Liber Amoris

To never again be possessed
of Hazlitt's Demon
for in my time I have written
a "Liber Amoris" or two.

I have had the misfortune
to know Sally Walker
who sat on my knee--kissed me
with lips that soon turned cold.

And I have scribbled manic verse
extoling virtues that committed
hyperbolic, disjointed crimes
of monstrous impropriety.

And so maybe leniency permits
the uneven lines of fevered pens
that re-call Chancery Lane
and voyages into the snake pit.