30 July 2023

Keith Waldrop 1932-2023

 

The Marquis de Sade regained the interior of the erupting volcano

Whence he had come

With his beautiful hands still in ruffles

His eyes of a young girl

And that intelligence at the rim of panic that was

His alone

But from the salon phosphorescent with visceral lamps

He did not cease to hurl mysterious commands

That breached the moral night

Through that breach I see

The great creaking shadows of the old sapped husk

Dissolve

So that I may love you

As the first man loved the first woman

In utter freedom

This freedom

For which fire itself was made man

For which the Marquis de Sade defied the centuries with his great abstract trees

With his tragic acrobats

Caught in the gossamer of desire


(André Breton, Le Marquis de Sade, tr. Keith Waldrop)

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