Sweetly Bitter Mouth at Sixteen
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
Sublime this child with lips which long have been
As sensual as ancient memories, eyes
So lost in gold mythologies that twin
To Lucifer his beauty also lies
In being twin to Michael in a curve
Of heaven. This is not a would-be dream
Of Psyche in a sleep thrown as a swerve
By Aphrodite, but is more a scream
Perfection makes when forced to deal with life.
Because men cannot cope with beauty so
Intense, they crumple into love and strife.
His loveliness was knife-like in its blow.
..His ugly loveliness was precious most
….To one he turned into a lyric ghost.
“a sublime child . . . lips which have long been sensual and eyes lost in very ancient memory, rather than a dream, even a precious one” ~ Paul Verlaine, Les Poètes maudits