After Baudelaire

Spleen in a Rainy Season
A burlesque after Baudelaire

I'm like the king of a rainy country, rich
but wobbly weak; both cub and toothless bitch.
I'm through with books, and poems, and string quartets:
I've sold the horses, shot the household pets.
Cheer up? Not likely, board games are a bore,
and as for 'the people' dying by my door,
fuck them, and fuck that guitar-wielding clown,
who's worse than useless when I'm feeling down.
See, here he is - that's me - stuck in his bed,
the girls can put on sex shows, give him head,
go girl on girl, no point, it just won't work,
it won't jump-start this junky royal jerk.
The quack who brings him pills and knows a trick
to harden flaccid aristocratic dick
may as well bring blood and the Roman Baths,
the kind that suited those old psychopaths.
No good, he's dead in muscle, nerve, and brain.
It's all green Lethe and that bloody rain.


Swiftly done and - forgive the bawdy - taking liberties. It's a version, not a translation (whatever that means). For 'horses' read 'dogs' throughout.