Sunday, November 11, 2018

Charles And The Serpent Bride

Charles And The Serpent Bride
© Surazeus
2018 11 11

Rising from his seat at the long wood table
in crowded Brasserie des Martyrs cafe,
Charles Baudelaire raises cup of red wine,
and howls like the wolf with both arms spread wide.

Flapping his arms, Charles shrieks like the blind bat,
and stalks around the table like the vampire
who swoops down from storm-wracked mountain cave
to suck the blood of innocents in Heaven.

Gulping down red wine from the crystal chalice,
Charles turns away from faces of his friends
who howl with laughter as he imitates
the military man marching to his doom.

Slouching in the corner booth behind curtain,
Charles sips absinthe from the fragile bottle,
then unscrews cap from bottle of blank ink
and dipping quill begins to write weird verse.

Gazing through swirling mist on moonlit meadow,
Charles sees vision of lovers by the river,
and scribbles elegant letters in curves
to capture intense sensation of horror.

He feels himself drawn toward elegant woman
with voluptuous curves of breasts and thighs,
and caresses long flowing curls of red hair,
then grasps the plump world in obsessive arms.

Dreaming he makes love with the rancid Earth,
large woman with breasts the size of wet hills,
and secret moss-veiled cave that fountains wine,
Charles drinks gushing waterfall from her heart.

While scribbling verses of poem on white paper,
Charles runs through purple wind on the vast beach
where the sensuous woman formed from sea waves
clutches him and moans with passionate pleasure.

Silver moonlight illuminates broad grove
where he crawls on hands and knees in dead trees
and caresses face of the rotting horse
dead in the ditch beside the crippled woman.

Lifting the plump woman in trembling arms,
he caresses her cheek stained with black blood,
and fingers her wings of frail broken bones,
twisted and mangled when she fell from stars.

Her moon-silver eyes stare at him with pain
as he clutches her broken twisted torso
and kisses her breast that heaves rasping breath
as she writhes in agony of sharp pain.

Gazing bleary-eyed at people who laugh
as they drink wine in the Brasserie cafe,
Charles shudders with horror at the vision,
then gazes again in eyes of the angel.

The crippled angel, writhing from harsh anguish,
dissolves to dust that blows away in wind
then turns into butterflies that escape
his clutching hands when he runs through the mist.

The angel of beauty from paradise
who fell broken and crippled in his arms
vanishes from tight grasp of his lusting hands,
and flutters wings of ravens in pear trees.

Running like the wolf in Broceliande,
Charles howls in anguish to find the lost angel,
and stops in moonlit grove in grove of oaks
where the serpent woman crawls from deep well.

Dressed in gown of white silk and flowing veil,
Melusine the Serpent Bride takes his hand
and leads him to altar in ring of stones
where goat king thrusts crown of thorns on his head.

Kissing his mouth, Melusine slithers down
his throat to curl around his beating heart
and weaves mushroom roots to grip his brain,
and he writhes dancing wildly in moonlight.

Snapping awake with his soul drenched in sweat
of horror, and gasping from thirst to gulp
water of ancient wells, Charles wakes from dream
alone in dark cafe at break of dawn.

Trembling with passion to kiss serpent bride
of despair, Charles stumbles out the front door
and walks in silent mist on Rue des Martyrs,
searching for severed head of Saint Denis.

Finding skull of some dead man behind melons,
Charles holds it up so sunlight streams through eyes,
then calls on Orpheus to explain love,
but tosses it in the Seine with a laugh.

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