New Alphabet

 Rimbaud stood upon un balcon, assessing the febrile allocation of human space below. No metaphors survive, only the priceless squawk of Verlaine (Paul), in the rough hands of intoxication. Rimbaud may not even have seen the words, the passing traumas, the skulking vocabulary lading the streets below. Squalour remains the verbal remnant of the royal unleashing. Colours defray the cost of straining language, as if such noise could be heard or listened to. The Seine or any other cousin of the Nile invites comparison to shit, merde, the remaining afterhours onus. Nothing in the world weighs more than preposition, and logically nothing can. Word by word Rimbaud takes an earnest flight of poésie, the glockenspiel of romance. The skidding impact and downright crack restoreth nothing in long vivid rapping of pen strokes on paper. On paper, Verlaine proved a great poet, forsooth, trim cadence. Rimbaud turned. The thing, le mot , remains as the smoke of something else, in the burning of which, and in the exact words, briefly, somehow, tho twisted, a failing barometer of intent. In just so many words, Rimbaud’s point takes no space at all. Time left unspent in generation.