Ice and Cyanide: Nine Prose Flowers
At 3 a.m., I come to, on the floor, in a pile of verses and stockings. I have dim memories of rats, and bottles, and sleet in cobblestone gutters; of removing her slippers to kiss her feet in abject worship, and crawling away in horror from my own face, reflected in a cold black puddle, until I wakened, here, covered in all that she is, these alabaster verses, these maddening, ghostly stockings. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In late autumn, when inks turn red, I drink the black dew of melancholy, and wrap my soul in the grey mists of solitude. I brood in gutters, half-conscious of that fallen velvet, the scarlet gown around her feet, in a cold room littered with pages stained deep in the blood of white lilies. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I am the grey dreamer of these mauve pages; in this dead garden, I open the yellow book, fellated by skulls, and eating the fungus flesh of Baudelaire's morbid children; and even the night's black chalk will be wiped out, by black sleeping suns, black seas of corrosive time, and the black kisses of oblivion's blackest succubus. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The sleet of wind and frozen tears swathes the streets in the blue poison of winter dusks and suicides. A perfumed white glove glows in the lamplit snow; I snatch it up, greedily, and press it to my heart, where cocaine and opium mingle in the arms of an angel, who is soft as a dove's breast, and sweet as that necrotic rose I loved last night in the icy silence of a darkened mausoleum. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ How long can I keep dreaming of the singing of chimeras in my ears all night long; how long can I keep falling into a drunken coma, face down in the velvet snow; -until my last breath!- I'll drink crusht pearls in wine, follow the moonpink scent of her soul, and inhale the black bouquet of vice until I drown in the cold blue sun that is her flesh. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Between the kisses and the wine, there is a pink candle, there are these black pages; and a gilded whisper, caught in a sigh, torn from her throat, in morn- ing's almost white, transparent violet hush, where she slumbers now in lily shadows, and I, beneath her, un-breath- ing, between the kisses and the wine, a pink candle, these black pages. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I will bind her in exquisite little volumes, where rivulets of text stream down the flesh-pink pages: spillt wine, beeswax, mercury, the silver phosphtor of hallucination and fever, the hot powder of roses falling from a corpse's kiss. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the glow of twilight's grey, under clouds of red leaves, her rose-scented hands are steeped in medieval lace. The gold ash of the world falls from her hair, and she rises, - from a fountain of quartz and frankincense, in a crown of haloes, she rises and her blood drips all night onto the skinned remains of my pure, unholy adoration. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There is a book of jade, with inks of white tourmaline and black quartz, from which these words have been torn; and there is a book of ice and cyanide, that waits in a still marble light, its pages yet to be cut.