Poem - "The Golden Truth"

This is an extended metaphor free verse poem, written for an AP English Literature assignment, and weaves together the themes of dual love and hate of death, personified in the manifestation of both man and beast, the epitome of womanly desire. For it reveals the 'Golden Truth' - although we hate and fear death, we and all life need it to continue the eternal cycle, and secretly idolize and romanticize death and the mystery of it in an ironic twist of Freudian human psychology.

The Golden Truth

The grand illusion of a fretful mind

A dream and vision yet to unwind

Of the golden boy who I dreamt of,

The epitome of righteous love.

Slender arms of utmost grace,

A Grecian god with a wondrous face,

Hair of bright gold lay like pleats of grain

Upon his chest, garnet scars like rain.

Black eyes, hungry and onyx, seek

For those both villainous and meek-

Tall and skeletal, more corpse than man,

Fear greatly instilled, from whom many ran.

The great shape-changer, I am, says he,

Whom none but you, God, and I can see;

A great and terrible force indeed,

For whence you, and all life, most heed.

Arms spread wide, from his form shook

Within the instance of a small look

Golden plumage, his down ablaze

Bleeding down his breast did raze.

From beady canary-eyes he gazed at I,

Never once taking flight, nor to the sky

Did he look, but gave a rather cruel grin,

And I wondered – was to love him, a sin?

A violent heart, a knife to my chest,

Did with each kiss at his behest –

To hate one as he I never had before,

Yet my love for him was even more.

And forevermore, shall he be the same –

For everyone does dread his name-

Janus Two-face – why, I know him well

And he is DEATH, the unbreakable spell.