The End of Life (A Prose Poem)
Covered in rust I corrode in this empty wine glass. My feathers are perforated, my hands deteriorate in this empty crystal refuge. I remember insects, nights of masquerades. I was deceived before, lost in a sea of kimonos, I was drained of life. Pain slowly evaporates, leaving a scab; wounded (yes) but experience has thought me to distill truth.
I am a secret. A moth wrappped in layers of silk tissue. I hide my true feelings and beliefs, the one true melody in my heart. I am afraid: of the laughter of babbons, the caricatures drawn on mirrors. I am afraid of the vulgarity of shadows, forests….
Who am I? What am I to myself? To those who read the intricacies in gestures: am I perceptible? I do not understand this work of art.
I only know his feelings and passions. His love of paintings, faint music in cloisters, his madness for velvet cloaks that cover all his sins.
I only know that I see him through a broken mirror: he is a soldier in gilded armour, pierced by torns, tormented by madirgals:
broken by dreams that can never come true.
