I tried to draw your nose today
on the right hand margin of my task list
using a blue ball point pen
I first drew it wrong
with no arch
none of the curve of your
eagle's beak
or the sharp point it ends on
it was not your nose
I scribbled over it and began again
I drew it right this time
with all its imperfections
your perfect nose
next to my mistake
It must be cauterized, this injured heart,
Its edges seared to cease the slipping soul
From spilling out, char every aching part
With unforgiving flames, use burning coal,
Use red-white fire, use billows fanned from pits
Of blacksmiths blind and deaf to the soft pleas
Beseeching amnesty, reprieve from fits
Of rage, from bouts of doubt, scorch this disease,
This pain infested heart, with Hell’s high flames
Ablaze with wicked light, this man condemned
To never feel again, to seal his shames
Within his cracked tomb, the blood now stemmed,
Shored up behind these blackened arteries
Of which sweet numbness will soon softly seize
Old memories awake from slumber creep
So gently to the forefront of my mind,
Faint phantoms lost in darkened corners deep
Once quiet now scream agony to bind
My thoughts, thoughts tethered by the heavy chain
Of ill regret to the decaying flesh
Inside my head, old visions flash then drain
To depths beyond my consciousness can mesh,
Is this the dying of those dreams to which
My once true love’s foundations had been laid,
To rise and fall through frequencies in pitch
So like the sounds of waves to shores that fade,
Each memory now sings their last sad song
In the concluding verse from this mute swan
I would rush to repair the space within
This fractured frame’s borders, a canvas torn,
Painted by fear as true if truth would spin
From the belly of splayed bristles so worn
By the even stress of beguiling strokes,
How brightly these colors burn upon my
Brush, bright colors caked by this painter’s hoax
To turn the course from pain of love’s true dye,
I would rush but now refrain, to mend so
Soon this canvas torn, to patch and compose
With more deceit - to what ends would I go
To end the pain of loss, this vandal knows
These false strokes must yield - for he dare not taint
Her heart - to let itself the picture paint
