Rimbaud & Swinburne
One wonders if the fog outside had made
Its way inside the reading room where two
Bent poets sat, one who’d employed a blade
Of poesie across Paul’s paps; one who
Composed rhymed couplets focusing upon
The teeth of Sappho biting Atthis’ breast;
The one determined to spew out his spawn
On panting Verlaine’s all too willing chest.
If these two carrel neighbours never met
Within that room, perhaps the foggy fumes
Cross-pollinated them and helped abet
Two decadences scribbling from their plumes.
..More likely they went about sedition,
….Each separately perverting tradition.