HELEN by Jeff Callaway

HELEN by Jeff Callaway

Helen
was the most beautiful woman
on Cedar Creak Lake
and she made my heartache
when i thought of
all the slow and tender love
that her and i could make
and the lifetimes i would like to take
to make it in
my Helen who was heaven-sent
an angel
who fell to the earth
(and took up residence)
to show to me what true love meant
and with a little persistence
i had her convinced
to go out with me on our first date
and it was then when we found
this true love was our fate
and that as lovers we were both first rate
and that we shared that
sacred bond
my Helen was a good
good blonde
Goddess on the pedestal i put her upon
juicy and delicious Aphrodite was
an apple with no clothes on
my guilty pleasure just to look upon
her long long legs
that (for days) just went on
and on
and on with satin skin of bronze
or in her Janis Joplin tee
with the knees of her jeans gone
my Helen made me feel like a rock-n-roll song
and made a bonfire in her bed
to burn all night long
(for me) and from that moment on
it was on…

but then soon
i would be too far gone
back then
back in the days i was doing myself wrong
i bang my gong
an anonymous automaton
with syringes for arms
almost too weak to go on
upon my crucifix needle
so forlorn
track marks to adorn
a soul now born to scorn
BUT SHE LOVED ME ANYWAY
her love
was UNCONDITIONAL
she loved me in her very own special way
and so one day
(she looked up to me)
and so she looked right at me just to say
that she would like to try it too
and that she would pay
and from my dead broke tragic abyss
(i said okay) and with just one kiss
sealed our fate
and that was the very day
that she became
my dark lady…

and
she was
my shady lady
and when i look back now
my regret
is raging and it plagues me
and there is nothing i can say
i can only blame me
nothing can save me
i can only hate me
for all of the bitter memories
for all of her lost dreams to dependency
a license to ill to infinity
for those five doomed years of crazy
that she stayed with me
fighting to breathe in our habitual Hades
shooting COCAINE
and HEROIN
and METHAMPHETAMINES
as i watched my life and my love
go down in flames with me
drowning in a chemical sea
where the
devil’s tongue
is waves of sex and drugs
and death and love
is licking me
this junky’s life isn’t easy
believe me
you reap when you plane the seed
but in Helen i harvested a hellishly
haunted dream
one blackened bad
bad memory
of that macabre night that i
will always remember
of that cold gray gothic night
in early December
the needle still hung
in her arm that had once
held me close
i found her lying there
dead in our bed
blue
with an overdose.





© Jeff Callaway