Wasting

by Eric Martin

Affection’s fervency
Succumbs progressively
To feverish apathy.
‘T is futility to sear
My eyelid with a tear —
A weak, expulsive tear —
No inspiring remedy
For consuming misery,
Just a tear — sparse relief —
An emblem of transient grief.
They say my heart is strong
(They are wrong — they are wrong),
That the fire in my eyes,
Like ambition, never dies.
Not so — each sluggish throb
Is encoupled with a sob;
Disillusion and despair
Are the only rivals there;
The envenomed wassail-bowl
Of indulgence sates my soul;
And the zeal that once held sway,
Like desire, burns away.
Though I languish, I despair not —
Though I waste away, I care not.

© 2007 by Eric Martin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


About the Author

Eric Martin's poems and translations have appeared in nearly fifty print and online journals throughout the United States, Canada and Great Britain, including The Barefoot Muse, Calenture, Centrifugal Eye, Contemporary Rhyme, Lucid Rhythms, The Road Not Taken, Trellis Magazine, and forthcoming (May 2008) in the Concelebratory Shoehorn Review. A complimentary copy of his chapbook, The Death of Orpheus, and Other Poems, Original and Translated, can be requested at: emart40x@yahoo.com

 

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