*This is copyrighted material from my new book, "Poems of a Prodigal." Photo is Public Domain.
Baudelaire
Baudelaire, you beautiful man,
You gorgeous soul!
You were a Shakespeare and Mozart
Combined with a vampire.
You were a proud ship sailing toward the
horizon,
And a descending aircraft ripping toward
Hell.
Your eyes were ever intoxicated with divine
light,
Your heart intractably drunk with sin's wine.
In white clouds of opiate smoke you dreamt.
You were condemned to see sunsets in all,
Damned by the stars, and women.
Samson would concur, as Villon,
And van Gogh.
Man of roses, yet satanic.
You were life, and death.
You were pink, blue, black.
Your mind was a cemetery
In which you strolled
Among flowers and skulls.
You turned French poetry
Into somber, Catholic
Music for evenings.
You are the King of poets,
Next to your son, Rimbaud.