Duality

No sonnet to compose
No lyric to rise above the discordant swell
No words of wisdom to impart
Save a single note
Hovering with a sweet distemper
Above the crashing of the mob
Soaring above the flood
She is my rising
She is my rest
She is the tide that comes to draw me away
She is the tide that brings me back
She’s not perfect
She never will be
She makes me laugh
She makes me cry
She gives me wings
She brings me crashing to the ground
Muse and siren
Entwined in one
My only hope
My sorrowful curse
What mockery is this?
What mad travesty?
Has hung these adamantine chains about me?
A burden more weary then death
And dying yet shall release not find
Love I abjure thee
Love I adore thee
A curse upon the winds of fate
That give you angel wings
Then tie a millstone about your neck
Love’s burden I gladly bear
Yet in my heart’s silence I curse
That fettered evermore never to fly
A poet’s soul, locked in verse

- Chris Peter Kwok