Catullus With Serpent Eyes

Catullus With Serpent Eyes
© Surazeus
2025 11 24

While I dwell in garden of insolence 
I pretend to be the most unique soul 
who ever dares project breath of hot flesh 
against refractive prism of the world 
which cannot see me with indifferent mind 
so I can accept my death with grim grace. 

Thus I play guardian for the rights of Man 
by mocking tyrants on their fragile thrones 
then packing fractured skull of innocence 
in suitcase sewn from skin of devil wings 
when I ride cruise ship west to Avalon 
where no one knows the things that I have done. 

I ask God what he will do when I die, 
if he will drink light of my shattered soul, 
or wear my flesh as garment of his goal, 
since I am silent words of sea-smooth stones 
that clatter soft in empty house of bones, 
but he says naught, so I am not afraid. 

Suddenly awake in huge doorless house 
veiled by enormous hollyhocks of faith, 
I write names of the dead on endless walls 
while shopping for fruit in the grocery store, 
erased by ocean waves of honest time, 
but no one hears me read their names in rain. 

If I would learn to sing of noble love 
perhaps brave Catullus with serpent eyes 
may steal the ancient lyre of Mercury 
from grand museum by the River Styx 
and train my hands with graceful agony 
to feature beauty of my loyal bride. 

Since I was born in garden of cracked skulls 
one hour before the savior of the world, 
I live in safe obscurity from fame 
far from the stage where clowns play politics 
where I map history of humanity 
to prove we are no more than singing fish. 

My feathered wings of ardent hope for love 
may crystallize from wordless ice of truth, 
but I express compassion for all souls 
in lofty chronicle of measured verse 
recording grand events as they occur 
to highlight hero of this stormy age. 

Stupendous future molded by our votes 
provides framework for discipline of rage 
where we communicate our special terms 
transforming modes of apprehending love 
so we share feelings in circle of masks 
that reflect assumptions our eyes project.