Problematic poems about Baudelaire

BAUDELAIRE

Madame Aupick

I wonder why a foetus leaves the womb-

To encounter life’s stifling bitterness;

The sad world outside has, to grim excess,

Revulsion, and rejection, dread, and doom,

And the foetus, in a hospital room,

Is forced from mother, as a writhing mess

Of limbs and screeching mouth, and, at a guess,

Feels like a caught fish that has to watch loom,

Wrenched from the ocean’s sweetness, the stark air-

The stinging atmosphere lacking respite.

And man’s wish is only to go back there-

Within the woman, swim in her delight,

Her soothing tide, opposing the despair

That he breathes in, too sadly, day and night.

General Jacques Aupick

As vicious as respectability,

He worships Church, Nation, Emperor, and God.

For him, duty matters, not being free,

And the discipline of the birch and rod

Is how he would treat the high anarchy

To which poets are liable. Mad and odd-

That is the way this vain tyrant must see

His step- son, Charles, as he must stiffly plod

From soldier’s role to Senator’s, so loyal…

To whomsoever wields power’s fierce whips.

He creeps, he crawls, less honest than a boil;

Charles’ heart flies, with wings his plain hate clips.

He serves whatever is esteemed and royal-

Bullying in his heart, lies on his lips.