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The Serpent



The life and ruin of me,
The Serpent- I grasp at your immortality in my failing memory.

Numerous conquests far and wide,
Enchanted by your poisonous spell;
Drunk to draught the liqueur of lust from your bottomless well.
Deftly you dallied with their pilgrim love- hearts and souls that writhed and twined.

The incessant sighs of desire that conceals the hisses of ruthless vice.
Your serpentine ways succeeded the deceiving- both the foolish and the wise.
To no avail could they make their reasons just,
Why they thrashed still in your perfidious love.

I was too lured in by your sinuous incantation-
A voluntary prisoner,
Neglected in my chronic incarceration.

Lethe runs in my blood every time you smote my lips your frosty kiss.
Germinating in my gullible heart a love seed that never blossomed.
The withered flower of that counterfeited love- my blindness, now I come to think of it, so wretched and brazen!

But one day your venom cleared my eyes and made me see:
The permanent gloom beneath your lurid sheen.
Vague terrors crept upon you.
Misery resurged anew.

You coiled in your unrepented guilt-
Like a grain of insolent pride trembled before the jaw of sorrow’s mill.

The fall of the fallen;
The weak of the malevolent.

Evil eventually forsook you, that limpid, frigid night.
Under your stoic disguise out came the plaintive sigh,
And the voiceless cry.

Violent and entire you sloughed off your quivering heart and abrasive skin.
But nothing could assuage the grief of the guiltless phantoms-
Always would they chant the endless song of your unredeemed sin.

On the eve of your Sleep you shed an honest tear and whispered to me:
“No one could wipe me off his memory.”

The life and ruin of me,

The Serpent- I grasp at your immortality in my failing memory.
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