Until now, I knew I possessed nothing
Damned by decrees of my own
Selfishness, I pretended
Behind a circus show of reason
At the Ball of tantalized feeling
But now, I know the way the world ends
Whatever else I might succumb to
It will be the poetry of freedom
Without rhetoric, or tricks of lying
Or slang speech particular to my times
Until now, I hid in incredible musical scales
Behind melodies, beneath the chorus
All poets pick themselves out of rivers
I’m half-deceived, by the lovers who left me
Because I was nothing but a poet
But it’s my first white wave of climbing hope
The last word I say before my doom
Whatever else, poetry is my first freedom
So don’t ridicule me for loving a kind of art
My dream is an impatient cadence pure
That gives me resurrection, when life
Offers me none, these flaming parenthesis
Have become my means of transcending you.
