Sonnet du Trou du Cul: Sonnet of the Asshole

thefindesiecle:

Selection from “Sonnet du Trou de Cul” (Sonnet of the Asshole), 1872.

Translated and adapted by Arthur “Slim” Volume.

Translators Note: This is the only poem known to have been composed jointly by Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine.

Dark and wrinkled like a purple pink
It breathes, nestling humbly among the still-damp
Froth of love that follows the gentle slope
Of the white buttocks to its crater’s edge.

Filaments like tears of milk
Have wept in the cruel wind which pushes them back,
Across little clots of reddish marl
To lose themselves where the slope called them.

EN FRANCAIS:

Obscur et froncé comme un œillet violet
Il respire, humblement tapi parmi la mousse
Humide encor d’amour qui suit la fuite douce
Des Fesses blanches jusqu’au cœur de son ourlet.

Des filaments pareils à des larmes de lait
Ont pleuré, sous le vent cruel qui les repousse,
À travers de petits caillots de marne rousse
Pour s’aller perdre où la pente les appelait.