Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Dorothy Porter

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE’S GRAVE

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE’S GRAVE

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE’S GRAVE

How do you bury a poet?

Surely not
how they buried Baudelaire
thrown in with his parents
like an infant death.

It stretches
to a ghastly irony
Pasternak’s remark
that poets should remain
children.

Do poets really want to trade
the lingering savour
of experience
for guileless eyes?

There’s something
repulsive
about an empty fresh
adult face.

Such baby faces
can be seen in uniform
or with a foot
on a slaughtered tiger.

They can be capable
of anything
or a long lullaby
of nothing.

I want to exhume Baudelaire
and give him his own
magnificent mercurial vault.

From one angle
an arching ebony cat.
From another
sneering black marble
spleen.

No poet
dead or alive
should rot
with their parents.
Close

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE’S GRAVE

How do you bury a poet?

Surely not
how they buried Baudelaire
thrown in with his parents
like an infant death.

It stretches
to a ghastly irony
Pasternak’s remark
that poets should remain
children.

Do poets really want to trade
the lingering savour
of experience
for guileless eyes?

There’s something
repulsive
about an empty fresh
adult face.

Such baby faces
can be seen in uniform
or with a foot
on a slaughtered tiger.

They can be capable
of anything
or a long lullaby
of nothing.

I want to exhume Baudelaire
and give him his own
magnificent mercurial vault.

From one angle
an arching ebony cat.
From another
sneering black marble
spleen.

No poet
dead or alive
should rot
with their parents.

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE’S GRAVE

Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère