They wrap their arms
tightly around the other's
veined neck
clawing maniacally with
exposed teeth
and wild eyes.

a certificate;
their names as one,
ripped to shreds
but apparently
still valid.

and somehow,
when it's my turn,
I fantasise my arms
would lay limp
and his will, too.

But maybe
it's a glimmer of hope
of a candle in
interminable night--
wishful thinking.

Silly girl--
there is no romance
without menace.

It is an ancient Poet
and he stoppeth me.
“Beware of poetry, my son,
She’s a gold digger.
She’ll chew you up and spit you out,
leave you penniless and lying in a gutter,
drunk on absinthe,
while the rich novelists and scriptwriters
step over you, laughing.”

“Hold off! unhand me, greybeard loon!”
Unheeding, I slunk off to my garret
to compose a villanelle,
heavily derivative of Dylan Thomas.
  
I only wanted to get girls,
but before I knew it
I was roaming with the Romantics,
bopping with the Beats
and cruising with the Classicists.
Popping some Pope, shooting some Stevie Smith
or hitting up Heaney,
I was hopelessly addicted.
And I never did get the girl.

The struggle is futility
Patient people play the part
Of impartiality

The wiser are restraint
Castigated for their intelligence
Castrated by their class

A classless struggle we abide
Poor children barely manage
To survive and seldom thrive
Not given access to the tools
Of excellence

But we wield the sword of obsolescence
Antiquated ideas put on the same level as
Modern machines and moral philosophies

Broad language discarded for
The disinfected nature of stupidity

Our language is censored
And free thought is crippled

Thus to succeed we must
Write to their level of understanding
So they can understand it

Which means we do not expect grandness
From the masses
That we underrate what they are capable of

The papacy’s power is palatable but detrimental
The Popes presence sends his parishioners
In to servitude as they submit to the
Sublimation of their identity

Unable to identify the truth from the lie
Unable to separate the flock from the I
I become the villain
For stating these things

So I drop names like Darwin and Thomas Paine
I wear the scarlet letter of poet and philosopher
Of Supplicant to science, Of literate romantic

I the son of Percy Bysshe Shelley
The son of Twain and Poe
The Son of Shakespeare and Baudelaire  
The son of logic and poetry
The lost ******* of peace, love, and understanding

I leave the eve of man’s ill behavior
To see the seething corps of corpses
Rise in ignorance strive for pestilence
With hopeful hate in their eye
To perpetuate the self-fulfilling prophecies
Of all types of apocalypses

But in the end it will be I that am despised
Thus if I must be hated then at least
Favor me with this tiny justice

Like Galileo, Giordano Bruno, and Copernicus
I will wear chains well earned
There is so much knowledge to be had
So learn, live, love and then learn some more

Freedom,
Like the rain, it washes all away
Past memories, horrors - everything is rinsed away; relief remains.
It feels like sand between your toes,
Leaving you lost in your impulsive throes.

Freedom,
In her dissolving smiles,
Her mischievous flirts,
Her sweet small skirts...

You've missed her for so long...

The touch of her spine,
The caress of her thighs,
The weightless good byes--

Ah! Freedom, *she smells like rain...