Your old
catastrophes queued to recur,
And vital
fire contracted to a hole,
Would you go
back in dreams to what you were
And try anew
the unenacted role?
Dead
pleasures fading to a wasted blur,
Desire
perversely lives, a glowing coal
That stale
regret but pricks you on to stir,
Revision of
the past your only goal.
So little
left could hardly come to less:
A clinging
succubus took you as prey,
And, yet
possessing you, makes you regress;
The
sleepless demon that forced you to say
“Yes” when
you meant “No,” “No” when you meant “Yes,”
Still makes
a day of night, a night of day.
Note: In lines 1, 2, and 5, the verbs are not all in the past tense; the
construction at the beginning of each sentence is an
adverbial/participial phrase as in “Given the circumstances, …” and
“Their schoolwork done, …” and “All things being equal, …”
Photo
from http://quotationsbook.com/quotes/author/photos/6633
