Verlaine

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This time around Verlaine aims
to put things right from the
beginning loading the revolver
as he steps from the time machine
he will end things with Rimbaud
before they ever get started but
he miscalculated he’s distracted
and spooks the boy who runs as
they are on the way to the train
waving his bandaged hand in the
air WAIT is this his second attempt
and he just keeps making things
worse instead of returning to
the days of his innocence when
the boy was nothing but a scrap
of verse in the waistcoat pocket
of a married man who dedicated
his first book to failing morality
which of these is the illusion
but this boy is wrapping around
him like a dog whimpers against
the same wall of sleep that also
is holding back the night the
same feeling he gets looking at
one of his own verses and not
recognizing it this happens
often enough that he has begun
to question the artistic enterprise
in general and his own most
of all his family is a distant
memory his morality moves
like the stock market since he
invested everything in that boy
another form of buyer’s remorse
again if his family stands for
innocence what does the boy
stand for any poet in his right
mind knows there always are
larger forces at play but he has
lost the thread of it cannot
even remember what day it is
on the street he hears a girl
talking breathlessly about her
feelings of falling in love and
he knows that is the answer
but addicts also talk like that
occasionally he still reads
the work of a poet who is so
good it makes Verlaine want
to give up and quit writing
and then he remembers that
is why he began. The scrap
of paper never will suffice.

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