Up the Marble Stair Looking For La Fee Verte...



(Image may be subject to copyright. Read the note at the end of this page.).

“Let me be mad…
mad with the madness
of Absinthe, the wildest, most
luxurious madness in the world.”

Marie Corelli

  
(Image may be subject to copyright. Read the note at the end of this page.).

Rimbaud's Poison

The emerald hour--
when the poet's pain is soothed
by a liquid jewel
held in the sacred chalice,
upon which rests
the pierced spoon,
the crystal sweetness--
Icy streams trickle down.
The darkest forest
melts into an open meadow
as waves of green seduce.
Sanity surrendered--
the soul spirals toward
the murky depths,
wherein lies
the beautiful madness--
Absinthe.

Peggy Amond

Copyrighted 2001

 

 

Absinthia Taetra
Green changed to white, emerald to opal; nothing was changed.
The man let the water trickle gently into his glass,
and as the green clouded, a mist fell from his mind.

Then he drank opaline.

Memories and terrors beset him.
The past tore after him like a panther and
through the blackness of the present he saw
the luminous tiger eyes of the things to be.

But he drank opaline.

And that obscure night of the soul, and the valley of humiliation,
through which he stumbled, were forgotten.
He saw blue vistas of undiscovered countries,
high prospects and a quiet, caressing sea.
The past shed its perfume over him,
today held his hand as if it were a little child,
and tomorrow shone like a white star: nothing was changed.

He drank opaline.

The man had known the obscure night of the soul,
and lay even now in the valley of humiliation;
and the tiger menace of the things to be was red in the skies.
But for a little while he had forgotten.
Green changed to white, emerald to opal; nothing was changed.

~ Ernest Dowson

“After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were.
After the second, you see things as they are not.
Finally, you see things as they really are,
which is the most horrible thing in the world.”

Oscar Wilde