The Scourge Of AIDS: I Was Hoping It Was Just Bad Dream

The AIDS pandemic has changed everything on the landscape dramatically,  The world is forever spinning closer and closer to the sun, metaphorically speaking. There was now no safe sex. Everyone had to use condoms, once only as a defence against unwanted pregnancy and now, it's essential.

   The Architects Of An Unsteady World

Your pain is overwhelming you.
To the point where you cannot
And will not vanquish this millstone

That is crushing your self-esteem.

The gifted, kindly
And compassionate souls
 Are the ones who pay the heavy price
Of being different. It's been going. Forever.         

But, you knew that millstone existed

All too well

That hatred and bigotry have accelerated
To the point where an apex has been reached.

We love you. And that love carries no expiry date
Unlike many others, only hanging around you
Because you're famous. Those  talons
Are  squeezing you like the jaws of death
 
So eager to draw celebrity blood from
Just about everyone whose faces
Are tattood by the Master himself

The only way you can take back
 Your dignity and search         
For that precious, coveted                           

Anonymity.

lonelyheroine
2017.


Do you have any idea at all
What you've brazenly done to me?
Seems that I'm always taking the fall
While you walk away, scott free.

There's no point in fighting with you
Even though you're clearly to blame
No matter whatever I do.
You insist on playing this game.                                              

Why didn't you keep your big mouth shut?
Now I've lost my job, my home and my pride
I take offence that you called me a slut
Are you pleased that I'm dying inside?

I thought that you loved me as I did you
How could I ever have been so blind?
Because of this, we're totally through
I'll just try to leave all my sadness behind.

Lonelyheroine 2018
                                                             

                                            

               

Maze Of the Minotaur     



A thin, steel-hard wisp of pain
Wraps itself 'round your entrails.
       Pulling and twisting
Until nothing remains inside
       But blood-red pulp.

You are sustinence for the Beast
And its paste-thick viscous saliva
Makes a path for you to travel                                   

        Alone and stripped bare
Of the frankinscence, gold and myrrh
That was your coveted vestibule
       And became the mask of idols.      


You may have fooled them all.
That preening, posturing guise
Could very well have fused itself
         To your soul
As whitening scar tissue meshes
With healthy, living skin.


But the Beast knows the truth
He stands laughing at the core of your prison.
Waiting    
              Panting

Believing that its convoluted
Sanguinary corridor
Will finally lead you home                              
To where the horns of self-loathing

   And sepulcral, draining despair

Impale you with the pointed remnants

   Of a mis-shapen youth

Until you twist and writhe

Until you imploringly beg

     For a release

                      Into

                                  Vacuity.

It's a tad melodramatic and overwrought, isn't it? I wrote this poem in

1987.  As you may have gathered, I wasn't in a good place back then. I think that

this work can very well be about the AIDS crisis at that time in history, which

is why I'm posting it here. This poem and several others caught the eye of my publisher.

    A Gallery Of Empty Frames
   

Given a comfortable life
In the Post War's living rooms
Portraits on the wall
Hold nothing but empty frames.

So where are the family pictures?
Where are the rare paintings
That Dad paid a fortune for
Prior to his death by Marlboro?

Or should I say "Marble Row?"
Fits doesn't it? The wages of sin
Will never be reimbursed
         As the blood donor killed herself.

Don't clutter your mind looking for answers
There aren't any to speak of
And you can stand on the precipice

      But you'll be there alone. A snowstorm
away from a devastating avalanche

   Doesn't sound pretty, does it?

You betrayed my trust.

        Cursed my home and doomed me
To a life of soul-squelching suburbia

     Overwhelming with pinks and turquoises

Damn. Didn't homes in the Post War

  Deserve more colours than that?


So here I sit---bored, listless, with a twinge
of anger. A street with robotic neighbours
Children caught in various poses

Of spontaneous play: Hop Scotch, skipping ropes

Not to mention defacing of public property

But the parents of three of these kids
Never wanted to capture them

         Didn't even own a camera

They just sat back and marveled

At their empty frames.