Like the king of a rainy country, am I!
Rich, but weak, young with an agèd eye -
The grovelling of his old tutors he scorns,
The company of dogs leaves him forlorn.
Nothing can bring him joy, no hunt nor falconry,
Nor the mortal jousts  before his balcony,
From his favourite jester no ***** tale
Can redden the cheek of one so pale.
His ornate chamber has become a tomb -
And courtesans, *******-clad, to whom,
Though royal favours inspire their provocation;
This skeletal youth finds no temptation.
Flamel himself could forge no plan
To extract the dark humours from this man.
In the baths of blood from days of yore,
He finds no properties to restore
This dazed corpse in whose veins once red -
Now flows the green waters of Lethe instead.

For Max

O cruel, drunken soul, darling tigress,
Come to my heart, you lethargic beast!
I long for my trembling hands to caress
Your thick and glossy fleece.

In your petticoats filled with your scent
To bury my poor, aching head,
Inhaling your flowery fragrance;
The sweetness of love now dead.

I wish to sleep, to dream perchance
As sweetly as death’s embrace,
Without remorse, my tongue will dance
On your coppery body and face.

To bury my sobbing for hours
Nothing equals your bed’s abyss,
On your lips lies oblivion’s power
And Lethe flows in your kiss.

Like one resigned to meet his end,
I’ll face my fate delighted;
Docile martyr, innocent condemned,
Whose fervour with pain is ignited.

I shall ****, to drown my malice,  
With nepenthe and hemlock blessed;
Placing my lips upon the chalice
Of your pointed, heartless breast.

Come, lovely cat, lie at my breast
Cease your scratching and settle,
Into your beautiful eyes let me rest
Swirled with agate and metal.

When my fingers caress you at leisure,
Your head and your back's elasticity,
And my hand tingles with pleasure
At the spark of your electricity,

In your spirit, I see my lover’s expression
Like your own, amiable creature.
Profound and cold, leaving a deep impression.
And, from her head, across her features,

A subtle air, a musky sin
Floats about her dusky skin.

Mud drenched months, so soporific,
I love and find you beatific
Envelope too my heart and brain
In a gauzy shroud and tomb of pain

The south wind plays on this great plain,
Where nightly creaks the weathervane,
With ebbs and flows, my soul sings
As it extends its raven wings

My heart is filled with dreary things
As it does when frosts descend,
Oh shaded seasons, my regal friends!

Your shadows sweetly lingering,
- Unless in darkness, like newly-weds,
Numbing the pain of a hazardous bed.

Ardent lovers and scholars austere
Love equally, in their twilight years,
Powerful and gentle cats, their masters’s pride,
Who like them are cautious and indoors abide.

Friends of science and sensual delight
They seek the silence of the night;
The dark god would have them guarding graves,
Were they so humble as to be his slaves.

They have the air of a sphinx on a throne
With thoughts of solitude they lie alone,
Who seem to sleep in a dream eternal;

Their fertile ***** are full of magic sparks,
And gold patches  and sable marks
Sparkle dimly their eyes infernal.

You tore my heart like a dagger’s ******
When before you it was laid
You, a parasite fuelled by lust
Like drunk demonic parade

You’ve tarred a mind that once was sound
To make it your bed and your domain
Degenerate to whom I'm bound
Like a convict to a chain

Like a gambling man to fortune’s wheel
Like the lush to a bottle of gin,
Like the maggots to their grisly meal,
**** you, you rot from within!

Give to me a swift, sharp death
For to set my weak soul free,
Give me poison to taint my breath
For to take my fear from me

Alas! both the poison and  the blade
Contemptuously said to me:
"You will not be freed or slayed
From your accursed slavery

You fool! — if from that deadly trance
Of which your release you desire
Your kisses would necromance
The cadaver of your vampire!"

Dear reader, you know that we’re cursed
By our nature’s decadent thirst
At the hand of the devil
We’re drawn unto evil
But it’s boredom that’s really the worst!

My body is baudelarious.
Hilarious,
no?

When you are older but have not aged,
And lie restlessly with the cat in your arms,
Think of injustices you once against raged,
Or perhaps of that gauzy fairy’s charms?

The nightingale hours pierced by larks,
Recall the ones that we once shared,
As each new lover leaves red marks;
I think of how your heart once cared.

My memory will have begun to fade,
Less of a “belle dame” than a shade -
Paler than you, my vampiric soul!

To you, dark bat, I give my dreams,
As the fire's embers cease to gleam
And leave in their wake the coal.