.

And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Moonlit Visions...

With chaste heart, and pure
eyes
I celebrate you, my beauty,
restraining my blood
so that the line
surges and follows
your contour,
and you bed yourself in my verse,
as in woodland, or wave-spume:
earth's perfume,
sea's music.

Nakedly beautiful,
whether it is your feet, arching
at a primal touch
of sound or breeze,
or your ears,
tiny spiral shells
from the splendour of America's oceans.
Your breasts also,
of equal fullness, overflowing
with the living light
and, yes,
winged
your eyelids of silken corn
that disclose
or enclose
the deep twin landscapes of your eyes.

The line of your back
separating you
falls away into paler regions
then surges
to the smooth hemispheres
of an apple,
and goes splitting
your loveliness
into two pillars
of burnt gold, pure alabaster,
to be lost in the twin clusters of your feet,
from which, once more, lifts and takes fire
the double tree of your symmetry:
flower of fire, open circle of candles,
swollen fruit raised
over the meeting of earth and ocean.

Your body - from what substances
agate, quartz, ears of wheat,
did it flow, was it gathered,
rising like bread
in the warmth,
and signalling hills
silvered,
valleys of a single petal, sweetnesses
of velvet depth,
until the pure, fine, form of woman
thickened
and rested there?

It is not so much light that falls
over the world
extended by your body
its suffocating snow,
as brightness, pouring itself out of you,
as if you were
burning inside.

Under your skin the moon is alive
Pablo Neruda

5 comments:

FreeThinke said...


________ Provide, Provide ________
 
The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag,
Was once the beauty Abishag,

The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.

Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.

Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone.

Some have relied on what they knew;
Others on simply being true.
What worked for them might work for you.

No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard,
Or keeps the end from being hard.

Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!

~ Robert Frost (1874-1963)



FreeThinke said...

_____ To a Daughter Smitten _____


Desist, my darling dimwit; do not wed

On impulse born of weather fair this June.

No one should be by sun and roses led.

Only till you’ve weathered a typhoon,

Tornado, or at least a spate of sleet,

Will your prospective mate reveal his soul.

Easy times glide by, deny, delete

Demands that demonstrate a nature whole.

Intoxicated by the scents of spring

No common sense could nonsense overwhelm.

Joy seems imminent, yet blistering

Unhappiness might well be at the helm.

None a nun would have you be, and yet

Eden is not ours to gain, my pet.



~ FreeThinke - The Sandpiper

FreeThinke said...

__________ Purgatory __________


And suppose the darlings get to Mantua,

suppose they cheat the crypt, what next? Begin

with him, unshaven. Though not, I grant you, a

displeasing cockerel, there’s egg yolk on his chin.


His seedy robe’s aflap, he’s got the rheum.

Poor dear, the cooking lard has smoked her eyes.

Another Montague is in the womb

although the first babe’s bottom’s not yet dry.

She scrolls a weekly letter to her Nurse

who dares to send a smock through Balthasar,

and once a month, his father posts a purse.

News from Verona? Always news of war.


Such sour years it takes to right this wrong!

The fifth act runs unconscionably long.


~ Maxine Kumin (1925 - )

FreeThinke said...

___________ CODA __________

There’s little in taking or giving,
There’s little in water or wine;
This living, this living, this living
Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
The gain of the one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
And rest’s for a clam in a shell,
So I’m thinking of throwing the battle—
Would you kindly direct me to hell?


~ Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

FreeThinke said...

_________ A Hard Truth _________

Do most old women stop enjoying sex
Once the saggy baggy phase sets in?
Could any potent male regard these wrecks
As outlets for the joys of carnal sin?
Lechery in randy ancient goats
Arises at the thought of flesh still fresh ––
Softly rounded curves and slim white throats
No too long departed from the creche.
Ironic that old pussies cracked and wizened
Still dream of ardent service from Fair Youth,
But no matter how these crones appear bedizened
‘Tis just their cash that lures, and that’s the truth.
The resource that sustains best when we’re old
Is found in vaults replete with jewels and gold.

~ FreeThinke