HUNGER

By Arthur Rimbaud

(My translation)

If I have a taste, it’s for no more

Than earth and stones.

I breakfast on air,

Rock, coal, iron.

Turn, my hungers. Graze, hungers,

          The fields of sound.

Suck the carefree venom

          Of convolvuli.

Eat the broken shards,

Old church stones;

Pebbles of ancient floods,

Bread strewn in the grey valleys.

                   *

The wolf howled beneath the foliage

Spitting the beautiful plumes

Of a feast of fowl:

Like a wolf I consume myself.

Salad and fruit

Wait only for the picker;

But the hedge-spider

Eats only violets.

Let me sleep! Let me boil

On the altars of Solomon.

The stock runs over the rust

To mingle with the Kedron.