Words for a Friend

chaos

smooth glass beckons the eye
and fondles memory entreatingly--
false images of a world, of a being
traipsing in skin blemished and bloated
reside throughout the silver panes;
there is no escape.

you boast of Chaos banished
in a Miltonic sonnet, a demon whose
conversion, only, you seek,
but the Chaos you ensnare
remains docile freely;

my Chaos, my bane, my folly--he,
some twisted lovechild
of the ever--warring provinces:
Despair, the mind;
Love, the soul--does not pretend
for my sake, for my delusions
to reverse the roles
of slave and master.

adoringly, he drapes himself
in my silly little words,
makes a home where Blessing reigns,
and, like some silly little prince,
toys with Blessing
like an ant teasing a boot
and does not get squashed;

my Chaos ensnared Blessing, too.

smooth glass beckons my eye--
deserving only of a glance,
yet the illusions of the world, of the flesh,
receive the stare of an art-enthusiast
at the Louvre.

this thing stares back at me,
this wisp of a woman
who speaks not with the words of man
but with the tongue of a beast;
who longs for her muse;
who snatches glances at souls
that do not return the favor
and hopes, someday, that they will.

cold blue eyes stare, faintly,
into mine
as rain falls
from a sky grey and full--I
cannot help but curse this woman
for her folly, for her darling Chaos--

I cannot help but loathe myself
for braying about muses and misunderstood emotions
when Blessing, my sole mate,
waits for my attention patiently,
watches as I beg for stability and health
and court Chaos.

**inspired by Edna St. Vincent Millay's "I Will Put Chaos Into Fourteen Lines"**