Mar 2015
Each flaming curl winks life at me, as they dangle and flicker,
Their owner, like sleeping serenity, defies the reality.
Icy cold, to the touch, to the eye but there is a stillness that haunts me,
A divine silence as if I have peered into the casket of an angel.
I am a stranger here and yet I am drawn to the dainty hands, ink-stained,
And so capable of trembling. A ring on his finger speaks not of unions and
Bonds of love but of his unsatisfied defiance.
His skin reminds me of a river, in its sparkling green shadows.
Pale lips, so articulately formed, decaying as if they have remained unkissed.
So thin is he, but in some elfin way; he could grow wings any moment and take me
To the fae. No one would know that he dined on unhappiness and little else.
This is still-life. The world around him is slow but still breathing,
And a coat clinging pathetically to a chair says “There was once life here”
Life or half-life, eyes can’t help but notice thousands of jagged papers,
Scattered like a cluster of dimly twinkling stars.
Half-written sentences, gasping about some impregnable Camelot,
Where hennins reach out up to heaven and their wearer
Giggles at chivalric glory.
Verses only half formed. A glance at my dead friend,
And I wonder what unfinished treasures are locked and lost within him.
The room grows stale, although colour still fights for a voice,
In the same way that he took up his pen, under the influence of some
Unbridled angst, and screamed against his betters, from heart to paper.
A potted flower, precariously fading on the window sill,
Looks out to London and the dying August day.
I see him in the petals. This flower, easy enough on the eye, but
With secrets in every root. She saw him grasping at hope,
At happiness, but like some sick joke, only finding despair.
She speaks of muses and misery and I listen,
“My love is dead” she says “Gone to his death bed”
The culprit rolls towards me and I survey it.
Its emptiness only beautifies the glass but its inky label throws me.
I can hardly read it but I know it is the tipple of the truly profound,
Of disillusioned souls. A beast that snarls
“You will never be 21”
Their owner, like sleeping serenity, defies the reality.
Icy cold, to the touch, to the eye but there is a stillness that haunts me,
A divine silence as if I have peered into the casket of an angel.
I am a stranger here and yet I am drawn to the dainty hands, ink-stained,
And so capable of trembling. A ring on his finger speaks not of unions and
Bonds of love but of his unsatisfied defiance.
His skin reminds me of a river, in its sparkling green shadows.
Pale lips, so articulately formed, decaying as if they have remained unkissed.
So thin is he, but in some elfin way; he could grow wings any moment and take me
To the fae. No one would know that he dined on unhappiness and little else.
This is still-life. The world around him is slow but still breathing,
And a coat clinging pathetically to a chair says “There was once life here”
Life or half-life, eyes can’t help but notice thousands of jagged papers,
Scattered like a cluster of dimly twinkling stars.
Half-written sentences, gasping about some impregnable Camelot,
Where hennins reach out up to heaven and their wearer
Giggles at chivalric glory.
Verses only half formed. A glance at my dead friend,
And I wonder what unfinished treasures are locked and lost within him.
The room grows stale, although colour still fights for a voice,
In the same way that he took up his pen, under the influence of some
Unbridled angst, and screamed against his betters, from heart to paper.
A potted flower, precariously fading on the window sill,
Looks out to London and the dying August day.
I see him in the petals. This flower, easy enough on the eye, but
With secrets in every root. She saw him grasping at hope,
At happiness, but like some sick joke, only finding despair.
She speaks of muses and misery and I listen,
“My love is dead” she says “Gone to his death bed”
The culprit rolls towards me and I survey it.
Its emptiness only beautifies the glass but its inky label throws me.
I can hardly read it but I know it is the tipple of the truly profound,
Of disillusioned souls. A beast that snarls
“You will never be 21”
