Unravelling Worlds - a poem by Chris Zachariou

 

Toxic Love in Unravelling Worlds

Once, I was a poet.
Now I scribble garbled words
for pennies that no one ever reads.
The master will not redeem me—
I rebelled against the teachers of the metre.

All the horrors of my life—stacks
of pages pasted on the tunnel walls.
I'm nothing now — I wonder,
was I ever more than just a gypsy?
My pen is dry and my poems are fake.

Your smoke signals are so vague.
A modern day Odysseus, I sail my
wrecked schooner to the world you borrowed—
a seething world of green and rage.

My colossus of the perfect rhyme,
you should not have wasted your gift!
How will I know it’s you when we meet?
Have you changed much? I never
really knew you then though, did I?

The pantomime of our life begins:
There is a monkey perched
on the shoulder of the moon
and you my love, fiddling old tunes
on your pretend Stradivarius violin.

All the time, the little voice gets louder.
She shrieks in my ear—you are so wrong.
And even though it’s crazy
I wait for you each dusk by the shore.

Drifting down south, I thank her
for a lifetime of sadness.
She cries, she quivers, and calls me a pervert,
but who will get to press the button first?

Part of the Mosaics cycle of poems