[For Jeff---, for your abuse
of Brenda's beauty]
From hell: you stare at
all those women on earth, all
living, vivacious
and a range of emotions
strung---plucked---like midnight's dark chimes.
Wipe your hand across
your mouth: all those throats, pulsing
quickly, to be cut:
but not now, not from here, not
for you, you son of a bitch.
Kyakuchuu
Author's Notes/Comments:
The first italicized phrase is the return address upon a letter believed, by many scholars, to be authentically from Jack the Ripper. The second italicized phrase is borrowed from the poetry of T. S. Eliot, himself quite the borrower; the line appearing in the fourth section of his poem, Preludes. The dediction arises from a dysfunctional relationship I observed at college in the Autumn of 1978; I had very strong feelings for Brenda, which, alas, failed to spare her from the abuse mentioned.
