Failed Poet

He was a failed poet and a thief
billowed about on winds
drunken with songs
from older times:
Somewhere over the Rainbow,
Danny Boy.

A spectral waste with hollow gaze
singing innocence of youth,
pink chiffon lace;
diaphanous black and white dress
on feminine avenues
in scents of Guerlain and Shalimar.

Now he dances with the lord of death
his fingers blacken with newsprint
stiff pen sketching his last will and testament.
Climbing as high as the steelgirded sky
past the green swamps,
past the bridge of sighs
into blue timeless fields and artist’s meadows
to ransack heaven with cocktail party clinking of glasses---
He plummets to a watery grave.

In the cool, murky waters I choke him
frogs leap from his ratty collar until he gives no more breath.

I bear his burden within me
like a captive.
And on raindrenched nights recall his anguished cry
from Springs’s flood or nature’s new throat.

His citystreet lovesongs,
praises to the moon,
pure pagan lust.
The silver streams wind
endlessly without obstacle
rendering his voice audible at midnight.

Songs of beauty
sucking blood off the purple marrow
like a mighty tick
the old lecher leaches self-laceration.
I had to put him away
to drown him in the fog of regret, in the fog of illusion
to rid the world of his ragged voice
his pretense
his madness
until no more thieving,
lying, conniving poetry.

Even now his voice lingers
when salamanders turn notes of surprise
when wet rocks are jewels:
“When Dawn’s left hand is in the sky.”
“When the busy streets are too dead for dreaming;
When joys mist like morning rain
When her eyes are steady streams of light
And the world wakes in the palm of my hand.”