Destruction ~ Charles Baudelaire The Devil stirs beside me, constantly; Floats around me like an air impalpable; I feel him in my lungs, incendiary, Bringing desires eternal, culpable. Sometimes, aware of my great love of Art, He takes a woman’s shape, voluptuous, And, with some lame excuse, the hypocrite, Accustoms mee to philtres infamous. And […]
The Glorious Days of Old ~ Lucia Bertani dell’Oro Translated from Italian by Laura Anna Stortoni and Mary Prentice Lillie The glorious days of old were glad to own Both Sappho and Corinna, whose wise pens Raised them as high as to the light of heaven Through many honorable, virtuous ways. And now these two, […]
Stanza IV of A Vision of Spring in Winter ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne As sweet desire of the day before the day As dreams of love before the true love born, From the outer edge of winter overworn The ghost arisen of May before the May Takes through dim air her unawakened way, The gracious […]
Petersburg, 1913 ~ Anna Akhmatova, translated from Russian by D.M. Thomas In Petersburg we’ll gather again, Around the grave where we buried the sun. ~ Mandelstam Petersburg, 1913. Lyrical interlude: last recollection in Tsarskoye Selo. A wind, reminiscent or prophetic, mutters: Bonfires cooked the geese of Christmas, Carriages toppled from bridges, The whole funereal city […]
Hope Chest ~ Elaine Aqui It is shaped like a dunce cap. It is a bottle of perfume at the foot of a cross. It is a photograph that hums. It is early. It is day. It is a bed no one has ever slept in. It is just a dream. It is a rosary […]
