Is this the real life,
Or just an absinthe spree,
A laudanum high
To escape from reality?
Poe is this guy’s
Book writer to prize, ’cause he
Feels it, the poet joy (poet joy);
He reads with empathy
Because he sees at once, sees in Poe
Lit that’s high, lit that’s so
To the soul a window.
Dosed both their gray matter freely.

Madness—he’s ill, this man!
What is running through his head:
Lurid visions there are bred.
Madness, rife is it enough.
Puffed flowers gone; he smoked them all away.
Hashish! Ooh. . . .
Sniffles, screaming—and here’s why:
He’s out of hash, prompting anger and sorrow.

Booze spate: no wine or rum;
Verte sipping now is fine,
Opalescent is the shine.
Goodbye, heavy body—
Feel lightness grow.
Wormwood leaves enhance the mind, reveal the truth
Anis, ooh! (anis ain’t in gin, though)
Guy wants to get high
Then see visions he’ll record with his scrawl.

My, see him scribble something ribald, something grand.
Sacre bleu! Sacre bleu!
Is this dude like mad van Gogh?
His bons mots enlight’ning, but sometimes they frighten me.
Gals he lays, so; gals he lays, so; gals he lays, so syph from ho’s—
Man’s sickness grows.

He is a flower boy—smokes pot; he’s puffy;
He is a “Flower” boy; the law sports enmity:
“Pare off six writes!” snorts the judiciary.*
He succumbs; these six go.

He’s a drunk, he’s like Gogh—swilling like van Gogh
But brilliant—he is brilliant, like van Gogh,
Like van Gogh;
He’s brilliant—he is swilling, like van Gogh,
Like van Gogh (swilling like van Gogh),
Like van Gogh (brilliant, like van Gogh),
Clever, clever, clever, clever
Like van Gogh-ogh-ogh-ogh-ogh,
Oh so, oh so, so, so, so.

Oh hashish wheezer, anis pleaser, “Paradis”er** soon will go—
Fever’s well up; man on deathbed now resides;
Forty and six is he.

Though he was often stoned, a scintillating guy.
Now we love his poetry; like him, we get high.
In Paris is where he wrote “Paradis.”

Just gotta get snout, just gotta get snout outta beer.

Stuff for my gray matter,
Its proof’s one-twenty,
Stuff for my gray matter,
Stuff for my gray matter: “Fairy,”*** as they say.
Absinthe toast.


*In 1857, Baudelaire published “Les Fleurs du Mal” (Flowers of Evil). The public prosecutor had it seized and sued the poet and his publisher. The court fined Baudelaire and ordered six poems removed from the book.
**“Les Paradis Artificiel”
***“The Green Fairy,” a.k.a. absinthe