This is a terrifying tale as told by Ebeneezer Sweetlove, my late cousin*

I remember how I met Edwina all those years ago: and there was none of that "eyes connecting across a crowded room" crap. Well, not in a romantic sense - it was just pure lust. I suddenly realised this woman was staring at me with undisguised desire from the other side of a cocktail party at some boring conference at the five-star Grand Hotel. I was ***** as buggery as my latest girl friend had, just the previous week, committed suicide by jumping to a hideous death off scenic Beachy Head, so I returned the ****'s look with a lethally ****** stare of my own and then licked my lips as vulgarly as possible, indicating I was simply barking for a hot oral session, no holes barred.

The woman I was to know all too briefly as Edwina took the hint and came over and we talked as though we'd known each other all our lives; but even someone as suave as I was a little surprised when she groped me quite openly and shoved her tongue into my earhole, dribbling hotly down my cheek. And then she seemed to go all shy and little girl-like until I sophisticatedly suggested we go out for dinner and then back to my penthouse suite for a night of mind-blowing *******. I have to say I was embarrassed when the head waiter in the little bistro I selected complained when she took off her knickers and gave them to me for a refreshing sniff.

The *** was amazing - Edwina was like a beast on heat, screaming like a banshee while we ****** each other's brains out. Yet, in between *******, she was as gentle and charming as a little ***** cat. Six times I gave her my hot ***** that night: once in her mouth, then four times in the usual place, finishing off with one up her rear end. I was more or less totally drained of my love juices and in need of a good long kip before lunch.

But, tragedy struck: well before the dawn's early, she woke me and whispered she had to go as she had to get home before her husband got back after his night shift from down the sewers - he was apparently in charge of the entire East Sussex sewage system and liked to have an hour long shower every morning to get the stench of ***** off him.

I begged her to stay, saying I would happily pay for a divorce so I could have her with me for always. I even offered to have a contract put out on her sewer rat of a hubby, mentioning that my brother-in-law, Kosmo, was big in the Albanian mafia and owed me a favour. But she said no, I could ******* with my pleas. As dawn grew nearer I could see her becoming ever more frantic to leave and it was only then I realised the truth, having at last deciphered the real meaning of her blood-stained and scabby third ****** and the scarlet 666 tattoo on her luscious **** cheek.

Yes, Edwina was a ***-demon from deepest Hell and thus I was left with only one course of action. Ever so reluctantly, I bravely reached for the sacred wooden stake and mallet that I had carried round in my Dolce & Gabbana crocodile suitcase for so many years just in case of such an eventuality. Sadly I drove the stake into her beautiful ***** with a mighty blow and, instead of the blood which might have been reasonably expected, only a stream of warm **** poured out. Before my very eyes, her corpse disintegrated into a pile of odorous dust. Truly was Edwina a daughter of darkness.

As you may imagine, I had to give the chambermaid quite a hefty gratuity in order to get her to cleanse my room and to bin the evidence, but so grateful was she for the honorarium that she agreed to share my bed the very next night, knowing she would be likely to receive an immense tip of quite another category.

Reaching out for what delivers its existence

The thirsty tree extends its limbs further to the sun

An encounter craved, but still valuing its bestowment

Forever longing anxiously for that connection



The summer winds carrying this hopeful firefly        

Emitting the lonely light that calls out for another

Releasing these signals in hopes of discovering you

Again a flicker and finally the mate is matched



Sprinting to the sea, the relentless river runs

Passionately carving its way through the slighted landscape

Obviously enraptured by its desirous charge

Awaiting the second its frenzied rush reaches home



Like the sun now churning our eager energy

Overthrowing senses with this rampantly raging need

Overwhelming magnetism lures us toward temptation

Inescapably mesmerized by this sensation


Profound in nature, driven by this timeless dance

Sophisticatedly conjoining into fulfillment

A base for these unbridled electrical impulses

The quintessence of our fusion now realized


We are the union of two wandering forces

Ignition progresses affectionate meditations

Quietly absorbing the synthesizing of segments

Once unrelated, now entangled eternally

I'm 'sophisticatedly' sticking a pen
in my mouth, pretending
to smoke a cigarette.
I don't have the courage to hurt
myself, but
I do.
In 'subtle and implied' ways, he
says.

I make watery coffee and convince
myself, my happiness
lies in there,
floating. And I pretend
I'm in a Parisian cafe.
But these are pipe-dream dregs,
nothing else.
I guess they can't substitute the
vividness of being,
living.
Of sharp technicolour experience that can be
smelt.
Dregs, indeed.

Today, I borrowed Birthday Letters by
Ted Hughes from the library.
I'm wondering if
salvias were his favourite
flower.
His favourite.
I can't figure it out.
For his words are only stricken,
messy with the rawness of
too-technicolour experience.
Beautiful.
But sharp
enough to pierce and
poison,
like Paris.
My Paris, your Paris,
our little Paris.
So startlingly, breathlessly
red.

I suddenly know why I have written this.
The colour of salvias,
of Paris,
of me and you,
is my soul's favourite.
His favourite.
And salvias, their fragrance, it
douses the fire that's threatening to
suffocate, swallow my
life whole,
incomplete.

Red is my favourite colour.
And it's yours.

But I really don't think I want it to be.

sitting,
in the darkness of my room
trying,
trying to squeeze out something,
profound or,
heartbreaking or,
anything
to prove my worth
by spilling my heart out on a page

but instead,
i sit
slicing deeper into my soul
punishing myself
for my inability to
express
my
emotions
through the medium of poetry
despite my admiration of
the stuff,
the sophisticatedly woven lines
pieced together so precisely
they create art,
showing my attempts as inferior

but I suppose the best art is self-deprecating

I live in the first century of the clone wars
most morning we’d wake up swiping up.
the new papers don’t arrive no more
because the news pours out of various device
interrupting morning thoughts, selling
us products to own more.
we think sophisticatedly but stay
closed off.
happy to be clones, to be sold love.
living vicariously through actors, models
or influencers who show more.
we think they are intelligent, they brave enough
assuming they know more.
consider the singular ways we live
consumed by our individualism, our greed.
consider the trees
and the many people who
puff this **** to cope on.
each year, iPhones get expensive
while screen light darkens the truth.
I rarely write with a pen if i don't have autocorrect
but I am a graduate, a grown up.
I am reconciling with this spell
from upon which i proceed
but this war still goes on.
imagine we find each other, then construct
mutual peace instead of flashing lightsabers
because we are so tough.
imagine we say our piece
while pinning respect on our sleeves,
then step out the street to hold hands.
its only the first century of this clone war
yet we are exhausted, from everyone
being so right and i wonder if we ever
gon slow down.