My favourite poems by Arthur Rimbaud

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Arthur Rimbaud
(1854-1891)

Ma bohe`me

                       Je m'en allais, les poings dans mes poches crevées ;
                                Mon paletot aussi devenait idéal ;
                          J'allais sous le ciel, Muse ! et j'étais ton féal ;
                         Oh ! la` la` ! que d'amours splendides j'ai re^vées !
                             Mon unique culotte avait un large trou.
                         - Petit Poucet re^veur, j'égrenais dans ma course
                        Des rimes. Mon auberge était a` la Grande Ourse.
                          - Mes étoiles au ciel avaient un doux frou-frou
                            Et je les écoutais, assis au bord des routes,
                       Ces bons soirs de septembre oů je sentais des gouttes
                        De rosée a` mon front, comme un vin de vigueur ;
                          Oů, rimant au milieu des ombres fantastiques,
                             Comme des lyres, je tirais les élastiques
                       De mes souliers blessés, un pied pre`s de mon coeur.

Ma Boheme

I went off with my hands in my torn coat pockets; my overcoat too was
becoming ideal;

I travelled beneath the sky, Muse! and I was your vassel; oh dear me!
what marvellous loves I dreamed of!

My only pair of breeches had a big hole in them.- Stargazing Tom
Thumb, I sowed rhymes along the way.

My tavern was at the Sign of the Great Bear. - My stars in the sky
rustled softly.

And I listened to them, sitting on the road-sides on those pleasant
September evenings while I felt drops of dew on my forehead like
vigorous wine;

and while, rhyming among the fantastical shadows, I plucked like the
strings of a lyre the elastics of my tattered boots, one foot close to my
heart!

October 1870

Ma Boheme

Mentem, két öklöm két ronggyá rohadt zsebemben,
    a köpeny a vállamon már eszmévé szakadt.
    Szolgáltalak, Múzsám, menvén az ég alatt,
    s nem álmodott, hejh, szerelmet senki szebben!"

Jean-Nicholas-Arthur Rimbaud was born on October 20, 1854 at Charleville in provincial France. His family was abandoned
by their father and forced into poverty. Intrigued by the conditions, the young Rimbaud would sneak out and play with the
neighborhood children. His mother, horrified that her children might become coarsened, found the means to move her brood
from the worst to the best part of town.

Madame Rimbaud showed little affection to her children, instead focusing her ambitions on her two sons. Forbidden to play
with other boys, Rimbaud immersed himself in his studies. Stimulated by a yearning for more in life, he became a gifted student.

At age ten, Rimbaud wrote:

     ...You have to pass an exam, and the jobs that you get are either to shine shoes, or to herd cows, or to
     tend pigs. Thank God, I don't want any of that! Damn it! And besides that they smack you for a reward;
     they call you an animal and it's not true, a little kid, etc..

Oh! Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn!

In 1870, restless and despondent over the loss of his favorite teacher (who'd left to fight in the Franco-Prussian War), Rimbaud
ran away from home. He ran away more than once before finally making it to Paris. Broke, Rimbaud lived on the city streets.
Immersed in his rebellion, he denounced women and the church. He lived willingly in squalid conditions, studying "immoral"
poets (such as Baudelaire) and reading voraciously everything from occult to philosophy.

His own poetic philosophy began to take shape at this time. To Rimbaud, the poet was a seer. His job was to jar and jangle the
senses. A precursor to surrealism, Rimbaud is also considered to have been one of the creators of the free verse style.

In 1871, Rimbaud met Paul Verlaine -- who was ten years his senior -- and moved into his household. If their friendship was
controversial, their sexual relationship was downright scandalous. Though Verlaine vacillated all his life between dark-doings
and repentance, Rimbaud was considered at that time to be Verlaine's undoing. Rimbaud's drug taking and generally unclean
living eventually alienated everyone except Verlaine. In 1872, Verlaine left his wife. He and Rimbaud moved to London.

By 1873, Rimbaud was disenchanted by his relationship with Verlaine. During a drunken argument in Brussels, Verlaine shot at
Rimbaud, hitting him once in the wrist. Rimbaud was tired of their downward spiral and called in the police. Verlaine was sent
to prison for 18 months. Rimbaud, feeling both guilty and exhilarated, wrote feverishly, completing 'A Season in Hell.'

...As for me, I am intact, and I don't care.

(from "Bad Blood" A Season in Hell)

Before his twentieth birthday, Arthur Rimbaud quit writing. He wandered Europe before eventually becoming a trader and
gunrunner in Africa. Ill, he returned to Marseilles in June of 1891. His right leg was amputated, probably due to the
complications of syphilis, and he was nursed for a time by his tender sister Isabelle. He died on November 10, 1891.

Source: Arthur Rimbaud