A poem is really a kind of machine for producing the poetic state by means of words.

London, black as crows and noisy as ducks, prudish with all the vices in evidence, everlastingly drunk, in spite of ridiculous laws about drunkenness, immense, though it is really basically only a collection of scandal-mongering boroughs, vying with each other, ugly and dull, without any monuments except interminable docks.

Take eloquence and wring its neck.

Prends l'e loquence et tords-lui son cou! Take eloquence and break its neck!

The poet is a madman lost in adventure.

Sap which mounts, and flowers which thrust, Your childhood is a bower: Let my fingers wander in the moss Where glows the rosebud Let me among the clean grasses Drink the drops of dew Which sprinkle the tender flower

I am the Empire at the end of the decadence.

A vast black sleep falls over my life sleep, all hope sleep, all desire.