Chiaroscuro

08/13/2018

Chiaroscuro

Nana S. Achampong

Mar. 12, 2012



valentine's day? some coital travesty, valentine.

that senseless season to sell passes with design

tortures my frail senses like yesterday's menses

in my chest as the rest of my being condenses.

.

mr. sandman, will you do your silly little trick

and induce upon me deep sleep through thick

and when I'm fully entombed in your quarantine

please wed my sensibilities to that of a philistine

.

who feasts at the ides of romantic February

madly in the gory pleasures of this cemetery,

slapping bitches absurd with the bloody strips

peeled with glee from goat and canine hips?

.

I wonder which part is light, and which dark,

which fear to ignore, and which one to hark,

for her drama is lightening in my black sky

when she flashes my heart with her smile wry.

.

her angelic skin spells doom against mine:

like polished ore awastin' in a collapsing mine

her tantalizing cold swarms against my heat,

pure clean coal burning in a deathly heap.

.

when we get separated closely by this passion,

even the elements must proceed with caution;

my piercing jazz sits straight opposite her soul,

the earth drags my heart from chest to my sole.

.

her breath whispers like a brush on my shy lashes

cooling the lava inside my volcano like ashes.

my response feeds the bad, bad beast in her hips

like volatile gasoline sprinkled on inflamed lips.

.

and now, here I am, losing sleep through dreams:

what ever happened when we swam up streams?

her detached mind then like a pendulum of sort,

always swinging back and forth, back and forth

.

a little sunshine, some rain, left and then right,

then joy, and some pain, from side to side.

you could call it a dereliction of simple duty,

abandoning me, leaving property unattended to.

.

deep black then white; all of life's tricky quizzes:

light, heavy, extreme chiaroscuro, that's what it is,

for still I long for her; while she, she shorts for me -

I the fly, she the gnat; I'm her pollen, she's my bee.

.

yet our destinies be entwined in a constricting knot

making me ramble on and on like an expletive nut

towards towers in chasms, and mountains in valleys

hiding in open spaces, and basking in plain alleys.

.

still, she's such a star, shining away my shadow,

defining my essence to the core of the marrow,

this pagan valentine who of naught wrought

stark night against the day that love brought



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