An epic poem of unrequited love
We met, as planned, at Julian’s — a tiny corner table,
Plastic ivy, gypsy music, candle guttering unstably
In the dark. Eyes flashing sparks, we settled to our seats,
Kneecaps coyly bumping, as the evening gathered heat.
We charged our hearts with hopeful arts, our guts with cabernet,
And fired cannonades of introduct’ry repartee.
Our lives and fates we did relate, our loves and politics,
And our twin hearts beat like time bombs, and the talk did make ’em tick.
Our hands displaced the bistro space in orbits meteoric,
Our voices twined in intercourse discreetly metaphoric.
(While down below, in secret throe, the groins’ galvanic tingling
Promised sweet electrocution at some imminent commingling.)
We ate pasta — lovers hasta, for its earthy bond of garlic,
And smacked lips in collusion, I a rogue, the Lady harlot.
Then came dessert — a saccharine flirt, a languid contretemps,
And the gathering of boldness for a seismic denouement.
She veg’ed a while, in charming style, leaned back with smooth allure,
Belched fetchingly, and stretched, and mewed, and rearranged her hair.
With dainty curse she rifled her purse, and ‘pon her visage broke
The smile that launched a thousand ships: Said she, “Mind if I smoke?”
From rumpled packet she extracted, dripping with panache,
One mentholated filter-tip; I swooned toward collapse
As she slipped between her lips (to crudely here vernaculate)
That tiny paper boner, stiff with nicotine ejaculate.
“What, mind?” I joked. “Malignant smoke? Pshaw, good heavens, sister!” (Whilst round my skull a brain careened, excitement all a-twitter.)
“Suck on, your lungs do tar anon, O angel self-destructive!
I’ll watch, applaud, and moot for more, absurdio reductive.”
With candle gripped in trembling fist, I lit her coffin-nail.
Whilst t’other hand in pockets plumbed for my peculiar thrill.
“No sin,” barked I, “for after din, I too enjoy a toot!”
I whipped the hypodermic out: “D’you mind if up I shoot?”
She looked askance at my fervid trance, the sleeve rolled past the elbow,
The rubber tube clamped tight in teeth, the spoon above the candle.
Her red lips squirmed like spastic worms at needle’s penetration,
And the cancer-stick as an arm did flail in parliamentary oration.
“I ‘fess,” ‘fessed I, “to habits sly, which I’ve declined to mention:
I’m into scat, and turpentine, and naked flagellation.
Of every spicy, ruinous vice I’ve made a fetish jolly,
And you, dear, with your filthy fag, do clearly share my folly!”
Alas! My ardor told perhaps too bold ‘pon Lady’s good decorum.
She huffed and trembled, gaped and puffed, composing her alarum.
“Do strike me dead!” she finally said, from a bank of toxic fog,
“All men are swine but you’re the worst, you codependent dog!”
With venom eye she stood bye-bye. One final exhalation
Produced three wav’ring O’s of smoke, by way of defamation.
She hacked and spate upon her plate, and ground the butt into it,
And flounced into the endless night, and left me to get through it.
The smack kicked in, the room grew dim. My melting brain meandered
In that stinking bog of woe reserved for those who’ve misphilandered.
I’d hoped to land a partner grand in manias elitist,
Not butting heads with egos vain and sordid sins defeatist.
These days, I know, all people show a bent for odd perversity;
And one’s own lice seem hardly vice, but allies in adversity.
Still wonder I, as on we fly, swift flush down cosmic bowl,
Why goes it thus, our brazen rush to beggar self-control?
To hear us speak, we bravely seek out noble education,
Then turn our face to make with haste for sin and degradation.
Ah! The cheek of the woeful weak, and our sorry rationalization;
Alone we baste in a righteous waste of self-annihilation!
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by Greg Blee, 2011
Greg Blee 