#decadentmovement
To the Victorian poets of Decadence:
I love you, you who conquered lands unknown,
spread diseases, plagues full-blown;
you who revelled
in the unbearable lushness of being
sensuous and decadent, kings
of insidious words, slipping sweetly,
sliding slickly
into the narrow channels of the outraged public brain.
Ah how I love you, you who exhilarated
in deep despair; woe to the nightingale immortalised!
Who yet found meaning in dark emptiness,
rallying 'round with the cry of 'Art for art's sake!'
And so you, bridled with emotion, eat your cake,
fuming with bright, bitter melancholy,
never gaining the intimacy
and restfulness you so craved.
I think I love you because I understand you,
you who search relentlessly through
the victorious squalor of life that will not cede
control to your grasping hands
but jostles greedily to conquer virtuous lands.
Run away Prudence, Chastity and Grace!
Fall to your knees, hang your head, hide your face,
let shame overtake you, for Faith is a cuss word, you've decided.
And so, you arrogant men who surrender
to the hedonist's depraved desires, you pleasure seeker,
dearest sybarite, no mere voluptuary,
You whose gilt-edged poetry tongues my heart,
whose heady sensitivity makes me start,
and long for the things of the world I should not cannot want,
I love you unto madness, to distraction, to a slant-
ing of morals, to giving in and giving up.
I fall, a long way down.
Dec 30, 2014
Dec 30, 2014 at 12:41 AM UTC