ORPHEUS

les nuages, les merveilleux nuages…
CH. BAUDELAIRE

Orpheus never - but never - found any consolation
for the double loss
of Eurydice:
sometimes - for a while - he'd sing a song in his languor
at others - again for a while -
colours
fascinated him
with their infinite varieties
and their accidental
combinations of all kinds

once - at the sun's
setting -
he noticed in the blue of the sky
fascinating arrays of
clouds
- about which in Kavouri once a gendarme*
as if repentant had cried:
"Behold the clouds of Engonopoulos!" -

yet these - in truth -
were not the clouds of Engonopoulos
they were knives
blades
sharpened daggers and sabres
that upon their blue gowns
were worn
by Thrace's most cruel virgins

and brandishing these
in their heartless hands the cruel virgins
fell upon him - I repeat - with these
butchering
hacking
Orpheus

*I wonder if he knew his colleague - of a lower rank however - serving in Tinchebray (Orne)?

Translated by David Connolly