Tonight is an unusual night.
I have no memory of you,
I crave no more for you.
I do not feel grand,
no untied strands
to string them in a poem for you.
But once I was bitter.
I wrote poems about darkness,
drew blood
from my sunken hollowed cheeks,
saw my apparition in the mirror
a body of a poet, a soul of a whore.
But I do not feel that anymore.
I do not see any metaphor
hinge on your pendent, armlet, tiara,
on your resplendent anklet, mascara,
on your kohl, eyeliner, rouge,
on sundry embellishments of your beauty.
Oh! What a fool, what a stooge
I’ve been to believe
in a stupidity that must,
must always poetry
be a muse’s slave?
That must I,
I must stave in
every thought, every misgiving
on which I constructed
a world for you
in my half-drunken
poetic renderings.
I think I will, I say I did.
But now when I have killed
every essence, every single conception
of what I am, of what I be
I brood – is it love
that I do not wish for love
anymore?
© Dan Husain
November 6, 2006
