Rimbaud Drinks a Spicy V-8 with Lemon

Resort to flavors actually
cutting into tongue:
as if to set in motion
sympathetic undulations

in the deepest stirring
underpinnings of a living
creature: “spirit” seems
a feeble sin of an excuse

for this sharp thing
that moves the system into
gear: that source and center
to which you can’t find

a way to be too near:
you spear it now with this
tomato juice and lemon, spicy
brine – hot pepper: puckering

to an exacting permutation
of the infinite variety available
to tease the palate
into paying more attention

to the bite that shoves –
abducts – and will not
tolerate the rut of comfortable
mild diffusion: opt for

its profusion of particulars:
vividly vehicular: a race
of horse-carts through
the heart: whose every part

is whole: savor in this sour
simulacrum of the blood
a taste of what disrupts –
ergo constructs – the soul.


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