Would that worst could not be said of thee
Landlord— 'cept that, even among the fiends
That consitute your class, thou art stingy.
'Tis one thing that these drawers remain uncleaned
Still stuff'd with your possesssions (justly stole—),
Another that the ceilings host black mold;
A saint, your reticence I tolerate
As windows, doors and pipes disintegrate;
—But here I can't agree, quite principly:
My wife's prescence will not command a fee.
Against the wall—! you are the pettiest
Of all the petty bourgeoisie, and cold
Will be thy rented grave, when justice time
Remembers squat of thee beyond this crime.
She sung as though the sea had never been
And all the stars were false, and moonlight grey.
That was her way; our vestibule serene
For monastry she made, and there would pray
For Father God to haste her final day
—Until she finally lay. O, petals' death
Chrysanthemums' crisp falling flesh, they say
Is nature's balm for elderly hearts bereft
Kincleft. . . —but you were heavenheft, half-breathed
My dear— with eyes that teemed to rest, above
The clouds, and the sun, where everyone, reft
From this sunken world, wades blessed—bathed—in love—
So now my widow winter years must crawl
Alone, chagrined, yet to spring's sin still thrall. . .
"Like a city of gandharvas and
Like a mirage or a dream" —Nagarjuna
Since language is the universal trope
The kernal pith and wind that wings our löves
O'er lust, and makes moods brood, or hoists hope's rope—
So script-shaped sounds perforce aught thought engrooves.
How then, that tongues and spellings shift
What's first vulgar, becomes so soon arcane. . .?
¡gadzooks! the very nature of said rift
'Twix this and talk of this, explains that plain:—
For these are not themselves, except that those
Pine, prick, cajole through tricks, fish, flesh or foul
Growl— like thief exposed by a dumb dog's nose
("Touché! ...but ay, ain't robbin 'oods halal??")
And make them so; two fingered wedding rings
Need I say more? Thus fathom everything—
god-granted bliss, beauty to behold this
If only in the shadow of words. Lo!
Again spring's sprung sun was saviour, sheenstung
We lay, bird-height, wind-slight, naked; Shanghai
Cirrate, the heatwashed heavens inchoate
Made even gall recede, and headache heed
That dance of leaf and limb, liminal whim
Flesh sought, flood caught,—l'entente au bord d'la mort. . .
Apotheosis through symbiosis,
Throe indelible, and an ampersand
Tucked tight 'twix man and wife all life's long span;
God-granted bliss, beauty to behold this
If only in the shadows of words, so—
2023, 2024