Do you know the taste of sin?
The darker things, how they begin?
The crystalline persuasion
On the sharp end of a pin
You pricked your finger same as hers…
Made a vow more than a curse
But friendships bear the weight of words
Like bodies on our backs
And time will tear the fabric
Woven from these stories told
The secrets drowning in our heads
Like threads of mischief will unfold
How did we drift so far apart?
The answers cut and scare me still
It seems so long ago it was
That promise based on blood we spilled
Acquired taste indeed, it is
Most certainly, it was
Imprinted just as well, sometimes
The lines like ropes around our wrists
When spoken by one so betrayed
Blindsided by the things we say
What’s hidden in the light of day
Yes, truth remains again unseen
But seethes under the skin
Like promises on heads of pins
And poetry to glean
A wicked passion-play inside
A rhapsody of green

And would you recognize a lie,
Much like a fist into your throat?
A mirror for your ebony eyes
A cat-black coat of itchy wool
So easily you pulled
Over the faces of your fans
For life demands a pound of flesh
For every secret you confess
Remember how when you were young
The water haunted you?
Attracted to what kills us
Makes us ghosts before our time
Is melting not sublime?
There’re surely worse ways one could die?
Perhaps a trial by fire
Perhaps a silver guillotine
Perhaps a rack to stretch your back
An Iron Maiden in a song
It wasn’t long, for fear surpassed
A nemesis it was
For when it touched your skin
It burned and what at all
is learned or was?
In retrospect decisions sting
And taints all that we feel
Discrimination steals
Whatever friendships will reveal
The clockwork angels scheming
Making trouble in your dreams
Stirring up your past
Inside a cauldron of regrets
Guiding you with voices
Echoes from an ancient tongue
Remember all those stories
Woven tapestries of time?
Something more than childhood rhymes
Repeated in your ears?
Playing on your deepest fears
Your mother said the sky was red
Safely in your bed, she said,
The moon was made of cheese
A smiling face transfixed in space
Said God bless you when you sneezed
Obviously, a lie believed
Just something mothers say
Taught you how to bat your eyes
Fall asleep to lullabies…
Dream of shiny bricks of gold
Enough to make a road or wall
A hex to make a kingdom fall
Or build a bridge to pain
Wicked things that still remain
Where fools suspend belief
Mother wouldn’t lie, would she?
She told you time’s a thief
Repeat these words before you sleep:
“I speak so I create.”
Hurry up and wait
Now it’s your turn to take the stage
Release your hidden rage
Unleash the songs you have suppressed
Once again you must confess
While casting spells in tea leaves
Father never had a clue
At what point do we shed our skin
And say enough is enough?
Blurring lines from hate to love
From trust to rusted chains
Thoughts like links to make you think
To question what is seen
Known as you are known
Inside a rhapsody in green

And do you know the cost of loss?
The time we waste on love?
How darkness is our one true friend
While sleeping on a bed of pens
The ink has bled into your gown
So gorgeously in black, you’re draped
A pointed hat a flowing cape
This Goth-look suits you well
The evil we can’t see
Is what we all should fear the most
As Kipling said, and still it shows:
“Stick to the devil that you know.”
The truth that you believe
You wear your dark heart on your sleeve
It’s good enough for me
And so you learned to sing
The people showered you with praise
A cloud of gray malaise
Soon became your stock and trade
A spotlight and a microphone
Father never made the show
Your mother in the wings
A catalyst to stranger things
“Use your faults and failures.”
Edith Piaf said once or twice
Those darker things (so nice)
Stitching wings to monkey’s backs
And then teaching them to fly
A castle on a mountain
Writing names across the sky
We surely cast our doubts
Into the audience we despise
Singing to the rafters
Safe within the gaffer’s tape
A pocket for your lover
A twist of fate you never saw
An outcome never seen
Her death was an illusion
In her rhapsody in green

TM DiSarro

©2024 TM DiSarro/ MindScapes Publishing
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“No one mourns the wicked”
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