Our National Poet Living in London and then at 165 King’s Road, Reading?
More nights in London than in Paris—and
Rimbaud lived in Berkshire, too; in Reading
165 King’s Road, Reading, where Rimbaud lived and worked
He wrote prose poems and free verse, not bland,
Tight alexandrine stuff. He was heading
To modern verse—close to poetry’s death,
Abandoning his mayhem of the art,
A corpse he felt had been strangled of breath
By rhyme and scansion. They were just stale fart.
That’s what he smelled. But “Being Beauteous”
Is nonsense, not surreal, adolescent
Drivel, treacle spilled on duteous
Ones, a cliché of the incandescent.
Since it’s such a totally failed attempt,
The English might accept him with contempt.