lines

[ansat]

I think it is probably harder to write Decadent verse now than a century or a century and a half ago. Vampires and lesbians won't shock anyone. No one gets TB anymore. No one drinks absinthe with their black coffee, no one goes mad, no one commits suicide, no one converts to the Catholic Church. Or if they do, I haven't heard about it. But I've also been wondering how poets like Crowley and Swinburne pick their verse forms. So, here are some lines I wrote on a placemat when I was out taking a client to a restaurant this morning. It is missing at least one beginning verse. Maybe some others. I have notes, but just these two stanzas.

i taste your blood upon your lips
your fear upon your breath
your heart against my fingertips
flutters toward death

staring into your eyes i see
behind the glaze of pain
i see your fear that you will be
left to life again