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Optimistic in Summer

Edouard Manet Illustration for the poem “L’Apres-midi d’un Faune” by Stéphane Mallarmé

Going through a stack of sketches and papers I came across this little sonnet. A note says it came from this comment — which was not written by me– from correspondence;


… A lewd friend of mine who confessed to having masturbated with a friend’s girlfriend’s scarf across her face, inhaling a breath of her… Young we dream of ethereal lovers and come in the end to realize the rough embrace of our final partner, the earth from which we came…

A lewd boy  unblushing told how he’d found
and stole a scented scarf from his friend’s girlfriend
took his pleasure while breathing her perfume,
With Summer optimism a breath’s enough.

Young, we dream of ethereal lovers; 
Meat, and sweat, come later. We grow rough
and real, want a good bed in a solid room

(which is only fitting, for at the end
Love's bed is the rough and solid ground).
Edouard Manet Frontispiece for poem “L’Apres-midi d’un Faune” by Stéphane Mallarmé

originally posted Jan 28 2016 stellaomega.com