The Arsehole Sonnet

Rimbaud and Verlaine

those Twin Towers of 19th Century

French poetry

were really quite some

guys.

They wrote this poem

together

'The Arsehole Sonnet'.

It was a beautiful thing.

Verlaine's quatrains on top

Rimbaud's tercets underneath.

That's the way they liked it

honey.

The poem was the apogee of

Romantic achievement.

(Perfect form divorced from

sordid content.)

Verlaine's language robust and

landscape inspired.

'Dark and wrinkled like a violet carnation'

Rimbaud's spiritual conjunctions

'The tube from which the heaven's praline

drops'

This morning I tried to tell my

boyfriend about it.

I raved like a toy with a new child.

However,

he wasn't that interested.

At the time

he was hanging out the washing

in the garden.