Le sonnet du trou du cul. The result was this hilarious sonnet…
Albert Mérat was a poet and writer famous for his many female conquests.
But, as is often the case today, his fame was invented to hide his homosexuality.
In the spring of 1872, Mérat wrote some bitter articles in the French newspapers of the time, criticizing Verlaine and Rimbaud, who, unlike him, did not hide their homosexual tendencies at all.
Mérat had just written a little book in which all the female beauties were sung in sonnets such as “Sonnet of the Forehead,” “Sonnet of the Eyes,” and “Sonnet of the Buttocks”.
So the two poets decided to write a parody of a sonnet to add to the newly published book with Mérat’s signature, as if he had written it himself.
And the result was this hilarious sonnet…
Le sonnet du trou du cul – Paul Verlaine e Arthur Rimbaud
Obscur et froncé comme un œillet violet
Il respire, humblement tapi parmi la mousse
Humide encor d’amour qui suit la fuite douce
Des Fesses blanches jusqu’au cœur de son ourlet.
Des filaments pareils à des larmes de lait
Ont pleuré, sous l’autant cruel qui les repousse,
À travers de petits caillots de marne rousse
Pour s’aller perdre où la pente les appelait.
Mon Rêve s’aboucha souvent à sa ventouse.
Mon âme, du coït matériel jalouse,
En fit son larmier fauve et son nid de sanglots.
C’est l’olive pâmée, et la flûte caline.
C’est le tube où descend la céleste praline :
Chanaan féminin dans les moiteurs enclos !
Some tidbits :
In French, the expression trou du cul (trù dü cü) is also used as an insult (as is the Livorno slang buo di ‘ulo).
The oeillet is not only the carnation, but also the synonym for anus.
