Keats, Rimbaud, Verlaine
Day after day I sit and write French verse
Forms, villanelles and terzanelles. At noon
I leave the British Library. “Much worse
Existences,” I say, smugly, “are strewn
Across the urban universe.” Today
I noticed from the bus Paul Verlaine’s place
He shared with Arthur on my route. I sway
Off at the stop for Keats’ house. There I pace
The springtime garden, thinking of: doomed hope
Of man with woman, man with boy, a shot
Fired hotly in a hotel room, a slope
Towards death, of lungs destroyed, of graveyard plot
In Rome, poor Paul!, poor tiny, bleeding Keats!,
Of Rimbaud’s rotten leg, his blank heartbeats.