Raver

he’s a raver, deep from marrow, born who screams at moons to curse the morn and though his flesh is bloodless, torn he woos the beast inside him for night alone won’t hide him he creeps the nettles, scratched and red to find the temptress for his bed but with the madness in his head those angels - dark and ruddy find all their wings, now bloody oh, once this manic’s dreams were pure of maidens, graced with grace, demure their loins, quite worth a birthing’s cure but he drowned all such humors his passions, turned to tumors those virtues, pure, were sacrificed for panicked potions - poisoned, iced no hellion’s draught had e’er sufficed to scald his veins through rapture death’s tonic, claimed for capture but there beneath a gold doubloon the grip of dripping deviled moon that man left all his senses strewn - hopes hanging on a door-hinge with high-priced bitter orange there are no versions of the truth no happy end, this saddened sleuth what waste, the years of wondrous youth those scores of bugles, blaring changed to a dirge, despairing bright eyes, a-dead and staring … bright eyes … now dead. ( Painting by Achille Chiarello )