(photograph, ca. 1880)
To Arthur Rimbaud
by Helmut Maria Soik
Your blast calculations were
right on the money, my boy
the armored wall of poetic imagination
collapsed under your hand
But what the hell
happened to your right leg?
The knee is swollen like a pumpkin
in the African grass of your fervid nights.
Why didn't the ship's boilers explode
on the high seas
and put an end
to your misery?
That you rot away in a bloody bed
Arthur, as the nun's voice from the graveyard
rings out through the Hôpital
de la Conception
That you cry out in the night from your poppy
jungle
That you cry out to the tam-tam of knife dancers
is no longer just your own concern.
It's the price you pay
for rebelling against the Christian
welfare state
for being a partisan
of absolute freedom
for nailing the note
"Dieu est mort"
on the church door
for declaring the bankruptcy
of our broken-down culture.
"Monsieur, I will decide
whatever 'real life' they're ranting about,
the non-conformists," says
the god of the bourgeoisie
putting his bowler hat
on the head of Hugo's Hermes
calling out the whole city of Paris
in front of the Pantheon
so the academy's brightest lights
can bend a knee before the Te Deum of horse
hooves.
Go back to sleep, Arthur, don't wake up
with your one good leg
your belt of Abyssinian gold
among the rotting anemones of snow.
Go back to sleep, Jean Arthur, my angel
under your kitschy tombstone of
eighteen ninety-one! At least
you only died one death
like the poor sunflower
that languished
by itself
on the table in the waiting room.
Translated from the German by Supervert.
