Dreamings

Dreamings

She dreamt in octuplet
in verse, footed and free
she wept in rhyme
amber-soft, flinty and chill

words, parsed en multi lingua
ad hoc, ad limina
without boundary or shore
sea-deeps to grave-silent outer tomb

Aligheri descended to hinterland
and beyond, Milton ascended,
nirvana found, in mesosphere
between dwelt Aristophanes

what is man's soul that any art mindful?
Goethe's devouring Mephistopheles
trades Faust for Little Nell.
Valjean, redemption, for bread.

Verbum is soul liturgy
Alexandria, Bodleian, subway wall
truth? Triumph of man
against society? Nay self.

And what of paradise?
Peace, Patience, incants the Prophet
magi, shaman, fakir agree
even Immortal Qasim, Jesu
and Gautama neath his bodhi tree

ergo, in quasi pace, she waits
with holy men, demons, mortui
for portent of signum crucis
(or otherwise) let it be

morn to twilight to blue-black nacht
she travels twixt infinitum and natal sound
in the moments among
sclafen, dream and waking

desiderata, mantra
much to think, to feel, to need, to taste
mammon long passed
and sapiens still to meet

in vacuum-time, we attende
speaking nothing, everything
from world's first gasp
to final death rattle

O, to repose neath Pleiades’s
on porcelain sand-lipped sea
in grove of Venus
or temple of Astarte

to drink of vineyard fruit
vino, vita, veritas
dulce et jubilato
ascend star-pocked stair

In caelo, ora et labora
unt labora es ora
minor travesti with
much amor et caritas

Meanwhile back en terra

The erstwhile poet poseur
Tiredly slogs on

Scribbling her doggerel 

But even in humility

worth is to be found

In stable was king born

The saviour in straw

clay slap-pulled is Grecian vase
marble bent asunder, woman
ochre, azure, vermillion
Titian henna-tress vixen
y Raphael's fresco sublime

rude word becomes
lyric, gossamer imitates gown
rosewood, mellifluous lute
gold becomes reliquary sanctus
and alabaster a funeral jar

From peasant-hewn grain
to celestial body
from philistine-trod grape
corpus, sangua, soul and divinity


O to repose...