A Dream

I brimmed over richly with
the sweet fullness of the milk of love
but to break mortal content, there were
dregs at the very bottom - bitter promise

I tried to pick them with sharp pincers
which scarred the white velvet in hate
but the dregs remained there
immobile and leaden - sinking my heart

So I did what I was loth to do
and poured out that milk of love
and watched it flow between
the cracks of parched earth

Then I reached into my empty self
and shook the crystals of covetal free
ah now it was all clean and bright
though alas empty

But beneath those shards of desire
there had been, hidden from me
the very udders of the elixir I had lost
and now they burst forth free
flooding my cup till it flowed
like mother Baucis' of old
over its brim and into the green grass

Decadence

The sunken eye, the hollow cheek
the broken bones and snapped sinews
the fingers that once beauty fondled
waste away now to barren amuse
The fire of the eye, the edge of the mind
quenched and blunted by the killing blight
of name, fame and shame

For dotage is not the draught that drinks
the light from the living candle,
but the stench of the long burnt wick
that seeps through the still air,
with its cursed half life
living after the flame is dead...