Ghosts of Poetry

Do you remember
all those pretentious words
trying to tell you what you already know?
Stories of love,
peace,
and war,
and lust.

Of those
love is the kindest.
Sweet and tender
to touch;
eternal to savour,
pure and innocent…
But almost impossible to find
for some who possess it.

Peace
is a myth.
Peace was shot
to pieces
a long time ago.
Yet, like dracos are
to dragons,
isn’t peace a real myth?

Ah,
but it’s lust I see most.
When lust destroys,
to dust it turns the heart.
Promising passionately;
heeding hollowly,
lust be the evil
in all sin.

So why not war, evil in all?
Because lust,
presiding over peace,
lying in the place of love,
mixed together
in a venomous cocktail
create all the war and confusion
that will ever need be said.

What are left
in whispered writings
of laboured lust
are ghosts of poetry,
pretensions without meaning;
words with empty echo.


Matt K, 2003.