To The Reader|Charles Baudelaire

Folly, depravity, greed, mortal sin
Invade our souls and rack our flesh; we feed
Our gentle guilt, gracious regrets, that breed
Like vermin glutting on foul beggars' skin

Our sins are stubborn; our repentance, faint
We take a handsome price for our confession
Happy once more to wallow in transgression
Thinking vile tears will cleanse us of all taint

On evil's cushion poised, His Majesty
Satan Thrice-Great, lulls our charmed soul, until
He turns to vapor what was once our will
Rich ore, transmuted by his alchemy

He holds the strings that move us, limb by limb
We yield, enthralled, to things repugnant, base
Each day, towards Hell, with slow, unhurried pace
We sink, uncowed, through shadows, stinking, grim

Like some lewd rake with his old worn-out whore
Nibbling her suffering teats, we seize our sly
delight, that, like an orange—withered, dry—
We squeeze and press for juice that is no more

Our brains teem with a race of Fiends, who frolic
thick as a million gut-worms; with each breath
Our lungs drink deep, suck down a stream of Death—
Dim-lit—to low-moaned whimpers melancholic

If poison, fire, blade, rape do not succeed
In sewing on that dull embroidery
Of our pathetic lives their artistry
It's that our soul, alas, shrinks from the deed

And yet, among the beasts and creatures all—
Panther, snake, scorpion, jackal, ape, hound, hawk—
Monsters that crawl, and shriek, and grunt, and squawk
In our vice-filled menagerie's caterwaul

One worse is there, fit to heap scorn upon—
More ugly, rank! Though noiseless, calm and still
yet would he turn the earth to scraps and swill
swallow it whole in one great, gaping yawn

Ennui! That monster frail!—With eye wherein
A chance tear gleams, he dreams of gibbets, while
Smoking his hookah, with a dainty smile. . .
—You know him, reader,—hypocrite,—my twin

Travelling Bohemians|Charles Baudelaire

The prophetic tribe of the ardent eyes

Yesterday they took the road, holding their babies

On their backs, delivering to fierce appetites

The always ready treasure of pendulous breasts

The men stick their feet out, waving their guns

Alongside the caravan where they tremble together

Scanning the sky their eyes are weighted down

In mourning for absent chimeras

At the bottom of his sandy retreat, a cricket

Watched passing, redoubles his song

Cybele, who loves, adds more flower

Makes fountains out of rock and blossoms from desert

Opening up before these travelers in a yawn—

A familiar empire, the inscrutable future

The Carcass|Charles Baudelaire

Remember that object we saw, dear soul

In the sweetness of a summer morn

At a bend of the path a loathsome carrion

On a bed with pebbles strewn

With legs raised like a lustful woman

Burning and sweating poisons

It spread open, nonchalant and scornful

Its belly, ripe with exhalations

The sun shone onto the rotting heap

As if to bring it to the boil

And tender a hundredfold to vast Nature

All that together she had joined

And the sky watched that superb carcass

Like a flower blossom out

The stench was so strong that on the grass

You thought you would pass out

Flies hummed upon the putrid belly

Whence larvae in black battalions spread

And like a heavy liquid flowed

Along the tatters deliquescing

All together it unfurled, and rose like a wave

And bubbling it sprang forth

One might have believed that, with a faint breath filled

The body, multiplying, lived

And this world gave out a strange music

Like of running water and of wind

Or of grain in a winnow

Rhythmically shaken and tossed

Form was erased and all but a vision

A sketch slow to take shape

On a forgotten canvas, which the artist finishes

From memory alone

Behind the rocks a fretting bitch

Looked at us with fierce mien

Anxious to retrieve from the corpse

A morsel that she had dropped

Yet to this rot you shall be like

To this horrid corruption

Star of my eyes, sun of desire

You, my angel and my passion

Yes, such you shall be, you, queen of all graces

After the last sacraments

When you go beneath the grass and waxy flowers

To mold among the skeletons

Then, oh my beauty! You must tell the vermin

As it eats you up with kisses

That I have preserved the form and essence divine

Of my decayed loves

The Albatross|Charles Baudelaire

Often to pass the time on board, the crew

will catch an albatross, one of those big birds

which nonchalantly chaperon a ship

across the bitter fathoms of the sea

Tied to the deck, this sovereign of space

as if embarrassed by its clumsiness

pitiably lets its great white wings

drag at its sides like a pair of unshipped oars

How weak and awkward, even comical

this traveller but lately so adoit -

one deckhand sticks a pipestem in its beak

another mocks the cripple that once flew

The Poet is like this monarch of the clouds

riding the storm above the marksman's range

exiled on the ground, hooted and jeered

he cannot walk because of his great wings

The Enemy|Charles Baudelaire

My youth was nothing but a black storm

Crossed now and then by brilliant suns

The thunder and the rain so ravage the shores

Nothing's left of the fruit my garden held once

I should employ the rake and the plow

Having reached the autumn of ideas

To restore this inundated ground

Where the deep grooves of water form tombs in the lees

And who knows if the new flowers you dreamed

Will find in a soil stripped and cleaned

The mystic nourishment that fortifies

—O Sorrow—O Sorrow—Time consumes Life

And the obscure enemy that gnaws at my heart

Uses the blood that I lose to play my part

a three hundred and forty dollar horse and a hundred dollar whore|Charles Bukowski

don’t ever get the idea I am a poet; you can see me

at the racetrack any day half drunk

betting quarters, sidewheelers and straight thoroughs

but let me tell you, there are some women there

who go where the money goes, and sometimes when you

look at these whores these onehundreddollar whores

you wonder sometimes if nature isn’t playing a joke

dealing out so much breast and ass and the way

it’s all hung together, you look and you look and

you look and you can’t believe it; there are ordinary women

and then there is something else that wants to make you

tear up paintings and break albums of Beethoven

across the back of the john; anyhow, the season

was dragging and the big boys were getting busted

all the non-pros, the producers, the cameraman

the pushers of Mary, the fur salesman, the owners

themselves, and Saint Louie was running this day

a sidewheeler that broke when he got in close

he ran with his head down and was mean and ugly

and thirty-five to one, and I put a ten down on him

the driver broke him wide

took him out by the fence where he’d be alone

even if he had to travel four times as far

and that’s the way he went it

all the way by the outer fence

traveling two miles in one

and he won like he was mad as hell

and he wasn’t even tired

and the biggest blonde of all

all ass and breast, hardly anything else

went to the payoff window with me

that night I couldn’t destroy her

although the springs shot sparks

and they pounded on the walls

later she sat there in her slip

drinking Old Grandad

and she said

what’s a guy like you doing

living in a dump like this

and I said

I’m a poet

and she threw back her beautiful head and laughed

you? you . . . a poet

I guess you’re right, I said, I guess you’re right

but still she looked good to me, she still looked good

and all thanks to an ugly horse

who wrote this poem

Lady Lazarus|Sylvia Plath

I have done it again

One year in every ten

I manage it——

A sort of walking miracle, my skin

Bright as a Nazi lampshade

My right foot

A paperweight

My face a featureless, fine

Jew linen

Peel off the napkin

O my enemy

Do I terrify——

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth

The sour breath

Will vanish in a day

Soon, soon the flesh

The grave cave ate will be

At home on me

And I a smiling woman

I am only thirty

And like the cat I have nine times to die

This is Number Three

What a trash

To annihilate each decade

What a million filaments

The peanut-crunching crowd

Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot——

The big strip tease

Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands

My knees

I may be skin and bone

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman

The first time it happened I was ten

It was an accident

The second time I meant

To last it out and not come back at all

I rocked shut

As a seashell

They had to call and call

And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls

Dying

Is an art, like everything else

I do it exceptionally well

I do it so it feels like hell

I do it so it feels real

I guess you could say I’ve a call

It’s easy enough to do it in a cell

It’s easy enough to do it and stay put

It’s the theatrical

Comeback in broad day

To the same place, the same face, the same brute

Amused shout

‘A miracle

That knocks me out

There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge

For the hearing of my heart——

It really goes

And there is a charge, a very large charge

For a word or a touch

Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes

So, so, Herr Doktor

So, Herr Enemy

I am your opus

I am your valuable

The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek

I turn and burn

Do not think I underestimate your great concern

Ash, ash—

You poke and stir

Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——

A cake of soap

A wedding ring

A gold filling

Herr God, Herr Lucifer

Beware

Beware

Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair

And I eat men like air

Tulips|Sylvia Plath

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here

Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in

I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly

As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands  

I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions 

I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses   

And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons

They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff   

Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut

Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in

The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble

They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps

Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another

So it is impossible to tell how many there are

My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water

Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently

They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep

Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage——

My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox 

My husband and child smiling out of the family photo

Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks

I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat   

stubbornly hanging on to my name and address

They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations

Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley   

I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books   

Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head

I am a nun now, I have never been so pure

I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted

To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty

How free it is, you have no idea how free——

The peacefulness is so big it dazes you

And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets

It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them   

Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet

The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me

Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe   

Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby

Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds

They are subtle : they seem to float, though they weigh me down

Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color

A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck

Nobody watched me before, now I am watched

The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me

Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins

And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow   

Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips

And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself 

The vivid tulips eat my oxygen

Before they came the air was calm enough

Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss

Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise

Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river   

Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine

They concentrate my attention, that was happy   

Playing and resting without committing itself

The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves

The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals

They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat

And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes

Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me

The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea

And comes from a country far away as health

آمریکا|آلن گینزبرگ

آمریکا هرچه داشتم را به تو بخشیدم و حال من هیچم.

آمریکای دو دلار و بیست‌و‌هفت سنت 17 ژانویه‌ی 1956.

من نمی‌توانم در مواضع ذهنم مستقر شوم.

آمریکا چه زمانی جنگ بشری را تمام خواهیم کرد؟

برو خودت را به گاییدن بده با بمب اتمت.

حال درستی ندارم مزاحمم نشو.

تا زمانی که در وضعیت درست ذهنم نباشم شعرم را نخواهم نوشت.

آمریکا چه زمانی فرشته‌خو خواهی شد؟

چه زمانی لخت خواهی شد؟

چه زمانی از میان قبر به خودت نگاه خواهی کرد؟

چه زمانی سزاوار تروتسکیست‌های میلیونی خود خواهی بود؟

آمریکا چرا کتابخانه‌هایت مملو از اشک است؟

آمریکا چه زمانی تخم‌مرغ‌هایت را به هند خواهی فرستاد؟

از خواسته‌های دیوانه‌وارت ناخوشم.

چه زمانی می‌توانم به سوپرمارکت بروم و آنچه را می‌خواهم با شمایل مناسبم بخرم؟

آمریکا درنهایت من و تو کامل هستیم نه جهان دیگر.

ماشینیسم‌ات برایم چیزی گزاف است.

تو سبب شدی که من وارسته باشم.

باید راه دیگری برای گذر از این بحث وجود داشته باشد.

باروز در طنجه است، بازگشتش را دور می‌بینم و این یک وضعیت شوم است.

آیا تو شوم و شیطانی هستی یا این شکلی از مضحکه‌ی کاری‌ست؟

در تلاشم که به جهت اصلی وارد شوم.

نمی‌پذیرم که وسواسم را ترک کنم.

آمریکا دست از فشاردادن بردار من کار خودم را بلدم.

آمریکا شکوفه‌های آلو در حال فروریختن است.

ماه‌هاست که روزنامه‌ای نخوانده‌ام، هرروز کسی به جرم آدم‌کشی محاکمه می‌شود.

آمریکا من نسبت به کارگران صنعتی جهان احساساتی هستم.

آمریکا من کمونیست بودم در دوران کودکی و حالا هم متاسف نیستم.

من ماریجوانا می‌کشم در هر فرصتی که به دست آورم.

برای روزها در خانه‌ا‌م می‌نشینم و به رزهای در گنجه خیره می‌شوم.

وقتی به محله‌‌ی چینی‌ها می‌روم مست می‌کنم و هرگز سکس نمی‌کنم.

ذهنم چنین می‌نماید که قرار است آشفتگی‌هایی در کار باشد.

باید مرا هنگام خواندن مارکس می‌دیدی.

روانکاوم چنین فکر می‌کند که حال خوشایندی دارم.

من دعای خدا را نخواهم خواند.

من تصورات والا و ارتعاشات کیهانی دارم.

آمریکا من هنوز به تو نگفتم چه بر سر عمو مکس آوردی وقتی او از روسیه بازگشت.

خطاب من به توست.

آیا قرار است اجازه دهی زندگی احساسی تو توسط مجله تایم تنظیم شود؟

من مدام به مجله‌ی تایم فکر می‌کنم.

هر هفته آن را می‌خوانم.

جلدش به من خیره می‌شود هر بار که پنهانی از کنج شیرینی‌فروشی می‌گذرم.

آن را در زیرزمین کتابخانه‌ی عمومی برکلی از نظر گذرانده‌ام.

همیشه در مورد مسئولیت حرف می‌زند. بازرگانان جدی هستند. تولیدکنندگان فیلم جدی هستند.

همگان جدی هستند مگر من.

چنین برایم رخ می‌دهد که من آمریکا هستم.

باز دارم با خودم حرف می‌زنم.

آسیا در کار شورش علیه من است.

شانس یک چینی از آن من نیست.

بهتر است ابتکارات ملی خودم را در نظر بگیرم.

سرچشمه‌های ملی من متشکل از دو بند ماریجوانا میلیون‌ها اندام سکسی یک ادبیات خصوصی غیرقابل انتشار که با سرعت 1400 مایل در ساعت می‌راند و بیست‌‌وپنج هزار بیمارستان روانی.

من هیچ‌چیزی در مورد زندان‌هایم نمی‌گویم و نه در مورد میلیون‌ها پابرهنه‌ای که در گلدان‌های من زیر نور پانصدخورشید زندگی می‌کنند.

من فاحشه‌خانه‌های فرانسه را از میان برداشته‌ام، بعد سر وقت طنجه خواهم رفت.

میل من این است که رئیس جمهور شوم بر خلاف این حقیقت که یک کاتولیک هستم.

آمریکا چطور می‌توانم یک سرود متعالی در حال‌وهوای ابلهانه‌ات بنویسم؟

من چون هنری فورد ادامه خواهم داد قطعات شعری من به اندازه‌ی اتوموبیل‌های او منحصر به فرد هستند و حتا بیشتر بنابراین همه‌ی آن‌ها جنسیت‌های متفاوتی دارند.

آمریکا قطعات شعر را برای تو 2500 دلار هرقطعه را 500 دلار بر اساس قطعه شعر قدیمت معامله خواهم کرد.

آمریکا تام مونی را آزاد کن.

آمریکا وفاداران اسپانیایی را نجات بده.

آمریکا ساکو و وانزتی نباید اعدام شوند

آمریکا من پسران اسکاتسبورو هستم.

آمریکا زمانی که هفت سال داشتم مامان مرا به جلسات سلول کمونیستی برد آنها به ما یک مشت لوبیای گاربانزو برای هر بلیط فروختند یک بلیط به ارزش پنج سنت بود و سخنرانی‌ها آزاد همه‌کس فرشته‌خو و احساساتی در مورد کارگران، اینها همه از اعماق قلب بود تو نمی‌دانی عجب چیز شگفتی بود حزب در 1835 اسکات نی‌یرینگ یک پیرمرد عالی یک فرد شریف واقعی مادر بلور زنانه-ابدی اعتصاب‌کنندگان ابریشم سبب شد اشک بریزم من زمانی سخنرانی ییدیش اسرائیل آمتر را به‌وضوح دیدم. همه باید جاسوس بوده باشند.

آمریکا تو واقعا نمی‌خواهی که وارد جنگ شوی.

آمریکا خودشانند روس‌های شر.

خودشانند روس‌ها خودشانند روس‌ها و خودشانند چینی‌ها. و خودشانند روس‌ها.

روسیه می‌خواهد ما را زنده زنده بخورد. حکومت روسیه دیوانه شده است. او می‌خواهد ماشین‌هایمان را بگیرد بیرون از گاراژهایمان.

مال او(زن) می‌خواهد شیکاگو را چنگ بزند. مال او(زن) به یک ریدرز دایجست سرخ نیاز دارد. مال او(زن) کارخانه‌های خودروسازی ما در سیبری را می‌خواهد. مال او(مرد) بوروکراسی پیچیده‌ای‌ست که پمپ‌بنزین‌های ما را می‌چرخاند.

این خوب نیست. اَه. مال او(مرد) سرخ‌پوستان را وادار می‌کند که خواندن بیاموزند. مال او(مرد) به سیاه‌پوستان کت‌و‌کلفت نیاز دارد. هاه. مال او(زن) ما را مجبور می‌کند که شانزده ساعت در روز کار کنیم. درخواست یاری.

آمریکا این تماما جدی است.

آمریکا این اثری‌ست که از تماشای تلویزیون دریافت می‌کنم.

آمریکا چنین چیزی درست است؟

بهتر است کارم را پیش ببرم.

درست است من نمی‌خواهم به ارتش بپیوندم یا ماشین‌های تراش را در کارخانه‌های قطعات دقیق بچرخانم، درهرحال من نزدیک‌بین و روانی هستم.

آمریکا من شانه‌ی عجبم را بر چرخ می‌گردانم.

برکلی، 17 ژانویه 1956