a word doesn't have to be real for it to have meaning
nothing has to be real for it to grip your stomach and throat and force butterflies into every part of your anatomy
the emotion crawls under your skin and all you can do is feel it

a woman rises in the dawn with her fiery red hair, eating men like air
you become that smiling woman, only 17 and not even a lady
dying becomes your art, and you are indeed very good at it

a man frowned like thunder and went away, the stars not needed today
you begin to pack up your very own sky, melancholy filling your entire world until it all comes to a standstill
wind does not blow and not even streetlights shine
your very own lover is still in tact, a phone call away even
but he frowned like thunder and went away

a raven, a remorse, a rapping at the chamber door
a madness, a mania, a man whose mind is gripped by loss
a horror that now belongs to you, the pigeons on the street start to quoth "nevermore,"
every crow is an omen, every bird is wandering through purgatory just to torment you,
and you have no loss to speak of

I dreamt I wrote that feeling, I dreamt I put it into words
I dreamt I transcended humanity, I dreamt I became the art
I dreamt about the feeling, I dreamt you felt it too

I'm going to have a hard time cleaning up this mess
sorting out the bedsheets and pulling the mattress topper back into place,
throwing out the takeaway we were too drunk to eat

the febreeze won't hide the sweat and rotten food, not very well

my little den of hedonism feels empty without my love to share it with
without his arms around me, without his cologne,

I feel unclean in the morning-after mess

I needed to write something

Maybe about how after you went I was only left with smoke dancing in the streetlights

Or about how the stars were so pretty when my eyes couldn't make out your silloette anymore and all I could do was look up

I thought about writing about a dying lover, a ghost that I could still feel clinging to my body

But that's just not right

You're still here, my halcyon boy

You didn't smile like thunder and go away,
No funeral blues today

tether holding me to earth, I can still reach out and hold on tight

My boy, we won't see each other much

And it'll take some time

But somewhere down the line

We won't be alone

There's a man on the radio trying to show the audience how to grow onions

Who has the heart to tell him he's mistaken?

Unrhymed, unrhythmical, the chatter goes:
Yet no one hears his own remarks as prose.

Beneath each topic tunelessly discussed
The ground-bass is reciprocal mistrust.

The names in fashion shuttling to and fro
Yield, when deciphered, messages of woe.

You cannot read me like an open book.
I'm more myself than you will ever look.

Will no one listen to my little song?

Perhaps I shan't be with you very long.

A howl for recognition, shrill with fear,
Shakes the jam-packed apartment, but each ear
Is listening to its hearing, so none hear.

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

Some say love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go around,
Some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn't over there;
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories ****** but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.