Tristan Robert Lange

Les Fleurs du Mal

The poet, like a prophet,

Is a three-headed albatross,

Distinct, yet conjoined

At their burdensome beak.

The first head, covered in eyes,

Sees the world around.

The second with enlarged

Auricular openings,

Binaural beats bleed through

In synaptic synergy,

Each sound is sanguine sticky;

They cannot be unheard.

The third, most ghastly head,

Covered in bloody carnage,

Its endings raw and exposed,

Surfacing outward,

Having been in the depths of sin—

Dark acid scalding in screams—

The nerves are now sensitive,

Exposed

To the flowers of evil,

Sea men who come

On the poop deck of despair

To snag the broad bird,

Pull it down from its heights,

Let it hobble awkwardly a moment,

Gavage it with fatty filler—

Foie gras for freedom’s forgery.

No one likes a loud bird,

Even when they squawk—

In their own aviary notes:

“The storm of the scythebearer,

Fast upon us, approaches!”

Originally published on tristanrobertlange.com, August 27, 2025.

Tittu

Poet’s Note:

Les Fleurs du Mal was written in homage to Charles Baudelaire, whose own Fleurs du Mal shattered conventions and opened doors into the gothic, the decadent, and the existential. Drawing inspiration from one of the earliest poems in that collection, this piece does not seek to imitate his voice, but to honor the resonance of his vision — where beauty and corruption bloom side by side, and poetry becomes both wound and cure.