Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day--

And the countryside not caring:
The place names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat's restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word--the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

Acid opens the wound and the pupil widens.
Scratch this glass and rub salt into cuts.
The exordium of infatuation has marked today
MCMXIV
This is not the love that will leave
you, or anyone else, smiling;
war has been declared
and it will rage on in your hearts and minds
and in the inches between your bodies
across which lightening rods spark and spit.
It is too late, now, to decide
if it is worth it or not.
You are bound and addicted by heavenly contract; you need each other.
You will crave and crave and crave
until four men on horses take the ability to do so away from you.
I'd have warned you before...but
I like the sound of smashing glass.
I miss desire, this afternoon was lacking
incurable lust;
So I pointed
and I shot.
I do hate to disappoint your Mothers,
but you shall never be young again, for
it is love that ages us the most,
and you shall love so
intensely, so
constantly.
It will feel as if you have lived for centuries.
I am Eros. And I command this.