Elegance alabaster,

the thin and crooked smile,

condescending and confident eyes,

the half-closed lids,

blessed with intelligence

and instinctive grace,

the curse of true beauty,

the face that God hates.

Even now,

 on only the beginning darkness

 of your final era,

the end of benevolent grace,

the demons you have nursed

scream with the heat

of final devouring wishes,

cracking and shattering

the hard, white surface

so carefully cultivated

just below your

unblemished, scrubbed skin,

so you scream and gnash

in the anguish of nightmare,

so hard, so hard,

so harsh, so harsh,

the heart that you have built,

the house that would have you

take His place.

Elegance alabaster,

look down through

the black pools of your eyes

through the ice-bound clarity

of what has become.

Elegance alabaster,

would I,

with many others,

have been your friend,

but you’re spiraling,

spiraling to the end,

your hair untwirling

in a final dance

of desperate pretence.

Copyright 2009, Jerry W. Engler