My Baudelaire

Since others are posting their Baudelaire Englishings, here’s one of mine from 1982 or 3. English follows the original:

La Mort des Artistes

Combien faut-il de fois secouer mes grelots

Et baiser ton front bas, morne caricature?

Pour piquer dans le but, de mystique nature,

Combien, ô mon carquois, perdre de javelots?

Nous userons notre âme en de subtils complots,

Et nous démolirons mainte lourde armature,

Avant de contempler la grande Créature

Dont l’infernal désir nous remplit de sanglots!

Il en est qui jamais n’ont connu leur Idole,

Et ces sculpteurs damnés et marqués d’un affront,

Qui vont se martelant la poitrine et le front,

N’ont qu’un espoir, étrange et sombre Capitole!

C’est que la Mort, planant comme un soleil nouveau,

Fera s’épanouir les fleurs de leur cerveau!

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The Demise of Artists

How many fucking times do I have to shock and jolt

     my spherical bells with the balls inside them

And kiss and fuck your impudent bottom, gloomy cartoon?

For a prick in the butt, of a mystical nature,

How many times, oh my quiver, must I lose my arrows?

We wear down our souls in keen, fine intrigues,

And we explode many a heavy reinforcement

Before thinking of the enormous Creator

For whom the infernal desire makes us full of tears!

This is why some never know their Idol,

Like those damned sculptors, marked with a scar,

Always hammering on their breasts and foreheads,

With nothing but a hope, weird and somber:

This is Death, looking down like a new sun

About to open, expand, and brighten

          the blossoms of their brains.