Poem

El Vicio de Amor

~ Iyan Igma

I don’t smoke or drink or bite my nails,
Huff fumes, or sniff paint or glue.
I’m not a glutton for junk food or snails,
Nor do I sleep soundly the whole day through.

I avoid drugs as if they are a plague,
And I don’t even gamble with my life.
I don’t call in sick for faux-ague;
My words don’t bludgeon or cut like a knife.

I’m known for my valor and sincerity,
For being selfless and full of virtue.
I’m not full of lust or venality.
In fact, my only vice is loving you.

For everyone honestly seems to think
(As if they honestly thought I cared)
That you have caused my brain to shrink,
And I’m intoxicated, crazed, and impaired.

By Your Pleasured Smile

~ Iyan Igma

For this treasured moment you are mine.
I can tell by your pleasured smile
And how happy cheeks glow and shine.
Will you still love me after a while?

When you wake up in the fair morning,
Will the world be bathed in beauty?
Will this smile still be adorning
The visage that’s worth more than booty?

Right now I can pose any question,
And I’ll hear the correct reply
Escape the lips of perfection,
Such words sweeter than a lullaby!

How sweet it is when we’re truly one,
Enveloped in a wave of love,
And you’re radiant as the sun
And heaven’s come to earth from above.

Muito Obrigado

~ Iyan Igma

If that’s all I ever am to you,
Someone to make you feel happy and young,
Trust me, it’s worth each millisecond—
You make me feel alive and unstrung.

And if I was just a good friend to
Lean on and lift you out of this mess;
Thank you, you touched my compassionate
Heart and have snatched me out of distress.

If I was destined to be no one,
Well, I know now that can never be,
Because in your simple words and care,
You truly made someone out of me.

Make Canis Majoris Dim

~ Iyan Igma

Just wait until I shine again,
Then you can’t bear to see
The hypergiant your black hole
Tried to snuff stealthily.

I never saw how dark you were
When you were drawing near,
Until I saw that light could not
Escape your foul void’s sphere.

Shine as I might, it was no use;
You’re sucking life from me.
That’s how I gauged your dark matter,
Which not e’en you can see.

Oh, bless the vector that saved me
From the clutches of death.
I’ll make Canis Majoris dim,
Illuming heaven’s breath.

I’ll prove you’re insignificant:
‘Twas you who needed me.
I can create heat and brilliance,
But you can only feed.

Love’s Martyr

~ Iyan Igma

I starve, though food’s in the pantry
And there’s victuals in the fridge.
But everything that’s edible
Is as sustaining as a midge.

I have a need food can’t fulfill,
Despite how much chocolate I’d eat.
I see myself wasting away
Like morale when armies retreat.

There’s no one that could give me love
Or who’d be content to barter.
I’d gladly give my heart away
If I could just be love’s martyr.

Scorching Epiphanies

~ Iyan Igma

In the falling brimstone embers
Of the Sodom that is my heart,
My mind vividly remembers
How naïve I was at the start.

Memory sears more intensely
Than flesh and bone could ever stand,
For it sees me kneeling densely
At an altar taking your hand.

Mem’ry replays the tragedy
Neither Shakespeare nor Sophocles
Would durst have e’er written. Wryly,
I count scorching epiphanies

That tell me where I went astray,
And straight into my destruction.
My ideals all have melted away,
Destroyed by false love’s seduction.

My reputation and my friends
Were not so fortunate as Lot.
I claw at my eyes with my hands,
Wishing I and my mind were not.

Paradise Riven

~ Iyan Igma

We needed no heater
When our marriage was young,
For love was our warming fire,
And the air was sweeter
When it filled either lung.
Why did we let it expire?

They say that love is blind,
And truly I ne’er saw
Your many frailties. Instead,
All that my eyes could find
Was sweetness and pure awe.
Then, why should our love be dead?

I could almost eat off of love,
And it had the sweetest savour.
Love was such a glorious feast!
Fallen like fruit from high above,
It has the most rancid flavour;
You sup like a vulturous beast.

To love was to be in heaven,
And I worshipped you on your dais.
I was an Adam who ne’er fell.
But now paradise is riven,
And I have been exiled to lies.
Only Adam knows of my Hell!

The Sweetest Salve

~ Iyan Igma

I feel almost like your stalker;
I’m obsessed because I love you.
But there is one key difference,
I know that I can never have you,

Because I’m not worthy of you.
I sit imagining your voice,
Your foibles—the final details—
That God had crafted there by choice,

And I cry, knowing you’d have dragged
Me by my collar to heaven.
But I have naught to offer you,
And there’s naught that I have given

To merit you. What’s faithfulness
And cherishing eternally,
When compared to my horribly
Corroded mess spiritually?

And so, I’m hopelessly in love
With you for aye, though you’ll ne’er know,
Because I can never express
My true emotions for fear. So,

If the past years have been a clue,
I’ll languish, battling depression
That would have me do foolish things
With its powerful suggestion.

Though I’ll have not your heart, may it
Have all that I’d want you to have.
May it be spoiled in love alway,
And that would be the sweetest salve

For me, since that alone’d atone
For the suffering that I feel
Without you, but always with you,
And beside you each time you kneel.

Burning Beauty Across the Sky

~ Iyan Igma

O Love, you fickle meteor
Burning beauty across the sky,
Tempting my heart with amazement,
Though you know you’ll soon die!

I wish upon you to stay,
But in an instant you’re gone.
I see the remnants of your trail;
The night and I, we are alone.

I’m the one who’s consumed,
Though you have ceased to be.
Why wish upon another when
It won’t bring you back to me?

Your Sweetest Taboo

~ Iyan Igma

Their prevailing accusations
Were of temptations I ne’er knew.
I never entertained the thought,
For such evils I did eschew.

But long and hard they accused me,
Believing their railings were true,
And after a while, I gave in
To embrace your sweetest taboo.

And now I only wonder how
I e’er lived and loved without you?
Their accusations are fulfilled;
Now there’s nothing I’d rather do.