sonnet – Jormunghast

The Wastnesse, sonnets XXXI—XXXVI

The fourth and final instalment of The Wastnesse, a sequence of 36 sonnets on the topics of love, death, and disaster.

The Wastnesse

Sonnets XXXI—XXXVI

XXXI

the hellish drone of street-trash splits the air
quite far from an English garden rain in
summer snow in late spring an idle street
condensed and partitioned and wandering
loose amongst savage souls The garden is
drained of moisture where once we sat in chairs
adeckd with linen and discoursed flatly
on meagre sums and overt distractions
then at once in media res a face
familière Taken to revisit
gramer-rule of scole-kid ennui languor
flailing mindless with that beauty-harlot
Face asks if i at last give them pardon
—i drift away to my English garden

XXXII

Effervescent darling of my heart’s word,
Fulgent lighthouse of my life’s sole return!
Such fulvous eyes that keep me from the herd,
Speckled sight-tawn that I forever yearn!
Ecstatic maiden, virgo-born and plump,
Yet slight and dainty all the blessèd same;
Sweet contradictions of my lovèd one,
Thou should be hailed for seeming such a way!
So glance at me and thus condemn my fate,
Allow this fool to genuflect thy grace;
Where thou shalt walk, my path is ever-made:
So shall I catalogue thy faerie face!
This ecstasy, it rises from the land;
Ah, such love is as mountain to a man!

XXXIII

Crystalline beauty is but a shell for your mind:
Leonine leader; determined in strength, and kind
In the moment when you saved my loose, fraying strength:
I were to fall apart; you cast a note at length
Which brought me back from failure’s decadent despair:
Tho more apart since heavy hand, you are yet fair
In apprehension; how you are like a goddess!
I deify you in art, you could claim no less
Than the David born of maiden form, marble dress’d:
Yes, in full aspect you signify great virtue,
And shall thus forever bloom as you were meant to:
Ah! If it were so simple, life would be quite dull;
How sad to gain a thing so easily made full,
When true sated love one should longform mull:
I know you have the spark’ling wit for chrysalis
To guide you to a truth-form metamorphosis.

XXXIV

And then, the end: curtain close; we depart
To cast aside those cloaks, to pillage on,
In drunken judgement. How the night does call!
One final bow for the raptured ovation?
Of course! We are at the end, oh, the end!
Do you feel it? Why, it is here, my friend:
No time to construct a dissertation,
No, just a base sonnet before the fall,
And a second to contemplate our all:
Aye — what is a man? Paragon indeed—
We are surely express in our action,
Definite in calculation, our art
Born by woman alone, refined by men,
Bowing to nothing but dust at the end.

XXXV

      Embankment’s sweat, in Camden I seek death;
’Twixt Regent’s Park’s old graven oaks I hover,
A shrinking blade that captures terror’s face
In photograph of bloody disarray—
      And by the banks I wait alone with glee
To laugh at fallen men, to decry sympathy:
Now watch the sky become a deeper grey
As unknown faces lose their pallor
      And turn at once to see the shining star:
It hovers bleak atop Saint Paul’s tower,
Harbinges the tale of my rising power;
My soul becomes a nightmare’s aura—
      I am the Scholar of the Sable Joy:
      I am the Author of London’s Horror.

XXXVI

Pretty, pretty, pretty. So sweet a girl
   I am. Look at me! With my sunflower dress,
And bows in my hair. Pretty, pretty, pretty—
   Less than a whirl, a ditty, this city
Bends to my will. So I dance empowered
Upon overgrown windowsill, a prance
   For the Lost, for the Dead, for the Crier
Who cries out no more; and I am pretty
   In cornflower shawl, to rake quietus
And pet a raggled cat, a cute kitty,
And take it in my arms. Now, to the hill,
Where we may take a final glance of what was:
      O, greenest spires of glass and steel I see:
      Tho I knew you then, ’tis now that I do most love thee.

The Wastnesse, sonnets XXI—XXX

The third instalment of 10 sonnets from The Wastnesse, a sequence of 36 sonnets on the topics of love, death, and disaster.

The Wastnesse

Sonnets XXI—XXX

XXI

Where were you? I waited, you damnèd sod:
I sat as thunder crashed and men in masks
Ran to and fro; was it her, or your God—
That you sacrificed me for, she asks?
What age is she, then? Younger, I would bet,
Than our daughter is quite yet? So is she
Dedicated to this life we lead? Yet
Speak you will not, I see right through thee.
   Did her father sit through all the night’s fray
   As you gamboled through the city’s decay—
As I waited in afright, did she say
“I love thee, my care—” did you affirm her?
Did you hold her close when demons did bray?
      What can I do, now that rubble is life;
      In chaos you did leave me, your wife.

XXII

Let me walk thee home, shawled love of my world,
So I may see thee make the door; so thou
Don’t cross paths of enmity with vile churls
Armed quite alert, quiet at attention,
In garb of common soul. Shall thee walk me
      When word becomes a sin? Nay: I shall cross
Thresholds when naught but the moon doth grimace,
So thou may walk thy halls in solemn loss;
Should I pay thee mind through the sun rise—
Tho still I lay, no stiller than thou lie:
That night thou walked me home, something was amiss
      And through written line thou missed forever my lips.
My lips, my lips: where is thy kiss, O poet?
      O how I wish only for thy hands, my hips.

XXIII

Yes, I waited for you, simple in thought.
I waited tho small in height, shine of eye.
City stank — river brown, constant bustle.
Sang a song from a browning book I bought.
Threw a coin amongst the ducks that scattered.
Saw a bloodied man whose face was battered.
Still I waited, as couples said goodbye.
A church that flew a St George flag, tattered.
I wanted your hand upon my waist’s side.
I thought of our time upon the car’s seats.
I knew you wouldn’t come, I thought to hide.
Return to books, my first loves, Donne and Keats.
You could have taught me many worlds beyond
This summer grass and raging, frothing pond.

XXIV

There is no love here. There is no coffin
To hold the scorchèd feeling of despair;
No trees that stand for wretched wrens to nest in,
And none lives but austere, crumbling bindweed.
There was a rumble great beneath the planes,
And a mighty beast of malformed monstrousness
Wrenched itself, hobbling with deformed ungain,
Towards a vast, lolling metropolis;
Two folks stood upon a red mountainside,
Hands held in half-salute to shade the sun—
As Moloch’s swelt, limping mass crossed the land,
The world shrugged, ambivalent, and came undone.
Thus love was lost, and bricks were turned to sand.
      I lost you many years before this fall,
      And searched for you all down the road. And all
      Of man is like-named now—and handed down
      From Saul to Sam, and Sam to Saul.

XXV

Damn the dark. Have you seen this place, good old friend?
How have I spent such hours here? How have you? Yes, but
How young yet you are. You have a great feel for this city, more than I.
                  I’ve watched how you remark upon the grates.
   This may I have; yet still, is not my guide you? Is not
   What I have been indebted to not your guiding hand? Friend,
I can doubt, yet I cannot deny.
                                                Ah!
This is where things fall apart, and as Adam to Eve,
                                          This ring will not concede.
Tho why cannot this city take us both? Would your neck not attest to a caress
            By my failing hand? O, here they come!
They break the crowd with masks and batons,
                                                                        Alas!

XXVI

A teade to guide thy way in times of mirk!
O Dame of sovereign tides, keep me awake;
Such breaks and swells are all the more to hurt,
Yet ’tis thy sight that lights the Morning’s sake.
The lighted dust a-freckled on the desk,
Where thou dost write the cupid chimes of Time;
Thou’st spent such hours of thine in lonesome rest,
Then spent an age perfecting fretted clime.
And so it is to thy wont to carry bronds
All through the satin stain of Night’s entwine;
To ease the heaving Trav’ler’s woven bounds
And to the married lost display a Sign.
Alack! To thee dictated so firm a fate,
When I would wish to have thee as my mate.

XXVII

A final dream of greenest acre-grove:
The Paramour of Paradise does greet
The grateful litany in which I shrove;
Ne’er distayned nor forced dishonest by sleet
And hail of Man’s design: a garden treat
Buxome with red berries of honey-juice,
Beseene in seelie drapes of sweetest peat;
Endewed so soft with opal-tulip roots.
In fullsome praise — uxorious deduce—
I declare that thine is a land kindly,
O, my coy lady of the jade-leaf’d spruce—
Then wake in loss, as romance halts blindly.
Ydle princess, I feel thee out there still;
Between the trees, atop thy kingdom’s hill.

XXVIII

I must have thee: O, in mind and body,
Thy radiance shall be mine, all alone;
In Heaven’s arms we seek to be Godly,
And in our bed we make the Kingdom moan.
Those curvèd hips that I should trace aloud
To thee, my ample friend, they are my manse;
To be betwixt them, encompassed by thy shroud,
Sequestered inside thy heart, making plans,
Whilst thou tongue my finger-tips and do sigh,
As I bite thy flesh as if to taste thy wine;
And as thou have list this liturgy cry,
I save for thee my heart’s true design:
Tho I am no architect as God’s will,
I trust in constructed love to keep thee still.

XXIX

What thou lov’st entyre shall not last
         When in touch with Winter’s grasp
And what thou lov’st like pages dainty deckled;
   Or admire in sight, a filly faintly freckled;
                  Shall in night depart
                                    And sail like slug, in heart
         And mind on sea of salt — and shall not halt
’Til leaves of grass and hair of golden hay moult;
      But if thou lov’st beyond the petiole’s display
                  And seek a care less raked by Age’s fray,
      Thou might view encroaching, subtle, supple,
                  An entity with eyes that seek to stay.
                                    And hold her pale formèd
                                    Breasts tender, forlornèd.

XXX

Amber eye, small marks and lines, and trusted
Lapses into comely sleep as wind gusted,
A chant from the crows as I built anew
What once I dispriz’d; burning ochre dew
Held aloft as prisms akin to thine eyes:
   Morph in clay thy elven feature full,
   Flit the brick with pencil’s steel, shape thy skull
Just as it is in my waking mind’s disguise;
Yet ’tis thy details I fight to define—
In dreaming-life of nympholeptic awe
There is no thing as fabled action-time!
      I shy to leave thy face as night-gaunt’s matte mask,
      But for the skill I shall not ask:
      For thou, God’s child, are not mine to make last.

The Wastnesse, sonnets XI—XX

The second instalment of 10 sonnets from The Wastnesse, a sequence of 36 sonnets on the topics of love, death, and disaster.

The Wastnesse

Sonnets XI—XX

Hush, my love — the wolves walk again tonight,
Prowling blasted perimetres, hungry
For us, the wanderers of the Old World,
Searchers engaged in this desolation—
Breeding is now a sin, but who could say
A child would not live amongst the ruins
Of glass and steel? Cracked and shattered envy
Of once what was and yet is now nothing.
And tho the state is rough and entropy
Is writhing under soil so heaped with oil,
Your warmest arms have lost no inch of care;
Through the dirt, your face is an angel’s wish.
Good night, good night, good night, good night, good night:
I pray to wake again with you in light.

XII

Waiting. And distant. Never never leave
   Never. And waiting. For dancing, girlishe
      Dancing. And motion. Always always staye
         Always. The anchor keeps to shore’s deep grave
            Buried. The angled fins of funny fishe
               Funny. Lying in saint’s repose, my childe
               Saintly. And writing on the parchment, wilde
            Writing. And praying in steel plate and cuishe
         Armoured. Protecting corage from the glaive
      Piercing. Eyes that watch me from far awaye
   Watching. Acting don’t be don’t be churlishe
Distant. And waiting. Never never grieve
      Tho thoughts are fractured in Death’s base decaye
      Our builded love will always always staye

XIII

The light of Heaven shines upon this place
That sleeps like infant quivering in shade;
Daybrite shakes child from night’s lucid embrace,
   And rises o’er Dhaor as sequence of replace—
   As God’s good star is often cruel to face,
Our ego shivers and seeks to hide its eyes;
   We turn from Truth, as seeking to displace
   The common tongue does give a clearer rise
   To forms of thought that soothe the maggot’s sighs
As they burrow deep into the Realm of Self
   And separate the conscience from the skies
To glean a diamond hidden in the filth.
      So cast away the shawl of lightless echo’s sound:
      Throw down your hand, for in filth it shall be found.

XIV

To Anima: you bring me priceless charms;
   Yet young you are, ’twixt woman and girl,
Your unique wisdom sings like psalms
   And bring to me a gift of mind’s unfurl:
Duality in modes of strife, you are my muse
   And sister too, I carry you to Word’s lament
When mere Chaos reigns in trapped refuse
   And rude Psyche’s atrophies dement.
Tho hurt you cause, and also that is true:
Those forming years I grappled with your pain,
Alas! No greater wish to trade myself for you;
So we fought for many years upon this plain.
      But older are we now, and stand as one:
      We share this form, unified in warmth of sun.

Five years have passed since we met our end:
   Many decades more it feels. I remember yet
   Your ocean sight, whence I was snared into your net,
Your curtailed field of golden hair did rend
My heart, at once towards your soul did send
   My choice to take you as my partner fair:
   We effaced our lonely pasts, eager then to share—
And then on to live as one we did intend!
But paradise of many years is sore to growth
   When village life is poison to the heart:
When change arrived I reneged my oath;
   You could not leave, but I needed to depart
      The land of which assailed my soul’s content—
      I left alone without you, to restart.

XVI

I have not yet discussed thy smile, catlike,
   What a joy! Nor have I spoke of thy cheeks,
Those soft white domes of snowy down; thine eyes—
I say the sea, but they shone more beautifully.
A work of art by God’s good hand and brush,
   A slightness in my arms. Those tiny sounds
That did escape thy lips when we were close;
Those words of clever wit and empathy.
Just see: her form now has changed, as time will do,
   Not slight as once, but life nor I shall judge;
Tho different you are, still your face shines!
O once-love, my respect for you remains:
      You love again, and I have moved far past you;
      I wish only joy, now that it is through.

XVII

I could not write these words, my dearest friend,
When we were two as one — so now I write
In present what I could not speak then;
A treatise on our erstwhile love: despite
The harm I wrought on us, confusion you
Detailed, it were the years we laughed and smiled
   That matter more than all. Altho we knew
That hearts can change, we treated it quite mild;
And now I have embraced the past, I think
Of all the good that’s born to spite the woes
That crushed our once-paired tender souls
And brought romance to smold’ring, fascist brink.
      Let’s put aside these bitter tears, and speak
      More close upon our perfect, pretty streak.

XVIII

So it begins: is lust, unasked, unbound?
Or can such desire be forced beyond such
Mammal ritual? How is this care found—
In dirt, or within geodes of your touch,
Masked from view between your Juliette dress?
I tie the mask, leave undisturbed those hairs;
If I were closer, such would be a mess—
Tho my Nostro cape belies such care,
’Tis only that Godliness in my heart,
Untouched by Death’s forgotten light embrace,
Sitting good inside a gesture’s made part;
Only with fingers that bite I do trace:
To my smartest instinct I shall abide,
Then watch you, costumed, away, in silk glide.

XIX

I had you there: the small of your small back
   Cupped by my warnsome hand, wrought to rupture
A noisome response; but what did you lack
   To glimpse a wry smile? Yet then did gather
A lather of citywide moans, water
      Parading our rained-out love affair;
That tender, offensive gesture brusquer
      Than my slowsome hand could intend, softer
Than your wet back in satin purple dress.
   I hone in: yes, the city now burns,
But I can feel you pulse, my budding dear:
Our response to chaos incarnate does not learn.
      I should let them know, that anarchy looms;
      Yet still your back my dissolute hand grooms.

Soft dress clasped in torrent by lampost dreary:
To be destroyed, entirely? Nay. I clutch your hand,
   And we depart, yet moments ago we nearly
Entered into love decried. We stand glad
   For what we found this night; our love dearly
Cut short, my God, my sweet thing; am I mad,
To seek closer connection, when the city burns?
Nay. We enter the fray, man never learns;
Now I am your guardian, your protector:
I wish I wore cuirass of gold-leaf steel,
To reprimand our closest captors;
’Tis only to love you, girl, that I do feel.
      Through thronging crowd we wade resolute to live,
      And ’tis ’til only death that I shall give.

The Wastnesse, sonnets I—X

The first 10 sonnets of The Wastnesse, a sequence of 36 sonnets on the topics of love, death, psychology and disaster.

The Wastnesse

Sonnets I—XII

So fair is she, the one who lights my lips:
   To walk a step with her is near divine,
And truth is felt through all our echoed trips—
   To think I had the time to call her mine.
   The stripes of gold that waver in a line,
Her full moon face and hazel eyes ablaze;
   Please kneel astride and bear with me a sign
As supple legs remind me of those days.
I thought it wise to wander in her maze,
   Get lost in sights that only she could paint;
I fell with care into her lucid ways,
   And witnessed graces no cruel man could taint.
      Now trapped am I within her tender cell:
      A paradise that saves me yet from Hell.

Could I find her within the book’s embrace?
Her cheeks are stranger than a layman’s tale;
A labyrinth of literature, her face—
An impish smile she solders as her hail.
I find her name enwrote upon the page
As silence rocks the structure to the bone;
Mere words can chance to history her wage,
A solemn bow I leave to her alone.
And then a sting, a pang, the greatest fear:
That I may draw too close, tempt sedition;
When I should stay a scholar to those near,
Most umbrageous sects of our condition.
Yet I wait in perdition’s umber gaze
To hear her name beyond the page’s haze.

III

A word decries its meaning; fraught through sheets,
Upon the lips of youthful sapphic puck,
Connexions rise within the mind’s conceits
And activate the notation of luck—
A wrinkle now, and caught in shock it stays,
For arrow’s line is thus forever straight;
There is no shade from antiquated ways
   When we lead ourselves to the Heaven’s Gate.
   Is there escape from such a baseless fate,
And could I lead her by her dawn-spread wrist—
   To lands unseen by mortal kind, and sate
The wish to lie yfere in Baybab’s kist?
      A yea: in death, her goodly form shall crest
      The providence of Word’s unbeating chest.

In days forespent, empers’d by thoughtless care
They lingered listless by the Saeble’s banks:
Emboss’d unto a chaos-ridden fare,
And caught in humours disseizing all thanks;
Their skin was dulled by history’s brute hand,
Their thoughts encased in aperture of gold—
These siblings three cast dialogue to sand,
Until but two were left in brazen hold.
At once a reminisce came from the wind:
That age had caught their deprecated lives,
All amiss amidst reverie’s rescind;
Held reverence for none but that deprives.
But tho they spent that age in hedony,
It shan’t denied t’was in fine companie.

Ah! Those earthen locks I once held so close.
   Her name — no, I remember, of course, yes;
   It was just yesterday she wore that grey dress,
When we were young, and would say “Adiós!”
Oh! How the light begins to wane, my friends,
   What left there are — if there are; I see not—
   And perhaps I am alone in empty cot,
Coddled by none whom I would make amends.
If I myself were spritely once again,
   Should I enter such darker pact of dole?
   Nemesis, take my dire hand, taketh my soul,
Guide me my youthful love in Darkwood Fen.
      Avaunt! And such I depart for fair Thebe,
      Visiting memorie of golden Hebe.

I circle you from time to time, I see your stare,
As if a sister never born had stole a dare;
Give me your hand, dear one, I recall it quite well:
And how it might yet have been, I try not to dwell.
   Just see this vista — a world of undreamt fever,
   A world of amethyst driven snow and water;
   A world unbefit for such a misbeliever—
   So I make us a castle of salt and mortar.
We could live there as one, away from the hounds,
Perform our rituals, and make our subtle sounds;
Take a bow for me, and I shall perform a feat
Where I lay down the grass in blue, beautiful sheets:
      But for all of the canvases that I may dream away,
      The only miracle would to have you forever stay.

VII

Do I love thee? I can account thy face
For swaths of prickles on my agèd skin,
And for the anxious pangs of gut within;
So thus thy blooming conscience is my chase.
Thy cupid voice is subject to this place
Whence I was made a scholar of the sin,
And followed girl I thought to be my twin;
So thus thy slender neck is my disgrace.
And what is love but simple chemistry?
Alembic wrought to distill mind’s red rain
Which patters on the roof of history—
Objective truth we cannot now regain:
So know I not of whether I love thee;
But yet I feel the sting of love’s sweet stain.

VIII

The vile disease of love comes unbidden
Unto a fractured soul, which shan’t refrain
   From holding it, ere stifling it hidden
   In morbid vault of hateful self’s retain;
It poisons common wit, and keeps afeared
The poor old fool who falls into this trance:
A hangman’s noose of harried care is seared
In St Valentine’s hideous semblance.
   It gives us life; it gives us sense: but yet
   Love also treats us like a bidden dog—
We treat it as a right; I’d like to bet
There’s not a soul not lost into its fog.
      So steersmen blind are we, lost unto the sea;
      O! to cast love ashore, and live in apathy!

Thy barren heaps of rotted land do shew,
Mirksome beyond the fronds of God’s domain;
I thought thee once to be nymph as white as snow,
   Now see thy flesh does run in case of rain.
So thus I scrawl a writ of holy force
And pin it to thy door to keep thy bay,
For nevermore I want to guide thy course
   Nor lance thy putrid and corrupt delay.
Tho now I think upon my self’s retort—
Remind it of my debt and years of grief;
When I as well caused innocence distort,
Engaged in acts that Satan would as lief.
      For all the bitter vitriol I cast,
      It is as two our actions that will last.

Dry, dry bones of mine. I am the lonesome
I am the dry, dry heat of April. Damp
I am the voice who cries above the city
   Dry, dry city, drowned in blood. Damp with mould
Tired smog drifts through tent encampment. Shouting
Any change any cigs. Reverberant
   Dry heat. I am the dry sands of Richmond
I am the Eccho. Dem bones dem bones dem
Now hear: diving from the clouds, wings of bronze
It falls, sword of divine justice, it breathes
Blue mist onto the dry, dry city streets
Of Kensington, Westminster: Salvation.
      Dem bones, dem dry, dry bones will walk around
      And speak: Death shall not have providence here

Ice Jesters of the Anti-Moon

As I walked through a pallid grove at night […]

Ice Jesters of the Anti-Moon

As I walked through a pallid grove at night,
   Past trees the chalken moon did spread its glow;
   ’Tween fulvous cedars something seemed to shew:
   Intruder moon crawled from our own moon’s light.
Now miles apart in my own view it shook:
   This second moon ’came coloured as the grave
   And birthed new sky ’round sable architrave;
   Shadows grew gaunt upon the woodland brook.
Had mirage or daydream entranced my mind—
   No hashish daze could bring such sights abound,
   To create a twinnèd mantle of rays
One half stars, the other colours that bind.
      I could not fathom that unearthly sound;
      The colours changed ’fore my confounded gaze.

Then, from behind the cursèd satellite
   A sheen of zymotic shades did gather;
   In their wake came forms of lunar lather:
   Born of anti-moon, they grinned in cruel might—
White, skel’tal ice-clowns hung from above
   And stared down at the earth in base hunger:
   Their crude claws of basalt were no younger
   Than the earth that upon we lived and loved;
I saw our fate was clear, an ancient feast
   For grinning idiot monstrosities—
   Aberrant jesters of the anti-moon,
Primal gods insane as daemonic beasts.
      I kneeled before solar atrocity,
      Doomed under the glare of imposter lune.

III

What fate was this — to die alone in fright,
   Whilst all my loved ones gathered together
   Staring high at stars, not knowing whether
   They were prey to dreams, or to die that night.
These wicked comics knew not what they took—
   Without absolution, resolution,
   At beast-jesters I screamed retribution;
   But still with rude, rabid hunger they shook;
Still their stretchèd masques stared down, reveling
   In pungent fear our species did exude:
   Their cosmic cackles then filled the night air,
Echoing through atmosphere, levelling
      All man’s cities; so numb was my mind’s mood—
      In death, I could only think it unfair.

Three Love Songs, Part II: Summer, Severance, Sighs

Three more poems treating upon the idea of romance.

Three Love Songs, Part II:
Summer, Severance, Sighs

Song of Summer

Lost lover—
freed secrets from beyond the ochre mist,
our tryst—
sleeping in yron dusk, lovely buttons,
slim neckline, adored.
A canto to your eye, an hour never bored;
to pass the while with golden company,
many seconds pass in your light.

Gained shadow—
loose marbles of Geryon-size,
my prize—
quiet now, dear love; your mouth
betrays our pact, condemned.
A verse for the oath from which this stemmed;
and concealed, stored in
marble box I keep ’neath my ruins.

Guided path—
I think of summer days together on the grass,
where I sighed amidst your form
and introduced you to a world
beyond the world.

Song of Severance

            She grew upon a bough of jade,
            Trickling roses grasped o’er slade beyond;
And through the glens, her bright frond glowed,
Lighting up this darkn’ing land of slowed respite.
            A silver frost encroached with bite unseen
            To pluck her from the life she had been born:
      But tho night claws with toxic tooth, morn protects,
      And throws its silent voice and detects harm;
Base shadow is betrayed and thrown back to calm peace,
Whilst pure kindness in mortal form is given keys eternal.

            I found her upon the flowered earth,
            Shed from the boughs of her birth-tree;
And as she sat, her hands masked what she would see before
The elements themselves conspired to make sore wounds.
            A sheen of ice separated the moon’s light
            From her severed form, as it shone bright gem;
      I lifted her faerie form, and we danced, her dress’s hem lifted
      To reveal earthen legs of sap, gifted upon
This single damzell with which to waltz under yon boughs
From which she was shed; we held ’neath the lune’s arouse, yfere.

            We footed gaily upon the sable sea,
            Ensconced within our dreams, she finer
Than I could have ever been; altho I ween’d a minor feare,
That time is ever fickle, this severance drew not near afore
            Our plaintive nostalgia for what could draw below;
            Instead our lips amet, betraying solitude and thro’ terror,
      Hidden yet by the crystal waves lapping our ankles, rarer tho
      It be — this love of severance, a man and nymph so bound
By existence’s love and irony: that yet our dance was sound, clear,
We wept foresight: for we knew that passion’s end was rising ever near.

Song of Sighs

Make a sign with me, good love;
I’d chance a kiss for you,
If the weather allowed.

A slight patter through
The gambrel-roofed avenues
Where we hide.

A penumbral peck
Is worth the fear of being found,
You in that silken dress.

It fits you well, spiderweb
Wrapped around your waist:
Caught, just like I.

Don’t close your eyes, O girl;
Night will soon close
As rain falls on our shoes.

We shall return apart; so it must be,
Our movements sheltered
By o’erhanging lights.

Your soft breath upon my lips:
A small sigh exudes
Your eversweet scent and taste.

The Fair Queen in Her Youth

In phantasy of daydream half untrue […]

The Fair Queen in Her Youth

In phantasy of daydream half untrue
You can espy the Dame of Nature’s bourn:
She cared for every wight ’neath canvas blue,
And crossed thru wand’ring wood that now doth mourn.
Her once-fair hands encompassed foal and fawn,
Graceful locks that held rough totems entwyned
Like honeycombe and petals from her lawn;
In youthful grasp she held the trees aligned.
The world was then unformed, unharrow’d, kind;
Sun shone upon her golden face, enlit
By Hebe’s glow and her playful ivy’s bind;
By the gentle rain was she oft bespit.
So young was she that jewels did fleck her eyes,
And watched was she by all her Nature’s spies.

Still resting by the windowsill of dream,
Beseech her now an audience to speak:
So weak her ears may wane, it may not seem
That the Queen would speak so; by her crook’d creek
Time captures breaths so soft and slender, meek.
When you wex woeful to ween lost delight
Fallen from the Fair Queen’s brow, you may seek
The will to restore them true: journey night
Through moonlit groves and scale far foggy height;
But tho you may seek to restore her crown—
Oak coronall yron ’bove amber sight
Is fading fast, as is her lily gown.
Now turned to red, her leaves predict a fall:
The hope that Winter steals not Beauty’s all.

III

Lay down and rest, O Queen, throw true thy beam,
For no other being holds flawless gleam
That glitters near my eyes, and strikes me blind:
Thy changing form is ever new in mind,
The perfections of thine are sensate signed;
Let down thy hair, in tempestuous ream,
Where moon’s moths, thy bounty, forever teem.
The rising bound’ry of thy bloss’mous breast;
Forlorne desire ensews for thy sweet creste—
And tho we keepe thy love, we thus sequest.
Last glimpse before the vision ends its stream:
Thou seest fading orchard, all enshrined—
Time bids thee well, Titania: ’tis God’s truth;
For even Gods must bid farewell to Youth.

Three Love Songs: Starling, Spirit, Sincerity

There is a starling I hold close to my heart […]

Three Love Songs:
Starling, Spirit, Sincerity

Song of the Starling

There is a starling I hold close to my heart
Winged darling of curious eye
Surprised in the brush, it doth depart
I know I shall not see it again;
It was my friend.

Tender feathered starling, large as light
Dainty and comely in the sky bright blue
And in the night it sings its song
Upon the slender bows of the quince bush;
Then darts like arrow into downy throng.

O, voice so sweet, like lilting hymn
Sings Christian tales of lovers’ consummation
I wish to hold its fragile limb—
Inspect those eyes of delicate sharpness,
And reveal scene of woed lovers’ separation.

There is a starling I hold close to my heart
Winged darling of curious eye
Surprised in the brush, it doth depart
I know I shall not see it again;
It was my friend.

Song of the Spirit

Beauty: pure be thy name,
Distilled elegance.
Litanic lamentations of refined essence,
Intoxicating,
To misplace a psalm into palms unworthy.

Foolish: Then,
Alchemical rites of dusky biology,
Alembic apparatus to temper daemon’s sharp spirit-tooth,
Archaic methods to soothe out romantic merit’s sooth.

Hands of prayer conjoined and closely tented;
No phrases coined or lent to describe puerile tint and blush,
But those of reams of script enwrote in history’s brush.

The saint and soul exist entwined as contradicting tenants;
They share the world, and see God’s lot of actions crying penance:

When for all we yearn is to spend our hours enriched by her subtle presence.

Song of Sincerity

A smile’s a gift of perfect ease with she,
An exchange of hands ’neath trees, ’neath rain;
I wince rue passions as she shifts her knee,
Project where her elfin form has lain.
The instances that comprise woodland tryst
Speak to golden wisps of hair from fey nymph,
The instances of seelie words I list
Flow o’er me as pure unyielding lymph.
My arthritic hand lends a laurel crown—
Such alms I wrought in care to thank her so
For what I wear atop sewn sylvan gown.
I steel the fears of romance, I forego:
All other love that makes good sense to chase;
Commit to one struck with tender fay’s grace.