Philosophy cannot survive a woman's touch,
This I knew on the fifth night of June
when bruised elbows held us on a wall,
we held our breath like a canary agitated
while the white horses trotted beneath,
long metal slurps on the treacherous land,
Our cheeks grew closer by degrees,
touched,
and if the moon weren't bright in the rain,
my eyes wouldn't feign to trace silver lines
where rain met our pursuers and blanched away,
I would've given to the blush that stole me,
but we redoubled to the churchyard behind,
I winced as she stepped over gravestones,
her muddied cloak was the ink over marble
that stole me from my sleep to shadow her,
find the unworthiness behind her charm,
her casks of French liquor were stowed
beneath the apple tree of a cousin's field,
I tailed her and knew her tainted with dubloons,
but her eyes had a softness her fingers did not,
I whispered protest but she was stone
like the potter's wheel beneath warm clay,
she was the spruce fever that visits ambition,
The ethics of my sermons could not stay her,
she was the spray on livid cliffstones,
her waves did not pass custom-houses!
The crown hunted for smugglers' coves,
but did they know to hunt such beauty?
would they know sin garbed in silk?
The books had nothing to say for this:
when the good that heavens wrought in her smile
frames the quick strokes of her trade,
what survives for expostulation?
what law was writ to judge paradoxes?
what do I love in her when she is unbecome
into sundry threads of baser means,
but the flax in her dress is perfumed
with the summers she left in her wake
and I do not know which must prevail.
This I knew on the fifth night of June
when bruised elbows held us on a wall,
we held our breath like a canary agitated
while the white horses trotted beneath,
long metal slurps on the treacherous land,
Our cheeks grew closer by degrees,
touched,
and if the moon weren't bright in the rain,
my eyes wouldn't feign to trace silver lines
where rain met our pursuers and blanched away,
I would've given to the blush that stole me,
but we redoubled to the churchyard behind,
I winced as she stepped over gravestones,
her muddied cloak was the ink over marble
that stole me from my sleep to shadow her,
find the unworthiness behind her charm,
her casks of French liquor were stowed
beneath the apple tree of a cousin's field,
I tailed her and knew her tainted with dubloons,
but her eyes had a softness her fingers did not,
I whispered protest but she was stone
like the potter's wheel beneath warm clay,
she was the spruce fever that visits ambition,
The ethics of my sermons could not stay her,
she was the spray on livid cliffstones,
her waves did not pass custom-houses!
The crown hunted for smugglers' coves,
but did they know to hunt such beauty?
would they know sin garbed in silk?
The books had nothing to say for this:
when the good that heavens wrought in her smile
frames the quick strokes of her trade,
what survives for expostulation?
what law was writ to judge paradoxes?
what do I love in her when she is unbecome
into sundry threads of baser means,
but the flax in her dress is perfumed
with the summers she left in her wake
and I do not know which must prevail.
I strike the stone beneath the roots,
and sure as the sun there is the loot
that will fill goblets of pastors' homes
and the policemen call them hallowed,
but my sweetheart is slow poison to coffers
that are born to violence and usury,
but I will survive her hunger just yet,
Come dawn, the sun will colour her cheek
but it will not have the same honesty
my lady wore under that waxing moon
when my philosophies were torn asunder.
and sure as the sun there is the loot
that will fill goblets of pastors' homes
and the policemen call them hallowed,
but my sweetheart is slow poison to coffers
that are born to violence and usury,
but I will survive her hunger just yet,
Come dawn, the sun will colour her cheek
but it will not have the same honesty
my lady wore under that waxing moon
when my philosophies were torn asunder.
Image Source: Delawer Omar
No comments:
Post a Comment