Zen Bush Blog

from the French of Charles Baudelaire

Blithely to draft these scribbles I need to lie,

like the astologers, in an attic next the sky

where, high among church spires, I can dream and hear

their grave hymns wind-blown to my ivory tower.

Chin in hand, up here in my apartment block,

I can see workshops full of noise and talk,

cranes and masts of the ocean-going city,

vast clouds-lit photographs of eternity.

I watch a foggy star open and shine

in the azure sky, a lamp at a windowpane,

smoke rising into the firmament like incense,

the moon dispensing its mysterious influence.

I watch for spring and summer, autumn too;

and when the winter comes, with silent snow,

I shut the shutters and close the curtains tight

to build my faerie palaces in the night

and think of love and gardens, blue resorts,

white fountains splashing into marble courts,

birds chirping day and night, whatever notion

tickles the infantile imagination...

Rattling the window with its hoarse burlesque

no mob distracts me from my writing desk;

for here I am, up to my usual tricks -

evoking sunlight as my whims require,

my thoughts blazing for want of a real fire.

  Go to Tibet Ride a camel. Read the bible. Dye your shoes blue. Grow a beard. Circle the world in a paper canoe. Subscribe to The Saturday Evening Post. Chew on the left side of your mouth only. Marry a woman with one leg and shave with a straight razor. And carve your name in her arm.

Brush your teeth with gasoline. Sleep all day and climb trees at night. Be a monk and drink buckshot and beer. Hold your head under water and play the violin. Do a belly dance before pink candles. Kill your dog. Run for mayor. Live in a barrel. Break your head with a hatchet. Plant tulips in the rain.