When you are older but have not aged,
And lie restlessly with the cat in your arms,
Think of injustices you once against raged,
Or perhaps of that gauzy fairy’s charms?

The nightingale hours pierced by larks,
Recall the ones that we once shared,
As each new lover leaves red marks;
I think of how your heart once cared.

My memory will have begun to fade,
Less of a “belle dame” than a shade -
Paler than you, my vampiric soul!

To you, dark bat, I give my dreams,
As the fire's embers cease to gleam
And leave in their wake the coal.

My youth has been nothing but stormy and savage,
A tempest of thunder and lightning and rain;
Though glimpses of sunlight have lessened the damage
Few ripe fruits now in my garden remain.

My mind has reached its autumnal phase,
With the ***** and the rake I begin my toil
In earthy hollows as deep as graves
To gather anew the rain flooded soil.

And who knows whether my dreams of new flowers
Will find in this earth washed bare like the shore,
The mystic elixir that would give them might?

Alas, alas! Our lives are eaten away by the hours,
And at our hearts the hidden Enemy gnaws
And ***** our blood like a parasite!

I am lovely, O mortals! Like a dream carved in stone,
And my breast where poets are bruised to the bone
Formed to inspire each in their quintessence
A love as eternal and silent as essence.

I unite Ledaean pallor with a frozen heart,
I scorn movement for it displaces my art,
A riddling sphinx, on a throne in the sky;
Never do I laugh and never do I cry.

Poets, at the feet of my imperial pose,
Which I seem to adopt from statues grandiose,
Will consume their lives in studious indulgence;

For I have, to enthrall those docile paramours
Pure mirrors to enhance all beauties evermore:
My eyes, my large, wide eyes of eternal effulgence!

My child, my lover,
Come away to discover
Continents far and new!
To love and to sigh,
To dream and to die
In a land as exotic as you!
Humid suns wink
Behind cloudy skies
So alluring and charming
So strangely alarming
With crocodile lids blink
Like the tears in your eyes.

There, all is order, beauty and leisure
Luxury, calm, quiet and pleasure.

Wood panels beaming
Polished and gleaming
Would decorate our room;
The rarest of flowers
In the height of their bloom
We’d while away the hours
Inhaling amber in our lungs,
Walls with deep mirrors hung
Our souls would feast,
On the wonders of the East
Whispering a sweet native tongue.

There, all is order, beauty and leisure
Luxury, calm, quiet and pleasure.

The aqueducts have, nestled,
In a drowsy slumber
With vagabond vessels
Lined unencumbered
Their sails unfurled
They come from the ends of the world.
- The twilight sky clouded
Leaving pastures shrouded,
The canals, the entire town,
Glows amber and blue;
The night falls down
In a soft, warm hue.

There, all is order, beauty and leisure
Luxury, calm, quiet and pleasure.

"A lightning flash... then night! Fleeting beauty
By whose glance I was suddenly reborn,
Will I see you no more before eternity?”
-Charles Baudelaire, "To a Passerby"

The material of the scene burns and
grays, burns and grays in my mind:
City soot in the frost. Cracked plastic.
Broken glass. Cheek creases where you
said your name. Salt stains on a denim cuff.
Scruff. Tartan scarf. Navy wool. Feather
down, laces, leggings, a buckle. Teeth,
fleece, a crumpled hotel matchbook.
No heat lamp here, where we wait and
meet, wait and meet on the windiest
night. Would you scoff if I said
"Love is two strangers trading fire.”

Smaller matter, now, an Altoid tin of
cherished ashes. I have it, and it murmurs
your lines to me, when I crave that kind of burn.
A familiar ice cube down the back of the neck.
These thoughts have sunken—a bag of pennies
in my gut like a phantom step on a dark staircase,
or the imitation of death in a dream.
Saying something about the lateness of the 16,
You cupped your hand, to shelter the flame.

I try to remember the melody.
The harp strings at the nape of
my neck sang mid-shiver, and you
said something else, which I couldn’t
hear over the choir under my hat.
This missing line is my mind’s one
sound conception of Infinity.
And that’s enough for flint.

A lightning flash…then night!*
A flame frustratingly lit, but profoundly felt.
A gasp, a gust like a god's grace, like a song.
Like just enough time for a quick addict’s fix,
like the length of a single, ****** matchstick.

Will I see you no more before eternity?
And do you by chance have a light?