The Ballad of the Forbidden Flame - In memory of Oscar Wild
He wore no mask of murder’s face,
No blade was in his hand,
But still they called his love a crime,
And could not understand.
He kissed a boy with poet’s grace,
The courts replied: “He’s banned.”
They cast him in a narrow cell,
Where joy must learn to die.
He’d loved too much, and not too safe:
Too deep, too true, too high.
And through the bars, he looked each day
With longing at the sky.
He did not cry, he did not plead,
He bore what he was shown.
They robbed him of the right to love,
Yet could not crush the bone.
He wrote with pain, he wept with ink,
And bled through words alone.
He walked with ghosts in silent halls,
With shame upon his name.
Yet in his chest the fire still burned:
A holy, hidden flame.
For those who dared to love like him,
He bore the lash of blame.
The world had called his heart obscene,
And flung him to the floor,
But still he loved, though love had cost
His health, his home, his lore.
They broke his wings for loving men…
Then cursed him when he swore.
And now the streets are loud with light,
With flags that never fade,
And lovers walk without a veil,
Without the fear he paid.
But every color in that flag
Was once a wound he made.
So let us speak the poet’s name
With reverence and with fire.
For Wilde, who taught us love survives
When thrown into the mire,
Who held his soul above the law
And walked the thorny wire.
Let none forget the silent ones
Who loved in secret tombs,
Whose letters never reached the light,
Whose joy became their doom.
We carry them in every kiss,
In every Pride that blooms.
He died alone, in exile’s shade,
No crowd to cheer his name.
But in the hearts of those who rise,
Still burns his quiet flame.
And every march that fills the street
Confirms his truth, not shame.
For Wilde once wrote, “Each man must kill
The thing that he holds dear.”
Yet what he loved has risen now,
And sings for all to hear.
So raise your voice and walk with pride
He walks beside you, near.
He did not steal, he did not fight,
But kissed a man beneath the stars.
For this, they stripped him of his light
And sentenced him to silent bars.
No bells were rung, no tears were shed,
They wrote him out with ink and flame.
And in the cell where he was led,
They whispered shame upon his name.
A poet walks, not on the ground,
But somewhere just beyond the pain.
They caged him where no stars were found,
And left him staring at the rain.
The pages trembled in his hand,
But still he wrote, as prophets do.
Each word a wound he dared to stand,
Each line a prayer the night once knew.
He did not beg the world to see,
He did not kneel, he did not run.
He simply held his love as free,
And paid the price for being one.
O Pride, you rise with joyful drums,
But he once marched with silent eyes.
His rainbow lived where sorrow comes,
And bled through dust and lowered skies.
He loved in ways the law forbade,
And left his truth beneath the yoke.
They tried to bury what he said,
But Wilde was stone, and fire, and oak.
He sleeps beneath a foreign name,
But wakes in every voice today.
And each who loves without the shame
Now walks the road he cleared of clay.
We light a candle by his name,
We hang our flags in brighter sun.
For every love once wrapped in flame,
We say: his war is not undone.
Copyright ©
Florin Lacatus
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