I cup my face to silence.
It’s listening to me.
When I think of genius,
What do I think they see?
The barren box of Dresden.
The corn husk sleeves of Leeds.
How much would I have given
To see what they can see?
Do they cradle their heads in disgust
When the sway leans from sublime?
Does the larva in our trappings
Show sullen mysoline.
I beg you just a moment.
A second for the prude.
I’m gazing to the meadow
Of your blank solitude.
My hate unfolds an army
Of hollow Prague design.
A scar torn through my center
That splits my lie of life.
A visionary second
Still leaves the question, ‘Why?’
If time is all that you have here,
Why are you afraid to die?
Blessed event we still await
For you to come and find.
As the day bears down on you,
You will realize,
Broken fingers, crooked hands,
Hobbled feet on glass,
All the golden dreams of yore
Seldom come to pass.

I lay in mausoleum.
The roof is lined with birds.
I hear a man cursing his luck
As he fills in concrete words.
I hear the spade scraping stone,
Then slapping something wet.
I soon will feel the air again
And you will take this bed.

You may not the time to fathom
The bounds of your beauty.
But, I am the picture of deceit
That you will come to be.
You lay your head on flour,
On golden crusts of bread.
In a year, I cannot bare to think,
Of the families you could have fed.
But, the fragile angel tears you shed
With the thought of lesser sleep
Bring those very starving children
To the ground with how they weep.
Your beauty is unparalleled.
Your eyes alone shame gods.
The screaming masses on the street
Own more of you than you’d thought.
If you close your eyes to them,
You will surely fade away.
Your beauty teeters on the hope
That someone wants you to stay.
But, one day someone will look at you
And see what you are not.
Your stay in life will end alone.
Your soul a Grecian knot.

My dear friend we share this bed
Of cold, reclined bequeath.
Perhaps, it was not right to say
That you could not receive
A cup of tea to ease your way,
A pair of coins to close your eyes.
Perhaps, the question isn’t ‘how?’
Perhaps, it remains ‘why?’

Why is it that you don’t believe
The things that I’ve sworn I’ve seen.
Perhaps, it’s because I’ve forgotten how
I’ve come to be this fiend.
Well, certainly my name’s engraved
Upon a palace or a page.
The irony of how he ran away,
May seem the very same.
One second you are a deity,
A life compared to time.
A moment soon to pass
And they will garnish your plate with lye.
A simple dereliction,
Sarcasm floating in wine.
A comedy and a tragedy,
Your life had intertwined.
Do not forget these ramblings
Of a simple mind’s decline.
One day, you will lay down your head
And the curtain will fade from sight.

You think it pity, you think it fame,
But all the while it still remains.
This question ‘why’ stands as your bane;
Yet, you won’t question from whence it came.
You may have cupid by your side.
You may be genius burning with pride.
The man next to us still counting time,
As he begins to carve the lines.
Your trappings no longer bare any stains.
The proof lies in the man between
As beauty lies in how we’re lain.
So exquisitely wondrous and yet so plain.
For in his eyes, we are all the same,
Another task assigned his trade.