Paul Celan
And the too much of my speaking:heaped up round the littlecrystal dressed in the style of your silence. — Paul Celan, from “Below,” Poetry Magazine December 1971
Category: Symbolism
Charles Baudelaire
I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on,The windows and the stars illumined, one by one,The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily,And the moon rise and turn them silver. I shall seeThe springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass;And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass,I… Continue reading Charles Baudelaire
Paul Celan
What is returning?Nearly nothing, but it could be a snowflake — Paul Celan, “Questions & Answers,” Romanian Poems (Green Integer, 2003)
Paul Celan
What is returning?Nearly nothing, but it could be a snowflake — Paul Celan, “Questions & Answers,” Romanian Poems (Green Integer, 2003)
Paul Celan
Yes, me, I prefer the hourglass so you can smash it whenI tell you of eternity’s lie — Paul Celan, “[Blinded by giant leaps],” Romanian Poems (Green Integer, 2003)
Paul Celan
How you die out in me: down to the lastworn-outknot of breathyou’re there, with asplinterof life. ― Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan. (Anvil Press Poetry November 9, 1995) Originally published 1972.
Charles Baudelaire
I am an old boudoir full of withered roses. — Charles Baudelaire, from “Spleen,” Fleurs de Mal/The Flowers of Evil. Translated by William Aggeler. (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)
Charles Baudelaire
When the sky appears in painand sunset no more than a wound,what are the thoughts that occurto a libertine soul like yours? — Charles Baudelaire, from “Horreur Sympathique (Sympathetic Horror),” Les Fleurs Du Mal. Translated by Richard Howard. (David R. Godine October 1st 1983) Originally published 1857.
Charles Baudelaire
What men call love is a very small, restricted, feeble thing compared with this ineffable orgy, this divine prostitution of the soul giving itself entire, all its poetry and all its charity, to the unexpected as it comes along, to the stranger as he passes. ― Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen. (New Directions; F First Edition… Continue reading Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
How sweet all things would seemWere we in that kind land to live together,And there love slow and long,There love and die amongThose scenes that image you, that sumptuous weather.Drowned suns that glimmer thereThrough cloud-disheveled airMove me with such a mystery as appearsWithin those other skiesOf your treacherous eyesWhen I behold them shining through their… Continue reading Charles Baudelaire
The Vale of Soul-Making 