The poet's lament - a poem by Chris Zachariou

An Embrace in Societal Reflections

The poets gather at the well

of broken stanzas to mourn

for all the rhymes stolen by men

in white suits and loaded guns.

They stare at the salt lakes on the moon

and hanker for the days when poems

were made from dust and water.

These days, their kaleidoscope songs
are shattered at the foot of the godless

   mountain

and all the birds died of hunger.

Dead fishes float down the Mississippi

to a talent show in St. Louis

and the blues in New Orleans laments

the ones who lost the music.

Without shame, my bride with green passions

in her eyes and moist smiles on her breasts, lies

naked with impious poets on the forest floor.

'Bad poets' decrees their Sultan of Seville.

The hooded men in white suits

and all the sunburnt alligators are enraged

their lurid prayers fixed on my bride's smile.

She is the patron saint of decadence

my true goddess of divine depravity—

the perfect bride for my soul of darkness.