Cultivating remorse


TO THE READER
Charles Baudelaire (tr Stanely Kunitz)

Ignorance, error, cupidity, and sin
Possess our souls and exercise our flesh
Habitually we cultivate remorse
As beggars entertain and nurse their lice.

Our sins are stubborn. Cowards when contrite
We overpay confession with our pains,
And when we're back again in human mire
Vile tears, we think, will wash away our stains.

Thrice-potent Satan in our cursèd bed
Lulls us to sleep, our spirit over-kissed
Until the precious metal of our will
Is vaporized -- that cunning alchemist!

Who but the Devil pulls our waking-strings!
Abominations lure us to their side;
Each day we take another step to hell,
Descending through the stench, unhorrified.

Like an exhausted rake who mouths and chews
The martyrized breast of an old withered whore
We steal, in passing, whatever joys we can,
Squeezing the driest orange all the more.

Packed in our brains as incestuous as worms
Our demons celebrate in drunken gangs,
And when we breathe, that hollow rasp is Death
Sliding invisibly down into our lungs.

If the dull canvas of our wretched life
Is unembellished with such pretty ware
As knives or poison, pyromania, rape
It is because our soul's too weak to dare!

But in this den of monkeys, jackals, curs,
Scorpions, buzzards, snakes -- this paradise
Of filthy beasts that screech, howl, grovel, grunt --
In this menagerie of mankind's vice

There's one supremely hideous and impure!
Soft-spoken, not the type to cause a scene,
He'd willingly make rubble of the earth
And swallow up creation in a yawn.

I mean Ennui! who in his hookah-dreams
Produces hangmen and real tears together.
How well you know this fastidious monster, reader,
-- Hypocrite reader, you -- my double! my brother!

I started reading Les Fleurs du Mal almost a month ago, not necessarily in anticipation of hallowe'en, but it is the perfect reading material for the season. And tonight, I'm in that kind of mood...

I was driving home from a friend's house tonight, and came to a stop light in what has to be one of Austin's 5 weirdest intersections. (And, yes, I could come up with that list. We'll see how much energy I have after writing this post.) It's South Lamar just north of 71/290/Ben White Boulevard, heading south. If you want to get on 71/290 West, you have to move over to one of two leftward lanes, with their own stop light. If you want to continue on what becomes a frontage road, get on Ben White East, or Loop 360, you have to be in one of the rightward lanes. I was planning on getting on 71/290 West, and stopped at a red light. An SUV stayed in one of the right lanes, went through a green light, and then pulled over to the left so he could get on 71 West. It didn't affect any other driver, it was just wrong. How much longer would it have taken him to pull into the correct lane and wait for a green light?
But I know I'm not a policeman, and there's nothing I can do about his driving, and I am stuck waiting for a green light one way or the other. So what does it really matter what he does? Although I can be self-righteous, do his actions have any impact if I choose not to allow them to?

This comes up for me because I feel I got slighted at my friend's house. Another friend, Shoeless 2, left the house without saying a word to me. The last time I really talked to her was about a month ago, and I had to make an apology because I had misunderstood something she was saying, in front of a number of people, and they could have had the same mistaken impression I did about her sexual habits... But I did make a sincere apology and amends, and it's no longer any of my concern whether she is still pissed or not. Do her actions have any impact if I choose not to allow them to?

Posted: Fri - November 3, 2006 at 10:14 PM        

©