Dead Art

“Poetry is a dead art”, he says,
Throwing the words without caution.

But every night,
He stares at the moon with longing,
And every day he writes
His destiny with such elegance and regal air
That only poets can.

“Poetry is a dead art”, he says,
Throwing the words at the wind -

Yet he paints every sunset,
Every brush stroke carefully planned, measured,
Every color and texture
Telling a different story from the last.
“Poetry is dead.”

“Poetry is a dead art”, he says,
And yet
He lives and breathes the art.
No poet has a need for words when
Life offers a more effective pen
With which one writes of his joys and sorrows.

Poetry, then -
it is a dead art necessary for the poet to live.

El Arte del Amor

Love, that poisoned arrow that the playful cherub aims
At the most unwilling victims void of emotion
- Love kills.
Yet people are willing to trade their souls
For this sensation, for the elation that the poison brings.

Love, like beauty, is a violent process
Of elimination: Every detail is meticulously
Picked, and every characteristic criticized;
Every feature is chipped off, one by one, until
The masterpiece is left.

But where, in this masterpiece, is the Heart?

Yet people consciously choose to undergo
This mutilating process, this suffering,
To succumb to the poisoned arrow freely.
People are willing to let their selfishness be exterminated
By that serum - that love - with which Cupid affects.

When the heart is all that remains
Of Love’s sculpture, of Love’s masterpiece -
When the remaining composition of the person
Is eliminated in the process -

Does this not make Love a selfish entity,
Undeniably similar in nature
To its most willing victims?

Where, then, is the true Heart of all-consuming Love?

The Haunting

I am a ghost.
Floating through life is -

a dream

a curse

a memory that one wishes to forget

I blame no one, and yet see the faults of everyone
In that one fleeting moment
When my life flashes in front of my eyes
And I realize - 

 I

am

alone.

And suddenly, all too quickly,
Just when my life finds its way, its color
It strikes again: 

I am my own ghost.
I haunt the chambers of my mind, my heart,
My body -

 And I cannot face the past that haunts me.