||

And who am I, not to indulge in the festivities of a brittle heart?

||

Words unspoken, truths unsaid
Lies are spinning spiderwebs

Sleek, sticky, uncouth, unclean,
Hisses, dies, but won’t quite leave

Regret sinks, seeps through cracks
Bursting, rotting, emotion lacks

Like a fly; caught in a web,
Buzzes, struggles, alive then dead

Spreading poison through the flies,
Sticking, hurting webs of lives

“Change me! Change me!”

Birds that sing
Screeching, die with broken wings

Crawling, creeping, chills my back
Hissing, dying, emotion lacks

No more flies, cannot feed,
Hisses, dies, but won’t quite leave

Remaining behind, even still,
Cobwebs spun,
Lives fall apart or are even killed.

The walls cry-out as they burn.
A tumult of roars wreathed in the crackle of blazing matter.
Which is louder?  
Perspective will tell.
The one who assaults,
Or the one assaulted?
The roar, or the crackle?
The giver, or the receiver?
Pleasure in two forms, two-faced gratification.
One hand for dispensation,
One mouth for sublimation.

And do we not all sublimate?
Base impulses, rank ideas,
On the surface, vindicate?
The residue of consequence
Brusquely scrub and expiate?
Perspective will tell.

We espy hedonism, unbridled delight,
And may envy those who bathe in these muddied pools,
Focusing our most ephemeral sense on dazzling cacophony,
Ignoring the estranged husband of hedonism,
Shunning the divorcée of delight.
Which is truly louder?  
Perspective will tell.

In Oscar Wilde’s Salome the moon is thus described:
“She is like a woman who is dead.  She moves very slowly.”
Pandemonium in the hall, the howling of wild beasts,
But she remains “a woman who is dead,”
And “she moves very slowly.”

The divorcée of delight,
A pitiful coming-down.
The remnant of misuse,
The scarring of abuse.
One reads on a stone:
The hardly-lovéd daughter of overuse.
And the one who gazes overlong is warned:  
“You look at her too much.  
It is dangerous to look at people in such fashion.
Something terrible may happen.”

The walls cry-out as they burn,
And they cry in desperation.
What we see is conflagration.
The light:  A brilliant exultation.
The crackle:  A herald of termination.
But when ash is blown in silence,
It is dangerous to look at what remains:
Scar tissue.
Slow death.
Residue.
The head of John.
The bones of Salome.
Broken glass.
Wilted flowers.
Cracked foundation on hollow cheeks.
Red lips the stain of blood on ivory cloth.
Festering flies.
The beating of vultures’ wings.
The snoring of satiated beasts.
The stumbling home.
Apologies.
Sublimation.
Conflation.
Expiation.
…
One’s well-mannered pause until the other’s end,
So that the one may pause…
And begin again.

The puzzle of temptation,
some don't heed issue at all.
Surrounded by a gleaming ocean,
indulging is the water's call.
As the waves roll in,
a bright sailor's sky feigns delight,
what is promised tomorrow
by today what is in sight.
Temptation can pull you
to a raged and stormy sea,
it is not until you are in the middle
you realize you are not supposed to be.

I don't have money to spend
- but then again, I do.

*The credit people are wicked
and I am a fool.