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Nightshade's Touch
When I was but a sprout in the garden of the world,
Nightshade stole around the dusky verges
That lined the King's Way, and quickly twirled
With grace most becoming, into my garden of urges.
Nightshade laughed. It saw a chance to comply
With the contract done with Reality
In a young, innocent soul, yet to be harmed by
The Spite and Hatred of the world.
He drew his shadow harpoon, and lanced
It through my baby chest.
As I grew through the years that strolled on by,
Into my lanky, scrawny frame,
I noted a propensity to cry,
A need for love to fill out my shame.
Nightshade's harpoon had riven my heart
And driven it out beyond my breast.
There it hangs to this day,
Poisoned on the shadow's tip,
Beating like a mayfly's wings.
Sorrow impermeable as night,
Enduring as iris-contracting fear, never ending
Never running always seeping and dripping
Black poison down down to purple recesses,
Dripping and seeping through
And down to purple recesses.
I keep walking. I keep walking and talking
And occasionally smiling-not-quite.
But my febrile heart is painfully beating
And I lie again in this villa at night.
