|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You taught me the language of the lake. To know from the fender’s thud against the boat, the frizzle spiralling down the birch, the thrumming of the palm, which wind will soon scribble its name across the open pages of the lake; if we should fasten the moorings and lock the shutters close— or hoist sail and razor through the colours of the sky. And hear the bow whine drawn across a saw of swan wings, with their background beat.
To read, as well, its changing lines. The precise calligraphy of the south wind marking short, tight strokes, the bold slashes of Tramontana, the curling loops a rare west wind scrawls across the lake. The wayward doodles of the crazy Cus. And its notes: the eye ripples of the plunging grebe, the deltas drawn by moorhens, the points of light stippled by oars at dusk.
Perhaps now I am learning your language, too. The quick shirring worry pulls under the clear surface of your skin, the curling scribbling of untranslated thought, the sudden thrum of your fears. On your parchment face is written love in cursive, loss in strokes. I will not read the gothic hand, I fear it is prophecy.
Your thoughts plunge beneath the chill surface of your skin. I wait, praying for ripples of light in the dusk.
He likes my tongue. I tell him tales Of wisdom, folly, daring, wit. He hangs Snake-like from my lips. Each night I knot A magic carpet of bright words, fly with him To fabled lands, hook multicoloured dreams On minarets, call up lovers overbold to stir Fresh passion in his disillusioned breast, light up His gaze with lamps that glow like djinni’s spells And promise splendours yet untold: enchantments, Wishes granted, rubies, gold . . . a thousand stories That unfold. I give him dragons worthy Of his might, the velvet raptures of one night, Sweet songs for his delight, a houri’s veil of tales To haze his worldly eyes. I surprise him with The terrors of the seas, great monsters that would Seize his fleets, the bubbling forests of the deep. He laps it up, attends to every word I say, wants more . . .
and so dawn comes and I may live another day!
. . . her Sultan
I like her tongue. While she tells me tales It flicks like snake between her coral lips, their shine Just hazed intriguing by her veil. A thousand velvet nights I’ve Spied with half-closed eyes the pale moons Of her breasts rise from silk that scarcely hides Her lust for ardent lovers conjured from a virile past. Wisdom runs from me like the sea, it’s folly my desire To take her here and now on this artful rug Under these dragon lamps coiling subtle fire. To end her endless tales I’d tear from her those Gauzy houri’s veils, fill her with delight Sweeter than any eunuch’s scented ice, dissolve The dawn terror in her eyes, drown her bubbling fears Of morning’s light, slay the rearing monsters in Her chattering mind. But from this game as from A djinni’s lamp unwind exquisite spirals Of desire. I’ll play this game out just one more night!
(Of course, I never listen to a word she says. . .)
Not at all the kind of tree you’d expect to find In a monastery garden. It squears above the wall Its giant fingers horning the heavens, effing Up at the skies. And the nuns who moved in have Left it there, yet chopped down The stammering mimosa, the cherry whose blossom danced A Swan Lake over the boughs, the sacred yew by the gate with The scarlet berries we plucked and sucked and spat at The monastery well. But a monkey puzzle?
Was it an abbot who had planted it, a symbol Of life’s labyrinth or of evil’s intricacies? Did he intend it To stand as a speechless sermon long after he’d died? Is it a warning of purgatory’s trials or a statement Of the life we are confusedly living: snared, squittering In Fate’s mesh while the Dark Hunter, unmoved, Looks on? Or does it symbolize nothing At all, have no significance, is just a prelate’s whim, A caprice to slip between the lines of the Rule?
From my window at night that tree plays games With the stars; tracing a Nine Men’s Morris Over the mooning sky. Soundless as shadows Nuns slide under its boughs—who’s to tell if it grabs at Their veils or pricks them on their way? Or do they— For some penance or for a sly joy—clamber Into its bristly branches, struggle out of their Caught and cumbersome habits, and wriggle, Naked and lithe as monkeys, up to the winking stars?
“... a viscid annual or short-lived perennial”
In Umbrian fields; stooping, tanned, straw hats over cotton fazzoletti, they slowly pan down lines of green; the flowers, cow-lung pink, clustered in a brazen showing. Heat shimmers the scene unreal; a card discarded from a faded pack, its colours smudged and blurring. On shaded terraces we pour cool wine, gaze while they heap the baskets, carts, and straighten, sighing; take the loads in lines to sheds, seeds of sweat and tiredness shining.
*
No, thanks, I don’t! Leaves shrivel, twist, contract like hands with fingers yellowing, losing lymph like leaves their cool ellipses. Heat swirls the smoke haze of the shed; in the darkening day a choking, bitter scent.
*
You cultivate flowers of your own; their petals soft as ash, flyaway as clocks of dandelions. Cut it out! Or down, at least. You’re young... You laugh, inhale, breathe blossoms newly blown, whorled, impalpable, feathery as down. I close my eyes; see petals flake, fall, form loam where spores seed, mycelia creep and black fungi slowly grow.
|
|
©
of
all poems featured on this site remains with the
poet |
