The Cinders of Alchemy

Oh, I love your mouth my darling,
The way it twitches as you lounge
Nonchalant in your armchair,
Fingers twirling a cigarette,
And I, disarmed in the doorway.

My friendly marauder,

Savaging my heart with each preoccupied glance, I hang suspended like a marionette by the beam of your eye, Gasping and dangling in a slow spiral of tobacco smoke And watching the languorous draw, those ruby slits, the long lingering exhale.

Pillaged by a violent envy
That thirsts for the unattainable favour of your lips, But I am dulled, Camouflaged grey by the lacklustre walls Smouldering in the glow of the television screen.

And then you turn.

The melodic notes of your voice burst red, Flaming lightbulbs, flying across the room at me, Gripped by the ripple of your smile, Like a cat caught in a reverie by the halo of a full moon Seeping sinuously through the clouds.

So are the Elysian embers that trickle beneath your lashes, Now - swiftly raised - and green and lucent, I bathe immortal in the cast of your eyes, Consumed with you, my darling, in this tempest, This riot of gold, A flashing deluge of scattering stars That knows no place, no other Unhinged from time.

Oh

The pain
The exquisite throbbing
Of the self
Slowly flooding away.

Netta