The Amateur Masters
Loveconquered me wholly,
totally;
though you refused it,
conquered you became
after a time,
your coquetry notwithstanding.
Terror,
that overwhelming enemy,
ceases all action,
calls out to fears of such
unknown nature and
vast magnitude, we dare not
question
how we became acquainted.
Perhaps some death
of enormous love showed
terror its game.
Love and cruelty
played by amateur masters,
time after time,
vanish in bitterness;
the remnants' ragged edges
claw each other
with renewed terror.
Such an idiot's tale
I gladly pursued,
and with such relish,
terror abated for a moment;
the comfort of tenderness
told the fool's story,
and the soul's surrender soared
to a plane thick with ecstasy.
The abandon of reason
became a mythical land,
immersed in a haze of confusion,
with hidden, unknown pitfalls
into which I stumbled.
Then terror
threw its face on me again.
I found you there
in like condition;
upon seeing these new faces,
we cringed
from each other,
jabbed each other
and cried out in fear.
Trapped together,
the secrets in our souls
thus exposed,
we could not return home,
but roamed endlessly
in this Hell.
Then
we found a pool
and bathed in pretense,
flung truth to the hills
and found an uneasy comfort
in a vision of the past;
no less mythical
than true experience
unaltered by love.
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