Madness, My Mistress, Your Tender Abuse Poem by Kenna

'Madness, my mistress, your tender abuse
Embraces me from the bureau mirror.
It has a cozy, familiar excuse
That wishes we were but were not like her.

This Medusa eye of mine qualifies
Her mien - black and gray (as if shadowed moths
Aggregate to this form) - and amplifies
Lost Beauty's mutable weltering wroth.

Now death stares back at us with vanity
And snakes nip at our irises with Hate
(and Love) turning to stone our sanity;
Imbibing our pride with a plaintive trait.

My mistress, madness, we've mantled you, muse;
On the bookshelf sits your tiny statues.'