Arthur Rimbaud

20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891 / Charleville, Ardennes

Clearance Sale

For what the Jews have not sold,
what neither nobility nor crime have tasted,
what is unknown to monstrous love
and to the infernal probity of the masses!

what neither time nor science need recognize: The Voices restored;
fraternal awakening of all choral and orchestral energies
and their instantaneous application; the opportunity, the only one,
for the release of our senses! For sale Bodies without price,
outside any race, any world, any sex, any lineage! Riches gushing at every step!

Uncontrolled sale of diamonds!
For sale anarchy for the masses;
irrepressible satisfaction for rare connoisseurs;
agonizing death for the faithful and for lovers!

For sale colonization and migrations, sports,
fairylands and incomparable comforts,
and the noise and the movement
and the future they make!

For sale the application of calculations
and the incredible leaps of harmony.
Discoveries and terms never dreamed of,
-- immediate possession.

Wild and infinite flight toward invisible splendors,
toward intangible delights--
and its maddening secrets for every vice
-- and its terrifying gaiety for the mob.

For sale, the bodies, the voices,
the enormous and unquestionable wealth,
that which will never be sold.
Salesmen are not at the end of their stock!
It will be some time before travelers have to turn in their accounts.
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