on my recent expedition through the east indies, as our small party came to rest atop an outcropping of rocks, one of our hunters returned with the hind quarter of a musk deer; and as it glistened in the morning dew i was reminded of that exuberant exhaltation spawned jointly from the genius of Rimbaud and Verlaine, their only known collaborative work to have survived. in the throes of this epiphany i had a realization of profound verbal resonance that has permitted me to complete at long last my translation of that work from the french. namely, that the recurrent irriguous references that permeate the verse engender a metaphorical context of masculine verility that imbue it with a level of supreme subtlety not previously noted in the critical literature. i present for you my new translation of this oft overlooked masterpiece that corrects the glaring oversight of Mérat's poetic catalogues of the human anatomy.
sonnet of the anus
"dark and wrinkled like a purple carnation
it breathes, humbly lurking among the dark moss
humid from love, following the damp trail
of the white buttocks to the heart of their domain.
threads like tears of milk
weep under the cruel south wind that pushes
through small clots of reddish marl,
and lose themselves where the slope calls them.
in dream i have often kissed its opening;
my soul, jealous of physical coitus
made this its wild and tearful nest of sobs.
it is a swooning olive, a cajoling flute
this is the tube where the heavenly praline flows:
promised land with moisture rimmed!"
- Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, 1871
