The Shell

Do they see that cursed kiss that resides on the edge of the nights I push

away, or is it a blessing that I invite in with the dawn, to occupy this ghost of

a shell, why is it that

when I speak sadness emerges on the pilfered song of vespers. Why is it that

the summer sun feels as the beginnings of a winters tale,

an unfinished poem that underlines, the charcoaled melancholy in my eyes,

Do you not see its waking amplitude, that depresses my brow, on the brink of

mornings rush to punish me, with the deceitful manners of a charming

smile.

Why does your photo age you in youth, in the flame of the candle that casts

hues, as wordless sentences in the hanging garden’s of my home

and yet my eyes mature with the weight, the choking pull of the seal upon

my entryway. Why is it that the locks of my hair, have grown with your

measured anamnesis, perfuming their curl, your theory their lustre

Why is it that my threnodies fear the breath on my wistful lips, yet the

mourners chanted each word of the epics, my renditions to your memory

Why is it they recite my words and barter my religion to the merchants of

faith — the Devils Eden

Why do my eyes fall to the cast of your kiss, that tore asunder the rings of our

crowns, the crown I pleated with blessings, that

cushion your repose, the one I wasn’t blessed to reign,

and yours, yours — yours crowns the shadow of the kiss that cursed me to the

realms of a breathing poem, sung on the alms of the fourth month, the

twentieth day, the stanza I wrote on the notes of the blessings that never

crossed my door

Why is it no one sees the cursed kiss that resides on the edges of the night,

yet they remember my words, that feared to kiss my quivering lips,

I’m not a poet, I’m just a stanza, that pushes the night away, on the locutions

of kiss that birthed a song no one wishes to dance to, yet they quote the

words of my misfortune, a talisman against that which shadowed my door, to

reside only with me, they think I do not hear my curse upon the alcove’s of

their lips, they recite my pain, I recognize my words upon the smile of their

aggrandizing good fortune, and I wish them blessings, I wish them only

blessings — to never invite the dawn in on the nights I cry within the lines of

my prose, my requiem an antiphon to keep you all safe from my pain — the

pain they fear not whisper — yet they fear to touch — the ravages of my heart —

the lacrimal seas of my tears — why are they afraid?, they are but remnants

of letters now — an amulet, arias of a kiss, that betray only me, the

night and the oneiric ethos of the kiss that resides in the bedchamber of the

silence I paid with so dearly,

What do they know of my pain?, when I can count its weight, on the ten

diamonds on the apex of the mountains of my fingertips, on the syllables of

your fragrance, that is worth more in one breath, then all the words I write —

on the flow of the personification of time, cyclical, wielding the scythe of

harvest.

Copyright ©. R Tsambounieri Talarantas. July 2020. All Rights Reserved.