Baudelaire's Party




I don't know why I felt the need to paraphrase Baudelaire's 'Get Drunk' poem: to understand it better perhaps. I read it yesterday and it won't leave my head, although there are worse things to be echoing than this call to be vibrantly alive.

On this table, under the ticking of the clock, there is a glass which should not be empty. The more you fill it the bigger it gets, and the clock shrinks in size and noise; the clock that holds a scythe and is circling for you. Into the glass pour the essence of intoxication, of delirious loves and hearts that beat with wings, pour and drink and be always drunk from it. There may be a time that you wake, cold and sober in a place unknown, but only ask; what time is this; only listen; the answer flows in every thing to every sense; even in the tick of the clock, the answer holds. It is the hour to fill your glass.

I love the appreciation of life, simultaneously am repelled by the suggestion of selfishness, maybe that's the compulsion explained. Baudelaire does list virtue as a thing to be drunk with, but next to wine and poetry I'm not convinced it seems that viable a choice… Now would be a good time for me to go stare in a metaphorical mirror…

For now, I am going to blame Christmas. The adverts have started. Sparkly things are lighting up shop displays. Celebrations are a delight and a puzzle like this. Life should always be celebrated, that I agree, and the nature of the fête need not always be hedonistic. (Fill your glass with an amusing cloud shape, for example, fill it with an act of random kindness. Expand your tastes like this, and surely all indulgence is balanced?) 

Time will tell...

Comments

Suze said…
Oh, Lils ...

To sparkly things

and hearts that beat with wings!
12 November 2012 at 17:20
Lisa Southard said…
A toast indeed! :-) xx
13 November 2012 at 08:18
Suze said…
Babe, I'm gonna assume you're in for this week's FSF, too? I'm posting the list, tomorrow, and remember you saying you had a jolly piece? :)
13 November 2012 at 16:50
Lisa Southard said…
Assumption correct :-)
13 November 2012 at 18:47
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