Odious Potions: Verse by Wally Lee Parker

Odious Potions

verse by

Wally Lee Parker

illustration by

Robert H. Brandt

(first published in 1984 – all rights reserved by author)

            I’ve been working on this poem off and on for thirty years.  It gets a little closer to where I want with each revision.  It contains neither perfect rhyme nor perfect meter.  Both those have fallen victim to the message.  And if there truly is an underlying message, it’s simply this; whether your addiction is to alcohol, drugs, obsessive love, or to absolute perfection, the wake of pain that ripples out from one type of addition is difficult to differentiate from the ripples left by any of the others.  All can be destructive not only to self, but to everyone else around.

            If you see any truth in this verse you might be tempted to ask how the hell I of all people should know about things like this.  Any person approaching the biblical three score and ten ought to have some clue as to the way the human heart works.  If not, they’ve actually been dead for some time, just a bit unaware of the fact.  As anyone of any experience can tell you, no matter how scarred, boiled, skewed, or otherwise damaged the heart may become, it still has needs.  And as someone who has held the hand of many a patient as they crossed over, I can tell you with all certainty that the far from perfect human heart is very definitely, figuratively as well as literally, the last thing to go.

Odious Potions

My lady’s a dream

a witch in the wind

A shadow that floats

in clouds of pretend

An ember that glows

neath dark indigo

And rises as smoke

till reason is blind

A hunger that dwells

the edge of my mind

This most witching woman

of all womankind

She conjures my dreams

invades every thought

A mystery in flesh

— this love I have sought

Yet her love combined

with spices and wine

Does taste of a bitter

deep gnawing ache

A brooding and angry

cold hungry ache

So hopeless and endless

and ever this ache

With beguiling intrigues

my mistress compels

Black powers to rise

in beckoning spells

This enchanting witch

with a drop or a pinch

With a dash, a splash

a snippet or twist

Contrives a love potion

no man can resist

These spices she blends

no man can resist

And what of her power

incanting a hex

To sting a man’s heart

to torment and vex

To rend with her blend

of desire and sin

The soul that succumbs

entwined and resigned

To worship this woman

— her body and mind

To worship this woman

so darkly enshrined

So dark and so spectral

is her heritage

That surely not mortal

is her parentage

For this brooding flower

of rapturing power

Blooms deep in the garden

of my hopeless love

Blooms deep in my need

for her heartless love

 Her selfishness thorns

tormenting my love

In this garden of tears

baneberry and sorrow

In yesterday’s garden

— no hope for tomorrow

She practiced her art

the thieving of hearts

And tasted this tattered

emasculate soul

Shattered by witchery

— artful and droll

Discarding the shell

consuming the soul

A caldron is bubbling

her tart witching brew

It rises come-hither

as vaporous dew

A balm for the lonesome

my opium flower

Fetching, possessing

and potent with power

Willowy, winsome

and dripping with power

My night blooming flame

of unearthly power

Lips brushed in poppies'

bright opium hue

She urgently whispers

her tempting taboos

Lips peppered precise

with a splashing of spice

Rouged to the blush

of an opium flame

These rubies they taunt

with glittering flame

And spittle forth lies

to provoke and inflame

So coldly she plies

her tart witching spice

Toxicants that enchant

tantalize, and entice

That deep in brown eyes

of bright, brittle ice

Not a trace of concern

 for what this portends

The schemes she envisions

the lives that they rend

These odious potions

she mixes and blends

Against my bruised heart

she dashes her hurt

— Vast tangles of lies

that so disconcert

She’ll cry for her pain

and hide from her shame

But never has time

to listen and hear

But never has time

to let me come near

But never has time

to show that she cares

Though poisoned of heart

and weakened by pain

And chilled by the fall

of somber salt rain

My garden still grows

the seeds that I sow

The need for the sting

of her witching spice

The dream of her love

regardless of price

My love for brown eyes

of bright, brittle ice

My lady’s a dream

a witch in the wind

A shadow that floats

in clouds of pretend

And this brooding flower’s

unearthly power

Blooms deep in the dark

of my foolish heart

Booms deep in the wants

of my starving heart

Where unyielding needs

devour my heart


Links to Other Verse by Wally Lee Parker

Fossil Fires

Night Sounds

An Ode to Red Beer

Love on a Summer's Night