DEATH
I shall walk down the road.
I shall turn and feel upon my feet
The kisses of Death, like scented rain.
For Death is a black slave with little silver birds
Perched in a sleeping wreath upon his head.
He will tell me, his voice like jewels
Dropped into a satin bag,
How he has tip-toed after me down the road,
His heart made a dark whirlpool with longing for me.
Then he will graze me with his hands
And I shall be one of the sleeping, silver birds
Between the cold waves of his hair, as he tip-toes on.
TO GEORGIE MAY
The ruins of your face were twined with youth.
Vines of starlight questioned your face when you smiled.
Your eyes dissolved over distances
And steeped the graves of many loves.
Night was kind to your body:
The careless vehemence of curves
Softened beneath your darkly-loosened dress.
And your heart toyed with an emotion
That left you vague hunger poised over death.
POET-VAGABOND GROWN OLD
The dust of many roads has been my grey wine.
Surprised beech-trees have bowed
With me, to the plodding morning
Humming tunes frail as webs of dead perfume,
To his love in golden silks, the departed moon.
Maidens like rose-flooded statues
Have bathed me in the wine of their silence.
But now I walk on, alone.
And only after watching many evenings,
Do I dance a bit with dying wisps of moon-light,
To persuade myself that I am young.
BLIND
Blinder than oak-trees in the wind
Endlessly weaving sighs into a poem
To sight,
He sits, the light of one pale purple lantern
Seeping into his dream-hollowed face,
Like floating, transparent words
Pale with unuttered meanings.
He mends a flute and sighs as though
Its shadow leaned heavily upon his heart
And told him things his dead eyes could not grasp.
LOVE
You seemed a caryatid melting
Into the wind-blown, dark blue temple of the sky.
But you bent down as I came closer, breaking the image.
When I passed, you raised your head
And blew the little feather of a smile upon me.
I caught it on open lips and blew it back.
And in that moment we loved,
Although you stood still waiting for your lover,
And I walked on to my love.
HILL-SIDE TREE
Like a drowsy, rain-browned saint,
You squat, and sometimes your voice
In which the wind takes no part,
Is like mists of music wedding each other.
A drunken, odor-laced peddler is the morning wind.
He brings you golden-scarfed cities
Whose voices are swirls of bells burdened with summer;
And maidens whose hearts are galloping princes.
And you raise your branches to the sky,
With a whisper that holds the smile you cannot shape.
INTRUSION
The lilies sag with rain-drops:
Their petals hold fire that does not break out.
(As though it slept between vapor-silk
It could not burn).
And a young breeze stumbles upon the lilies
And strokes them with his spinning hands....
The lilies and the young breeze are not unlike
Your silence and the rush of soft words breaking it.
CHANGE
I came upon a maiden
Blowing rose petals in the air
And catching them, as they fell,
Upon quick fingertips
Her laugh fell lighter than the petals
And dropped little gestures upon my forehead.
I gave her sadness and she blew it up
As she had blown the rose petals:
And it almost seemed joy as her fingers caught it.
But I was only a wanderer plaited with dust,
Who gave her new petals to play with.