It has been less than a year, but more than half since
I last called you, my mind lost in more than just thoughts
To rectify my mistake, soothe my regret of never
Calling you for what you are, always blessing you with the covert
For I used to be too passive to say as I thought, as I knew
That you are more than just a man, infinitely worse
And the only word which particularly suits you is evil
I said what I said, and you said ‘’I know’’
Accountability in a morning sky
Admitting you knew
That’s when I knew you were less than a man
And no more than evil
I’ve known of one more evil when it was dancing in my throat
My serpent breath, and the cold of a comedown
While I came down with a down payment of whatever it took
For the serpent to come and take my breath away
Dabbling in the arts of pin-point pupils and
Dilation of the night into the yolk of a sun, fry it up, love
The beaches of Rusalka called my name
Its voices in my walls, telling me they’ll give me
Joy again, that it never left, that all I need
Is my one last trip to see the frothing of waves, beach huts, straw hats
Where the sky dilates into the sea
There are no serpents in the sky nor the sea
Only in me
A stroll away from the Rusalka libretto
Is the seventh sector of Bucharest – or of Dante’s nine circles of the inferno – home to cigarettes and apple pie
Which I haven’t tasted ever since I left (the latter, of course)
Excuses for orchards, walnut trees
Live among the filth of the evil of my city
They had a habit of saying hello to me every morning
And my walnut tree, four storeys high, would brush its leaves against my window
To tell me of love and peace and warn of serpents
And evil men and damsels in distress
Who could never say it as they know it is
Now I am away and whatever I know, I say
Walton-on-Thames, the south bank
The harbour of making peace with the sky melting into the river
Waterloo tunnel vision is no more and I see all which I want to see
In a city made of rage, the good kind, which keeps me
Sightseeing, people-watching in tender suspicion, thanks to you my walnut tree
Protecting me is my tamed serpent, no longer
Able to dig trenches in my throat, for both world wars are now distant enough
Or be the source of all my evils
I will never call up evil again, in fear it will try to justify itself
I may turn up spellbound once more, chanting that it’s all my fault
I’ve conquered them both but I tread in caution
Of revisiting the past
I am no Persephone, and refuse to be
Swallowed by the ground into
Caves of the underworld, to my Hades
I haven’t seen the beach in seven years
I am holding out for that