Luminous Decay
justinehrlich

Justin Ehrlich was born in Essex in 1985 and has a degree in Philosophy. He writes poetry and short fiction dealing with themes of death, insanity and the supernatural.

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2012 (29)
2011 (88)

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8 Jul 2011
July 8th, 6:38am 0 comments

Charles Baudelaire 1821 - 1867

The Ghost

 

Softly as brown-eyed Angels rove
I will return to thy alcove,
And glide upon the night to thee,
Treading the shadows silently.
 
And I will give to thee, my own,
Kisses as icy as the moon,
And the caresses of a snake
Cold gliding in the thorny brake.
 
And when returns the livid morn
Thou shalt find all my place forlorn
And chilly, till the falling night.
 
Others would rule by tenderness
Over thy life and youthfulness,
But I would conquer thee by fright!
741px-john_henry_fuseli_-_the_nightmare
Henry Fuseli 1741 - 1825 - The Nightmare

Filed under Charles Baudelaire Henry Fuseli Poetry The Ghost The Nightmare Translation

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9 Jun 2011
June 9th, 5:35am 0 comments

Charles Baudelaire 1821 - 1867

Vampire

Thou who, like death’s deceiving stroke, 
Knocks at my heart’s deep melancholy; 
Thou who, like a troupe of hideous folk
Of demons, wines and maddened Folly, 

 

Of mine own my Spirit humiliated
Makes thine own bed and thy domain, 
Infamous, by whom I am vitiated
Like the convict fastened to his chain. 

 

Like to the Gambler with his game reversed, 
Like to the drunkard with his wine-bottle, 
Like to the vermin that the carrion throttle, 
- Be thou for ever and ever accursed! 

 

I have said to the sword perfidious 
To lavish on me Liberty, 
I have said to the poison insidious 
To shake me from my lethargy. 

 

Alas! The poison and the sword that crave thee 
Said in disdainful knavery: 
“Thou are not worthy that we should save thee 
From thine accursed slavery. 

 

Fool! From his empire base and bloody, 
If we deliver thee by our hate, 
Thy kisses shall resuscitate 
Thy Vampire and his buried Body!”

Translated by Arthur Symons

Munch_vampire
Edvard Munch 1863 - 1944 - Vampire

Filed under Arthur Symons Charles Baudelaire Edvard Munch Poetry Translation Vampire

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7 Jun 2011
June 7th, 6:24am 0 comments

Charles Baudelaire 1821 - 1867

Danse Macabre

CARRYING bouquet, and handkerchief, and gloves,
Proud of her height as when she lived, she moves
With all the careless and high-stepping grace,
And the extravagant courtesan's thin face.
 
Was slimmer waist e'er in a ball-room wooed?
Her floating robe, in royal amplitude,
Falls in deep folds around a dry foot, shod
With a bright flower-like shoe that gems the sod.
 
The swarms that hum about her collar-bones
As the lascivious streams caress the stones,
Conceal from every scornful jest that flies,
Her gloomy beauty; and her fathomless eyes
 
Are made of shade and void; with flowery sprays
Her skull is wreathed artistically, and sways,
Feeble and weak, on her frail vertebrae.
O charm of nothing decked in folly! they
 
Who laugh and name you a Caricature,
They see not, they whom flesh and blood allure,
The nameless grace of every bleached, bare bone,
That is most dear to me, tall skeleton!
 
Come you to trouble with your potent sneer
The feast of Life! or are you driven here,
To Pleasure's Sabbath, by dead lusts that stir
And goad your moving corpse on with a spur?
 
Or do you hope, when sing the violins,
And the pale candle-flame lights up our sins,
To drive some mocking nightmare far apart,
And cool the flame hell lighted in your heart?
 
Fathomless well of fault and foolishness!
Eternal alembic of antique distress!
Still o'er the curved, white trellis of your sides
The sateless, wandering serpent curls and glides.
 
And truth to tell, I fear lest you should find,
Among us here, no lover to your mind;
Which of these hearts beat for the smile you gave?
The charms of horror please none but the brave.
 
Your eyes' black gulf, where awful broodings stir,
Brings giddiness; the prudent reveller
Sees, while a horror grips him from beneath,
The eternal smile of thirty-two white teeth.
 
For he who has not folded in his arms
A skeleton, nor fed on graveyard charms,
Recks not of furbelow, or paint, or scent,
When Horror comes the way that Beauty went.
 
O irresistible, with fleshless face,
Say to these dancers in their dazzled race:
"Proud lovers with the paint above your bones,
Ye shall taste death, musk scented skeletons!
 
Withered Antinoüs, dandies with plump faces,
Ye varnished cadavers, and grey Lovelaces,
Ye go to lands unknown and void of breath,
Drawn by the rumour of the Dance of Death.
 
From Seine's cold quays to Ganges' burning stream,
The mortal troupes dance onward in a dream;
They do not see, within the opened sky,
The Angel's sinister trumpet raised on high.
 
In every clime and under every sun,
Death laughs at ye, mad mortals, as ye run;
And oft perfumes herself with myrrh, like ye
And mingles with your madness, irony!"
366px-felicien_rops_-_tanzender_tod_
Felicien Rops 1833 - 1898

Filed under Charles Baudelaire Danse Macabre Poetry Translation

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