Flowers of Hell

In the middle of life's journey,
you found yourself on a mountaintop.
The world was clean and empty
as you stared into the drop.
Discovering that danger
has a way of turning darkness to light,
did you reach for the flowers of hell
that bloom so beautifully bright?

Oh they loved you at the college
and your poems made all the women cry.
But you ran out of words,
and you ran away to figure out why.
Walking into your own weakness,
climbing volcanoes at night,
did you reach for the flowers of hell
that bloom so beautifully bright?

And in your dreams you see a woman beheaded by a faceless man.
And though you try your best to stop them, you find that you never can.
And when you wake you realize you are both that woman and that man.
And there is no one who can help you on this mountain off the coast of Japan.

In the middle of life's journey,
you see that you have never had a home.
Searching for a place to end up,
all you ended up with was another poem.
Did you struggle as you slipped
or did you fall without a fight,
reaching out for the flowers of hell
that bloom so beautifully
that bloom so beautifully
that bloom so beautifully bright

Tam Lin