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Justin Ehrlich

Three Poems

The Poisoner

Drooped over the table like a fatigued
White lily, she sleeps peacefully, unmoved
By prowling wraiths.  How innocent and pure
She seems with delicate oblivion
Concealing the austere machinery
Of her eyes.  Silence is a breeding ground
For stagnant musing; if only I could
Express in black and white the way I felt
Without inviting opportunities
To smudge outlines to shades of grey.  She drew
Maps of my weaknesses and planted pins
In the main lines.  A stumbling cripple held
Together by the charity of her
Insight, I crawled beneath the blows of each
Small victory; pressed to delirium
Of slavery, I saw the bleeding chain
Of viscera that kept us near, but could
Not stand the prospect of her life unfolding
In my absence.  The poison’s run its course,
And she will never know how demons stalked
Her when she wakes to find my foetid corpse.

* initially published in Sex and Murder

The Hermit

Unbridled vivid myrtles blossom wild
Across the fertile gloom, a viscous film
Of moonlight coats the serpent damaging
The solvent landscape mindlessly.  Detached
From the mechanical hive tumerous
With sin, the desert seethes with purity.
Alone, unusual rumination stirs
The silent plasma of illumination,
Eroding senile verdigris routine
From the eternal looking-glass.  He sees
Unclean thoughts squirm as maggots in the flesh
Of Maya, and dispassionately treads
Upon them, mashing them to feeble pulp.


The Market

In an ancient sepia marketplace
I saw a hollow-eyed goblin
Amongst the produce.  I hesitated
To address him for fear that I might
Validate incursions on my sanity,
But the intensity of his glare
Commanded acknowledgement, I mumbled,
‘Are you real?’  He said, ‘I am real, but men
Can only see me when they’ve lost their mind.’