presented with the invaluable assistance of
The Great Lakes Literary Farts Center
Enchantress, could you love the damned?
Tell me, do you know the unforgivable?
Do you know Remorse, whose poison
Find a home in our hearts?
Enchantress, could you love the damned?
— Charles Baudelaire
— I’ve seen in the depths of a tawdry theater
Inflamed by a sonorous band
A fairy illuminate a miraculous dawn
In an infernal sky; I’ve seen
Sometimes in the depths of a tawdry theater
A Being, clothed in gauzy golden light,
Throw down great Satan
But my heart, never visited by ecstasy,
Is an empty theater where I await always
Always in vain that Being with golden wings!
— Charles Baudelaire