#spleen
I see you
You see me
On the same path
You watch me
Like an avant-garde
You hear my voice
My sigh beneath your roof.
I follow you and I keep you
Deep within me, you are my guardian
It is with kisses that I bombard you
You see me
Just as I see you
Hearing your voice
I tremble beneath your narrow roof.
You live and shine deep within me
You are my soul, my spleen, and my heart
You see me
And I see you
Embrace me once more
Since I obey your laws
My love, my excitement.
P.S. Translation of ‘Mon Amour, Mon Émoi’ by Hébert Logerie.
Copyright © November 2025 Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved.
Hébert Logerie is the author of several poetry collections.
Nov 2, 2025
Nov 2, 2025 at 10:37 AM UTC
the ceiling fan spins like a jury deliberating
over the crime of my birth
each blade a verdict, each rotation a mistrial.
i swallowed a payphone once,
just to hear the dial tone echo in my ribs.
it still rings when i lie too still.
there’s a cassette lodged in my throat,
rewinding the moment you said
“this isn’t a rescue, it’s a rerun.”
the walls are made of expired prescriptions
and the wallpaper peels like scabs
from a wound that never learned its name.
i tried to alphabetize my regrets
but they keep filing themselves under “miscellaneous.”
the mattress remembers more than i do
its springs hum elegies for limbs
that forgot how to tremble.
i saw a man selling nostalgia in ziplock bags
outside the ruins of a blockbuster.
he offered me a discount
if i promised not to feel anything.
my veins are traffic reports from cities
that no longer exist.
gridlock in the left atrium.
detour through the spleen.
you once said
“pain is just a poorly translated metaphor,”
but i think it’s a fax machine
still printing out apologies
from a decade that never arrived.
Oct 22, 2025
Oct 22, 2025 at 9:53 PM UTC
You and I have been friends for many moons
You and I have played together countless afternoons
Not to mention many mornings and many nights.
Since today is your birthday, I want to send you: kaleidoscopic lights
Multiple dancing rainbows of heaven, exotic flowers
And warm hugs and I’ll blow fresh new kisses from afar to your ears.
I called you my special darling for numerous reasons
I hoped our friendship would flourish through all seasons
Even though I am now disappointed, down and sad
And though we’re no longer committed to each other; I’m not mad.
No matter what, today is a special and beautiful day
For you and me. I’m very happy for you
In my heart, you will always have a niche, a stay
You will forever remain deep in my spleen and my soul.
Copyright © May 2025 Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved
Hébert Logerie is the author of several books of poetry.
May 24, 2025
May 24, 2025 at 1:50 PM UTC
Spleen
by Paul Verlaine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The roses were so very red;
The ivy, impossibly black.
Dear, with a mere a turn of your head,
My despair’s flooded back!
The sky was too gentle, too blue;
The sea, far too windswept and green.
Yet I always imagined―or knew―
I’d again feel your spleen.
Now I'm tired of the glossy waxed holly,
Of the shimmering boxwood too,
Of the meadowland’s endless folly,
When all things, alas, lead to you!
Paul-Marie Verlaine (1844-1896) was a French poet and a prominent figure in the Symbolist and Decadent poetry movements. Verlaine has been called "one of the most purely lyrical of French poets." Keywords/Tags: Verlaine, French, translation, spleen, roses, ivy, despair, sky, sea, blue, green, red, black, holly, boxwood, Arthur Rimbaud
Ophélie (“Ophelia”), an Excerpt
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
On pitiless black waves unsinking stars abide
... while pale Ophelia, a lethargic lily, drifts by ...
Here, tangled in her veils, she floats on the tide ...
Far-off, in the woods, we hear the strident bugle’s cry.
For a thousand years, or more, sad Ophelia,
This albescent phantom, has rocked here, to and fro.
For a thousand years, or more, in her gentle folly,
Ophelia has rocked here when the night breezes blow.
For a thousand years, or more, sad Ophelia,
Has passed, an albescent phantom, down this long black river.
For a thousand years, or more, in her sweet madness
Ophelia has made this river shiver.
Mar 28, 2020
Mar 28, 2020 at 2:17 AM UTC
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, scantily-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.
Oct 10, 2017
Oct 10, 2017 at 9:26 AM UTC
his name was kendall
a beautiful boy
even though his nose was rather large
like soMETHING ELSEEE
there was james
emo as hell
but not really
it was just his hair idk
logan was there too
he had a brain
keep me coming
carlos also
Jul 6, 2016
Jul 6, 2016 at 7:49 AM UTC