Could it have troubled Pandora’s mind,
On learning where Hope springs -
At the base of her box she chanced to find
The cruellest devil with angel’s wings?

To foresee it seep into our veins -
Leave us to blunder and fall,
Cause mankind monumental pains,
And make a mockery of us all.

As the drowning heretic looks to the skies -
Before a wave knocks him to his demise
Into an absurd and uncaring ocean.

Somewhere a poet quietly smarts
The excess love from her swollen heart
And on a page whispers her devotion.

Like the king of a rainy country, am I!
Rich, but weak, young with an agèd eye -
The grovelling of his old tutors he scorns,
The company of dogs leaves him forlorn.
Nothing can bring him joy, no hunt nor falconry,
Nor the mortal jousts  before his balcony,
From his favourite jester no ***** tale
Can redden the cheek of one so pale.
His ornate chamber has become a tomb -
And courtesans, *******-clad, to whom,
Though royal favours inspire their provocation;
This skeletal youth finds no temptation.
Flamel himself could forge no plan
To extract the dark humours from this man.
In the baths of blood from days of yore,
He finds no properties to restore
This dazed corpse in whose veins once red -
Now flows the green waters of Lethe instead.

For Max

O cruel, drunken soul, darling tigress,
Come to my heart, you lethargic beast!
I long for my trembling hands to caress
Your thick and glossy fleece.

In your petticoats filled with your scent
To bury my poor, aching head,
Inhaling your flowery fragrance;
The sweetness of love now dead.

I wish to sleep, to dream perchance
As sweetly as death’s embrace,
Without remorse, my tongue will dance
On your coppery body and face.

To bury my sobbing for hours
Nothing equals your bed’s abyss,
On your lips lies oblivion’s power
And Lethe flows in your kiss.

Like one resigned to meet his end,
I’ll face my fate delighted;
Docile martyr, innocent condemned,
Whose fervour with pain is ignited.

I shall ****, to drown my malice,  
With nepenthe and hemlock blessed;
Placing my lips upon the chalice
Of your pointed, heartless breast.

Come, lovely cat, lie at my breast
Cease your scratching and settle,
Into your beautiful eyes let me rest
Swirled with agate and metal.

When my fingers caress you at leisure,
Your head and your back's elasticity,
And my hand tingles with pleasure
At the spark of your electricity,

In your spirit, I see my lover’s expression
Like your own, amiable creature.
Profound and cold, leaving a deep impression.
And, from her head, across her features,

A subtle air, a musky sin
Floats about her dusky skin.

Mud drenched months, so soporific,
I love and find you beatific
Envelope too my heart and brain
In a gauzy shroud and tomb of pain

The south wind plays on this great plain,
Where nightly creaks the weathervane,
With ebbs and flows, my soul sings
As it extends its raven wings

My heart is filled with dreary things
As it does when frosts descend,
Oh shaded seasons, my regal friends!

Your shadows sweetly lingering,
- Unless in darkness, like newly-weds,
Numbing the pain of a hazardous bed.

At night the time is ripe enough to mate:
In close proximity, we duly prowl  
Thro’ slumb’ring streets advancing, cheek by jowl,
With caution like a tiger’s guarded gait.

For us, our claws convey both love and hate,
Into the sea, our songs we shriek and howl
Of treachery and longing hear us yowl;
Bewitching all with beauty is our fate.

For you, I am your ever-loving slave -
Upon your feline charms I’d happ’ly sup!
To have you by my side is all I crave,
Like cream tea we could lap each other up.

Oh! What loving phrases we could hiss
While resting by the hearth in endless bliss.

He sleeps. An enigma, his life bereft -
He lived then died once his angel had left.
It happened as simply as anything might,
As from day there follows the coming of night.