anguish

I am not here this night to have your body oh beast

wherein go the sins of a people nor hollow out

in your unclean hair a saddening great tempest

beneath the cureless annoyance my kiss pours out

I ask of your bed the heavy sleep with never a dream

hovering beneath the unknown curtains of remorsefulness

the which you taste yourself after each lying scheme

you who leave behind the dead in your knowledge of nothingness

for Vice gnawing away upon my innate nobility

has marked me like yourself with its sterile hells

but whereas in your breast of stone there indwells

a heart the very tooth of no crime wounds without pity

I flee pale undone haunted by my shroud

being afraid of death by myself in bed

Stéphane Mallarmé