Soliloquy

by Marc Lashenson

You were the Bad Boy oxymoron
and you played with your words
and mine.
“A charming combination of earth
and madness
vampires and angels
flutes and cackles.”
was written on your grave
before your thirtieth birthday.
You had dancing, hysterical eyes
and wild Arabic sounds floating around you,
you could walk like a ballerina,
love like a Roman,
steal like a cat
and philosophize like a guru.

There was a disease you swallowed whole and gladly,
like an ignorant child taking pills mixed with jelly.
And all the discipline and abstinence and sleep
can’t help you now.
You played roulette with a cherub
and dropped acid with faerie folk
and made children feel like grown-ups
and loved that you hated, and hated that you loved.

Now you look like Christ before he died,
and smell like Lazarus.
Your lovely shaped words dressed up for show
are barren and boring, especially void of meaning.
Your flock has fallen and every exit is a mirror.
But you smile like a comic book phantom
and take Death’s hand,
not repulsed by its stench, or yours,
and skip along your path
losing hair, teeth, and nails
as you go.
So, the last polished word becomes a first
and the first naked word is the end
of your soliloquy.