12 Betrayal poems

Treachery abounds, look inwards! Your bird jangles its small swing. You’re getting sleepy, very sleepy. In a vulnerable tyranny. Leave for now the marksmen to their desolations, they ruin everyday life. & luck can’t do anything about the undying devotion of the undead, putting their backs to the bus shelter while crumbs still stick to the dishes. I guess someone is a king of France & apart from whom nobody is a king of France. Same rockstar, different poem. I like icons & the toxic halos of figureheads, I like to beat people up & rehash among the swan. I was born in captivity, having fucked the right people, thick in the France of it. The uniform you design may still be stripped & not in some pleasant mannerism. I guess treachery abounds & scruple keys the addresses out of their shining wrappers. I guess gin relieves the need for whiskey, I guess I can think as well as talk. Come to think of it, I spoke to your exo- skeleton. It had been sacked for cribbing a back salary from your stunt double. I watched you chewing & the human body is a great mystery. Sun, look out for yourself. Embody your own adaptation. You’ve got no corner on fire & marauders upbraid those vehicles invisible to them. Nobody is a king of France, licked all over like a stamp, my every garbage at the actual border, making it, making it over, taking up the slack. The bottle broke in your bag & you’re getting flammable, very flammable. Luck knows nothing, peels down like a stocking & I thought, why wait any longer, & found myself caught in the breast of the beast as it staggered to carry me up the stairs. His clothes are dirty, but his hands are a sumptuous pyre. What’s so perfect about a stranger, the greasy smoke of being swallowed up or disappearing. I can’t carry the remainder.

They decide finally not to speak of it, the one blemish in their otherwise blameless marriage. It happened as these things do, before the permanence was set, before the children grew complicated, before the quench of loving one another became all each of them wanted from this life. Years later the bite of not knowing (and not wanting to know) still pierces the doer as much as the one to whom it was done: the threadbare lying, the insufferable longing, the inimitable lack of touching, the undoing undone.

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day, And make me travel forth without my cloak, To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way, Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke? ‘Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break, To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face, For no man well of such a salve can speak That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace: Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief; Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss: The offender’s sorrow lends but weak relief To him that bears the strong offence’s cross. Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds, And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

Once again you’ve fallen for the lure of his deferral, his quick eyes’ brightness slinking from the pantry of the righteous. Nothing half so sleek as self-licked fur. Not that he forgot your boots, or left A single high-aimed compliment unturned. He’ll double back, affect to be concerned when he’s the secret reason you’re bereft, embracing you with his Houdini hold, repeating chewed-off bits of what you say so he seems loyal, you the turncoat jay. You’d think by now you’d learn to be consoled to know the soul he sold’s not yours but his, though where yours was a hollow feeling is.

Strephon, your breach of faith and trust Affords me no surprise; A man who grateful was, or just, Might make my wonder rise. That heart to you so fondly tied, With pleasure wore its chain, But from your cold neglectful pride, Found liberty again. For this no wrath inflames my mind, My thanks are due to thee; Such thanks as gen'rous victors find, Who set their captives free.

What kind of delusion are you under? The life he hid just knocked you flat. You see the lightning but not the thunder. What God hath joined let no man put asunder. Did God know you’d marry a rat? What kind of delusion are you under? His online persona simply stunned her as it did you when you started to chat. You see the lightning but not the thunder. To the victors go the plunder: you should crown them with a baseball bat. What kind of delusion are you under? The kind that causes blunder after blunder. Is there any other kind than that? You see the lightning but not the thunder, and for one second the world’s a wonder. Just keep it thrilling under your hat. What kind of delusion are you under? You see the lightning but not the thunder.

Ay, gaze upon her rose-wreathed hair, And gaze upon her smile; Seem as you drank the very air Her breath perfumed the while: And wake for her the gifted line, That wild and witching lay, And swear your heart is as a shrine, That only owns her sway. ’Tis well: I am revenged at last,— Mark you that scornful cheek,— The eye averted as you pass’d, Spoke more than words could speak. Ay, now by all the bitter tears That I have shed for thee,— The racking doubts, the burning fears,— Avenged they well may be— By the nights pass’d in sleepless care, The days of endless woe; All that you taught my heart to bear, All that yourself will know. I would not wish to see you laid Within an early tomb; I should forget how you betray’d, And only weep your doom: But this is fitting punishment, To live and love in vain,— Oh my wrung heart, be thou content, And feed upon his pain. Go thou and watch her lightest sigh,— Thine own it will not be; And bask beneath her sunny eye,— It will not turn on thee. ’Tis well: the rack, the chain, the wheel, Far better hadst thou proved; Ev’n I could almost pity feel, For thou art nor beloved.

Could not once blinding me, cruel, suffice? When first I look’d on thee, I lost mine eyes.

The worst for him was his friend turned wolf, and the blood that splattered as he ran. The worst for us: the hospital, his upper lip tugged back to show the gash—the flesh halved deeply, cleanly—while I hold him for the needle that rubs pain out. He submits to the quick stitch, the thread black against pink skin, calm now he sees the doctor can be trusted, his voice soothing, his face clean shaven, the clues that signal kindness to a child. He’s worried, though, about his pet who didn’t mean it, Mom. His voice is flat. He knows the months he’s tried to woo this dog were over when it leapt for his throat and caught his mouth. The scars, at least, will be invisible. At home, he’ll sleep, big boy between his parents, till he’s sure no beast will tear into his dreams. And we will want him there, our bodies makeshift walls. We who led the stranger to our home, fixed him a bowl, taught him to sleep under our blankets, we who taught our son to rub the muzzle that sheathes the teeth.

Their new landlord was a handsome man. On his rounds to collect rent she became friendly. Finally, she asked him in to have a cup of tea. After that he came often. Once his mouth jerked, and turning, she saw her husband in the doorway. She thought, One of the neighbors must have told him. She smiled and opened her mouth to speak, but could say nothing. Her husband stood looking at the floor. He turned and went away. She lay awake all night waiting for him. In the morning she went to his store. It was closed. She sent for his brothers and told them he had not been home. They went to the police. Hospitals and morgues were searched. For weeks they were called to identify drowned men. His business had been prosperous; bank account and all were untouched. She and their baby girl were provided for. In a few years they heard of him. He was dead. He had been making a poor living in a far off city. One day he stepped in front of a street-car and was killed. She married again. Her daughter married and had children. She named none after her father.