Sometimes
It’s the sheer staggering
Purity of the indulgence.
Sugar.
Chocolate.
Cream.
A few mint leaves to remind you
Of the sweet mortality
Of all that lives.
The journey never really ends, does it?
– Mikeliti, where are you going?
– I don’t know.
– You don’t know?
– I never knew, did I? But off I went, all the same.
Some artists want to own it,
To license the use of it
On their terms, revocable on a whim,
As if the sweet blood that pours out
To rejoin the soil from which it sprang
Could ever be unmingled,
Could be redistilled if the dirt
Were deemed unfit for cohabitation
With such lofty stuff.
As if the close, heavy air
That squeezed out the dewdrop
Was itself unworthy
Of such holy moisture.
All of art is collaboration.
What good is a pot
With nothing to fill it?
What good is a mirror
With no reflection?
You say you embrace God
Your arms entwine emptiness
That distorting mirror
You call God
While you pray
Waiting only for your echo
Longing only for your immortal self
To come out of hiding
The stars are exploding
Forever
That mask you think you hide behind
You fashioned from bits and pieces
Torn from your own heart
And flung into the maelstrom
Without pity,
Without a second glance
I see it written in your soul
Like dead spots on the leaves
Of wakefulness
Like unforgotten regrets
Along strewn alleys
That mask is you no less
Than the unstrange and fatal
Inner master
You stroke so tenderly
Himself a puppet
Himself a summoned
Serpent
Impossible to dismiss
Discard those mirrors
They only contort
The face visible to yourself alone
Is your mask alone