What Might Have Been
August has become a thing of loathing.
It's in this time I recall the anniversary of my birth.
I reflect on the countless possibilities, what might have been.
My overreaching ambition topples obstacles
that seem insurmountable to ordinary men.
But what I would have given to gain the title of ordinary.
From time to time I gaze at my blood-soaked cuticles
That have written exquisite folds of music
That have constructed monuments of sacred and ravishing beauty
That have plucked sweeter melodies from violins than were ever heard
That have performed illusions so complete jaded old men knew wonder.
And I damn them.
Everything I touch is infected by the plague of my ugliness.
These hands have murdered!
What might have been!
If only I could convince that twittering, foolish girl that the mask was to
shield them from some godly splendor. Then the
slave girl might have taken my hand,
my corpse hand, cold like buried earth,
she might have allowed its touch on her parted, rouged lips
On her kohl-lined eyelids . . .
But it does nothing to think of what might have been.
Rationality long ago overpowered my abhorrence of August.
Now it is merely a reminder of the changing of time.
I am half a century old this month.
Half a century, and I've never lived.
A/N: This is an old poem, written at least six years ago. It's based on Kay more than anything, with the reference to the odalisque in the fifth stanza. It would have to be set somewhere between the unmasking and "Apollo's Lyre," but I'm not sure it fits in with the exact chronology of Leroux. Hmm.