Seven Years On
Sun-heralded, then backed by light, you crossed
The threshold and cast your shadow over wine:
A glass I held. Too dazzled, too startled,
I think I said, “Hi.” My Longing was shrill.
I ignored you and drafted a novel.
But you laughed so much for une femme so old—
Sixtyish, and your tits bit at your blouse.
I yearned for wintry you to want my fire.
Youth is hunger; Age is satiety;
But I guessed you would be insatiable,
Giving ample love under flaming light.
Wine gladdens Age; but you don’t require it—
As I learned, one year after leaving Rhodes,
As you yielded, finally, to my cries.
Pace Milton
I yearn for our smoking marriage-bed—
Smoky lily, your fever-pitch whiteness—
To eat meat and honey, gulp cold, dark wine,
While you play Eve, and I, King Priapus—
Broken-in companions, cauterized as one—
Hot bone jutting into soft, wet tissue,
For we’re as nude and frank as waves,
Rank with heat and damp, and so sultry,
We evaporate Theology,
Preferring Byron’s aegis and Shelley’s writ….
A stylish, Danish finale’s my wish—
To add wine to complement smoked salmon—
Until stars vanish and dew rouses grass—
And Passion parades us eyeless as Milton.
Again
Again we come to Rome, again to kiss,
Again to know Love, and this time to spy
Shelley and Byron and Keats in their graves,
Dissolved into violets and marble.
It’s with macabre Prudence, that we love:
From cloudy beginnings and through havoc—
Heart-ache—and long-suffering pulse until
That muted “Eureka” the starts our deaths.
But Rome is more eternal than our flesh
And will welcome new loves once we’re forgot,
Unless these words live deathless as the sun.
So this poem is resonant with other
Love poems, conspiring against Time‘s tireless
Corrosion—if Composure‘s impassioned.
Midnight Sun
Pale, indigo midnight, the northern light
Is wasted transluncence: Slumber awaits—
Or home-made Joy of lovemaking. We chat,
Take wine: The pale darkness won’t let us sleep.
Thunder booms: A blow of wet is brewing.
Tumbling flashes warn: Rain will cascade wells.
We can stay dry by staying hours in bed.
Let lightning skin night’s hide to bright bone.
Malta, Naples, Bellagio, Cadiz—
None of these were as wet as this night’s place—
After blink of drawn shades and sheets unfurled,
In our boreal cottage, after beer
And fish soup, and our noontime siesta,
Only sunshine and light and heat—unioned.
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