing
I have seen the shape
I have frequently seen
behind hedges
where children stray.
and fate of man's ass.
 
Firmer and paler than theirs
with obvious planes
but for women
blooms only in that
ours is supplied
veiling the hairy mesh;
their long bushy satin
enchanting crack.
 
It's a marvelous moving
as in carvings
in tables
ingeniousness
of angels
with cheeky hollow smiles.
 
Oh! If only I were naked
my forehead before
then we'd be free
seeking pleasure, seeking peace
his glorious length
to murmur and weep!


Asshole Sonnet

Dark and puckered
humbly hidden in the moss
as love flows
to the crater's rim
like a lavender carnation
it breathes, damp
down the soft ramp
of his pale ass.
 
Filaments
have cried beneath cruel winds
across small clots
to lose themselves
with milky tears
shoving them
of reddish loam
in the beckoning slope.
 
In my dreams
my soul of jealous
browning his nest
I've joined with this vent
physical coitus
and sobbing spout.
 
It's the swooning sack
the tube the heavenly
in the womanly wet
and the dancing dick
seed descends
of paradise.


Translated by Mark Spitzer