A while back, if I remember right, my life was one long party where all hearts were open wide, where all wines kept flowing.
Marylebone Road, Westminster, NW1
One night, I sat Beauty down on my lap.—And I found her galling.—And I roughed her up.
Tontone Street, Folkestone, Kent, CT20
I armed myself against justice.
Queenstown Road, Wandsworth, SW8
I ran away. O witches, O misery, O hatred, my treasure’s been turned over to you!
Democracy Village, Parliament Square, Westminster, SW1P
I managed to make every trace of human hope vanish from my mind. I pounced on every joy like a ferocious animal eager to strangle it.
Gerry Judah's Auschwitz-Birkenau Model, The Holocaust Exhibition, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth, SE1
I called for executioners so that, while dying, I could bite the butts of their rifles. I called for plagues to choke me with sand, with blood. Bad luck was my god. I stretched out in the muck. I dried myself in the air of crime. And I played tricks on insanity.
From Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell (1873)
