The Metamorphasis of the Vampire by Charles Baudelaire

Meanwhile,from her red mouth the woman, in husky
twisting her body, writhing like a snake
across hot coals and hiking up her white breasts
over her corset stays,straining them from their imprisonment,
let fall these words
as if her mouth had steeped each word in musk:
My lips are moist and yeilding, and with them I know how
to smother conscience somewhere in these sheets.
I know the way to keep the antique demon of remourse at bay
I make old men laugh like little boys,
and on my triumphant bosom all tears dry
Look at me naked, and I will replace
The sun and moon and every star in the sky
So apt am I, dear scholar, in my lore
that once I fold a man in these fatal arms
or forfeit to his teeth my breasts which are
timid and teasing, tender and tyrannous,insatiable and loath
upon these cusions swooning with delight
the impotent angels would be damned for me!
When she had drained me of my very marrow, and cold
And weak, I turned to give her one more kiss-behold,
There at my side was nothing but a hideous
Putrescent thing, all faceless and exuding pus.
I closed my eyes and mercifully swooned tillday:
And when I looked at morning for that beast of prey
Who seemed to have replenished her arteries from her own
The wan, disjointed fragments of a skeliton
Wagged up and down in a new posture where she had lain
Rattling with each convulsion like a weathervain
Or an old sign that creaks upon its bracket, right
Mournfully in the wind upon a winter's night.


This page hosted by GeoCities Get your own Free Home Page


1