1/8/2017 4:39:14 PM
Gregory Richard Barden
Posts: 23
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** Literal translation is "Damned Beauty" but in this context is more like "Beautiful Evil" or "Dark Beauty", though as you'll see, it's NOT about a woman. This is a very dark piece, but a subject that needs to be addressed much more often than it IS, in my humble opinion, and it was taken from a very bad period from my life. It's very tough sometimes to visit the places we HAVE to in order to write such poetry, but I have found personally that those pieces are often the ones that take us through the greatest catharsis, and bring the most healing. This was something I desperately needed to write, and though it was very painful to do so, I am VERY glad that I did. **
BELLEZA MALDITA
Dark, deep, warm-black arms
Of an endless night wrap me ...
Head thrown back in abdication,
Arms spread wide in surrender,
Falling backward, back, back,
Onto a hard dogwood blackness.
Nails of my own stark weakness
Fasten my hands to a weighty
Tree of terrifying introspection ...
A poison saturates my blood,
Courses with its curses through
The very vessel my soul inhabits,
Dictates to me by the minutes
The movements of my muscles,
States of my vapid organs, thus,
Responses and emotions, true,
Like the visceral, mighty hand
Of some morbidly jealous god,
Squeezing the true and the good
From every last cell of my being,
The strength and health built by
A lifetime of good habit and task,
Torn asunder by a guileful beast,
A duplicitous, faceless monster
That I invited in from wintertide
Like some pitiful, starving fawn.
Oh, it IS pitiful in its treachery,
And it starves, oh yes, it starves,
With a hunger for souls and lives
And accomplishments and truth,
And it eats them ALL with a lust
Unending, and a ravenous fury,
Laughing at you with a Cheshire
Grin, your own warm, crimson blood
On its shining, chiseled teeth.
And while you tremble in horror at
Its stark visage, while you stare
Transfixed into lifeless black eyes,
The face changes, the abomination
Transforms into a beauty so pure
And compelling, that your only
Thought and desire and compulsion
Is to drink it in with a kiss as deep
As the Universe itself .. to pour
Yourself into it with every passion
And emotion you can scrape from
The ice-flaked walls of your conscience,
To merge with it, join with it in all
Abandon and care and affliction,
And give yourself whole to the dim,
Shadowy vehemence complete,
While the deafening roar of your
Own screams and scratchings,
Plays a somber requiem, finale,
A sickly sweet song of obliteration.
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1/10/2017 8:35:30 AM
Gregory Richard Barden
Posts: 23
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Thank you for your notes, GD, it is about drug addiction, opiates, to be exact, though it would fit just about any type of substance abuse. The Love/Hate relationship is just more drastic and pronounced with opiates, in my opinion, but that's just from my perspective. I think this may be one of those poems whose subject matter is clearer to those who have been there, but I kept it rather obscure for that reason. Thanks again - much appreciated!
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