(To Sarah Bernhardt)

How vain and dull this common world must seem
To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked
At Florence with Mirandola, or walked
Through the cool olives of the Academe:
Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream
For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have played
With the white girls in that Phaeacian glade
Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.

Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay
Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again
Back to this common world so dull and vain,
For thou wert weary of the sunless day,
The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,
The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.

The seeds were already planted,
We just neglected to watch them grow.
Just when the buds began to
poke themselves through the black Earth,
You made the executive decision
to pluck them from the soil.
I never did see what they'd turn out to be
and you never did care,
But I still wonder what they would've looked like.

Why do I hesitate?
Prefer toys instead
They don't scare me
And I'm always satisfied
How many times did I settle for
only what the man
was willing to give
Frustration, dissapointment and silence
I need honesty now
Especially in bed

Terrifying façade,
long and tall, overpowering
but frail.
Ready to crumble and fall.

Snide wire intertwined,
exit wounds in the concrete flesh.
Each thorn stood to attention,
unwelcoming guards of the now unwanted.

Block after block
of relentless alleyways,
like a labyrinth of colossal gravestones.
The sky opens.

Water rattles bullet-like,
upon the once majestic city walls.
The cathedral moans its last hymn
as the steeple betrays itself.

The descent prevails.