The Crapulous Toad

after Tristan Corbière

He chants into the airless night...
-- The bright moon recounts hard metallic light

Upon the snotgreen tatters of the sky.
...High-as-a-kite song, echoes buried
Alive as he roars beneath the flower bed...
-- Shschsch! Lush silence shadowing the shadows...

-- Blottoed toad! What do you fear
From me, your faithful rat-arsed soldier?
See here, the pie-eyed poet, wingless
Nightingale of the sodden mire, legless

He sings: "The horror! The horror!!" Why?
Can't you see his bloodshot glittering eye?
No: he's pissed off to his stony lair.

- Here's mud in your eye: Mon semblable, mon frére!

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