O Grave, Where is Thy Victory?

I’ve walked, numb, through infinite possibilities
and purgatories
Like the crucifix – visible through soul searching reminders
And opportunities, squandered
I’ve looked across the shooting stars of a
sleepless city, contemplating the
pallor of dead maidens’ cheeks, turning my
nightmares cold, and freezing the hysteria
of the aces, kings, queens and jacks…
The stepping stones of light and stardom –
they’ve waved at me, like shadows from
the other kingdom kissing the dawn
Sexless solitudes have caught up with me
and naked angels with pistols have shot
me down many a times…

Caliban has chased me out of the tempest
I’ve heard the dirge from the lost inferno
raising its head out of the whirlpools
of hopelessness
Many rose petals have fallen on my feet,
mistaking me for God

The howl of dogs shattering the midnight silence
and reverberating through my spine made me happy
And the clitoris of nymphetamine crying out
for my forked poison-tongue made me sad…
And I’ve seen my happiness and sorrow
having sex on the pavements of Sodom…

I’ve raked through the fireplaces of
unknown people in search of charred
remnants of torn pages from the last
holy book…
Madly in love with Vulcan, I’ve
trembled through the smouldering
passions of Dante and the sighs of Petrarch
I’ve spent my nights pressing my ear
against the sidewalks to hear the wailing
saxophone from underground
I’ve spent my days waiting for the holy sign
and crying
“eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani !”

Like a misspent sixpence, my twilights --
they created me as the foster child of
lost and forbidden desires.
Prophesies ring out like
telephones and through the cracks of
the walls carry the forebodings of
eternity in their wombs…

As I stared at the fluttering mayhems
of my own canvas,
thinking about David and Jonathan,
thinking about nightingales,
horizons and the dear departed,
like a dead man looks at life,
Light crept in through
my broken windowpane, held
my little finger and led me to
the solitary dawn of the first day of the world…

And then enlightenment arrived
like the pedantic realization that
the only thing that I can call my own
is a drop of tear