The Shadows smell like rosemaryStammering long lost memoryBurning bright like beauty in the graveShining through the fogTragedy is universalEven when left unknown
The darkness of the clouds rumbledLike the laugh of a vengeful godWhose teeth are crimsonSo all who met him were forced to wonderWhether he was symbolicOf love or self destructionAnd whether those are actually the same thingAnd as if to prove the ambiguityOf the gods, he kneltOn the cloudy day and prayedTo worship a concrete idolEveryday after thatAnd he begged herTo let him feign worship of herHe begged for the void of foreverAnd she gazed up at the sky
A flash of light on the blank white wallSunlight crackles off the bladeSuch a dark instrument in such a bright roomHe slides it delicately back and forthAn artist’s brush on canvasSlowly smoothly it slidesAgainst the grain of the dark woodThe repeated motion of secret practiceIn the silence that follows, he smilesHis creation is completeThe line is straighter than his rigid spineMan conquers nature againThe masterpiece is complete
I live whereBoys love boysAnd boys love girlsAnd girls love boysAnd girls love girlsAnd girls love girls and boysAnd boys love boys and girlsAnd boys that don’t act like boys are anything they want to beAnd girls who don’t at like girls are whatever they feel in their heartAnd boys wear pinkAnd girls wear blueAnd sometimes boys are girlsAnd girls are boysAnd boys or girls can be boys and girlsAll mashed up togetherInto a hot mess of hopes and fears and loves and loss and everything else
The weight of misfortune has stooped my shouldersBut I don’t intend to stop for a good while yet;I afflict my own destinyAnd don’t want anyone to mourn for my fate.I’ve made peace with God on my lossesAnd agreed with him on the epitaphsThat should be written about my senseless wars.
I am not the black cat.There were four of us;my grandmother,a black cat,a myth,and I.My grandmother oftentold us a myth.When you are ill, she said,if a black catcomes and sits on your bedit means that youwill die soon.I was only six,seriously ill.Our black cat
VIWe lack, yet cannot fix upon the lack:Not this, nor that; yet somewhat, certainly.We see the things we do not yearn to seeAround us: and what see we glancing back?Lost hopes that leave our hearts upon the rack,Hopes that were never ours yet seem’d to be,For which we steer’d on life’s salt stormy seaBraving the sunstroke and the frozen pack.If thus to look behind is all in vain,And all in vain to look to left or right,Why face we not our future once again,Launching with hardier hearts across the main,Straining dim eyes to catch the invisible sight,And strong to bear ourselves in patient pain?IX