A Crowned Coward

Like a black bug, I hide within the petals within the petals of a flower of fear. I dwell in a wilt bloom, hiding beneath words that are not my own, always, to hide my crude mute voice. I dress myself of all things a man can guess to hide my nudity from a shunning crowd.

I ask myself:
Is the will to help when having no help to offer more than having the power to help without the will to do so? Who is foolishly pure and innocently void? Me? the Other?

And like a child playing with the scorpion, plucking it on my diminutive hand, feeling the failing vain warmth of its blood, I can feel only the guise and drool of power, of the proud plucking, the glorious crushing - never feeling the sting-brought regret, never mourning the wasted poison.

Leaden Plume

Oh, for a moment I wished
the voices in my head to shut up -
I've been barely able to heed to the angel
and to speak to the devil
perched on my shoulders.

Yet, to my dismay,
I caught myself babbling all along,
and I've got the angel's wings,
and I've got the demon's tail,
and the voices in my head -

- my head perched on my shoulders.