The Fountain Of Blood

by

Charles Baudelaire


A fountain's pulsing sobs—like that my blood

Measures its flowing—so it sometimes seems.

I hear a gentle murmur as it streams;

Where the wound is I've never understood.


Like meadows of water, boulevards are flooded.

Cobblestones, crisscrossed by scarlet rills,

Are islands; the creatures come and drink their fill.

Nothing in nature now remains unblooded.


I used to think that wine could bring me ease,

Could lull to sleep my deeply gnawing mind.

I was a fool: the senses clear with wine.


I turned to Love to cure my old disease.

Love led me to a thicket of IVs

Where bristling needles thirsted for each vein.



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