metsat00 Wrote:
> A tribute poem to Clark Ashton Smith, offered by
> Sandor Szabo.
>
> --
>
> Lilitu
>
> In vigilambulism
> The nights were lost it seems
> Held in the searing clutches
> Of absinthe fevre-dreams
>
> Temptress immedicable
> Coaxed mad oaths from my lips
> Ensconced in viscid claspings
> 'Tween blissful, lissom hips
>
> Mating my demonlover
> As moons hurtled their tracks
> Damning my mortal body
> With Asmodean pacts
>
> I drank its burning kisses
> Reveled with raptured wails
> Heedless of gashes carven
> By its uncinate nails
>
> The days grow insubstantial
> The midnight hours are lost
> But I dare not stop to count
> The soul-blaspheming cost.
I liked this: besotted logophilia in the finest decadent tradition. But if you are Hungarian, have you thought about translating any of CAS's work for the site?
Something else I've enjoyed recently (but I doubt I'd've guessed the author):
Memories (1930)
"The eradication of memories of the Great War." -SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT ORGAN
The Socialist Government speaks:
THOUGH all the Dead were all forgot
And razed were every tomb,
The Worm-the Worm that dieth not
Compels Us to our doom.
Though all which once was England stands
Subservient to Our will,
The Dead of whom we washed Our hands,
They have observance still.
We laid no finger to Their load.
We multiplied Their woes.
We used Their dearly-opened road
To traffic with Their foes:
And yet to Them men turn their eyes,
To Them are vows renewed
Of Faith, Obedience, Sacrifice,
Honour and Fortitude!
Which things must perish. But Our hour
Comes not by staves or swords
So much as, subtly, through the power
Of small corroding words.
No need to make the plot more plain
By any open thrust;
But-see Their memory is slain
Long ere Their bones are dust!
Wisely, but yearly, filch some wreath-
Lay some proud rite aside-
And daily tarnish with Our breath
The ends for which They died.
Distract, deride, decry, confuse-
(Or-if it serves Us-pray!)
So presently We break the use
And meaning of Their day!
Rudyard Kipling
“The true independent is he who dwells detached and remote from the little herds as well as from the big herd. Affiliating with no group or cabal of mice or monkeys, he is of course universally suspect.†—
The Black Book of Gore Vidal.