The Poet's Lament

By Nicole Entin

This stained-glass world was not made for the likes of me.

No saint, no storyteller, no holy creator with craftsman’s hands.

I am rather made from the light that streams through

Brightly coloured cathedral windows, dappled across a stone wall.

I am that wall, graced for an ephemeral moment with the godlike

Luminescence of the shimmering red, blue, and gold.

I am the voice of the moon, mocking, all-knowing, tormented,

Crying out as the cruel point of the flagpole is driven into her craterous eye.

I am the greatest person who never existed, a cryptic crossword

Etched across the earth itself. The counterpoint to a melody,

Torn pages of a book, the high priestess on her gilded throne,

The Oracle at Delphi with pungent smoke pouring from her mouth.

I am the diminuendo of a Mahler symphony, the fading cries

Of the violins, the wilted roses in my mother’s green glass vase.

I am the stillness of water, the roots that reach down and form

A forest beneath its surface. I am tortured by his memory,

A death drive towards revelation. I am more sinned against than sinning,

I am on the bathroom floor, my cheek pressed to the cold marble

Tiles, my tears running between the gaps, my hands grasping

At something that is not there, at something that could have been.

Credit: Cian Attems

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