The one—full of fragrance, of elegance,
He sometimes weeps, but always with refinement’s presence,
A complexity not always easy to trace,
With manners polished, perhaps too tightly laced.
The other is quite the reverse.
He yells, he howls aloud
What the first keeps quiet, hidden in his shroud,
Abrasive, unfiltered,
A nightmare for the well-mannered.
They coexist, yet never collide,
Hand in hand,
As if they worked side by side
To serve a single strand.
Ah, how dear you are to me,
My faithful companions stripped of fleshly identity,
In this fragile balance within my mind,
Where one ascends and one bows in kind,
Sometimes even at goodness’ expense,
Letting some lurking evil take precedence,
Feasting in the shadow of pain,
While whispers fade in a white-noise rain.
Gestures with obscene intent,
Chasing off the mildest patron ever sent.
A chosen din,
Ecstatic resonance,
A rotten apple dropping in
Under sound’s noble governance.
I can no longer tell one from the other,
For they love to disguise, to seep and smother
My daily life with soiled debris—
A world I take pleasure in scorning, endlessly.
I wonder—are they or am I
Pulling the strings? Playing judge or ally?
Beautiful
You perfectly worded the duality that exists within all of us!