The Poet's Lament Poem by Chris Zachariou

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.

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.

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.