i've buried myself in lies and wasted time.
would you believe me
if i told you i was treasure?
x marks the spot: dig deep, i need you to.

plenty of the future
will not be consumed
by the ensuing seconds,
probably
(depends on geography).

take your time if you can, come what may.
you've lots of history to wrestle with
before you can truly reach a new day.

a shock in the heart,
a brief glimpse (of the artist's divine),
a long aching memory:
a smile,
an opportunity
missed.

the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth is just hoarded,
and goes rotten, and skeletons of industry rust.
people are starved, drowned, blown up; profits are made,
the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth travelled north - taken - into open arms,
those brave souls in flight who followed
were left to the waves or destitution.
the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth is just hoarded,
hundreds of thousands of houses are empty,
and skeletons of industry rust.
the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth is just hoarded,
and goes rotten.
justice will take more than just good deeds:
open the borders, break down the walls!
produce and allocate according to need,
and there will be enough—for us all!

the thrill and guilt
of transgression
unhinges my very being.

a foreclosing law is laid down
on the fierce skin of justice.
duty and danger calls.

and should the heavens truly fall,
if i'm caught, or probably even if not:
it will be an even greater struggle than ever before, living myself,
but that's not all, at the very least, that's not all.

i know where to go
to find skin that is a refuge
and not a prison;
but under the cold sun of isolation,
the flower of dread blooms in my heart:
i am petrified, immobile.
it is asked of me to cast it all away, to cast off from these shores
and return nevermore:
for from out at open sea is from where desire calls,
and so i must tear away from the fish-hook-eyes,
make sail, hands trembling, the clock of decision drawing a breath,
and declare that the winds take me out of the bay,
onto the fierce and serene waves, and that the night skies guide me:
to the horizon, mythic islands, sirens and rocks.
i must not give way, i must forge ahead, and solidify my art,
despite the flower of dread that ever blooms in pit of this fragile heart.
(for the skin that is a refuge, to make me robust,
for the treasure before the flotsam—under a new sun,
it's beyond, beyond more than enough. )

after twenty years, my life is still embryonic:
i guess it pertains to the self-same me to be tragic and comic.
by this age, Rimbaud had already renounced poetry, leaving
in fury shattered instruments of alchemy and sublime scrolls
from hell, scrawled impeccably in drug-infused-blood and divine
protest, depicting beatific visions of love, infinite aching bodies
and disordered senses;
by this age, he had already heeded the call of adventure,
known destitute poverty and absolute ecstasy, triviality
and magnificence,
and was bound for an obscure exploration, marriage,
trading in slaves
and was past half way to a tedious death.
but what have i seen? and what is this?—merde!
after twenty years, my life is still embryonic:
i guess it pertains to the self-same me to be tragic and comic.