To
Donald Evans
BUVEUSE D'ABSINTHE
Rue d'Aphrodite
Her voice was fleet-limbed and immaculate,
And like peach blossoms blown across the wind
Her white words made the hour seem cool and kind,
Hung with soft dawns that danced a shadow fete.
A silken silence crept up from the South,
The flutes were hushed that mimed the orange moon,
And down the willow stream my sighs were strewn,
While I knelt to the corners of her mouth.
Lead me afar from clamorous dissonance,
For I am sick of empty trumpetings,
Choking the highways with a dusty noise.
Here I have found her sweet sheer utterance,
And now I seek the garden of the wings
Where I may bathe in sounds that life destroys.
EXTREME UNCTION
Across the rotting pads in the lily lake
Her gesture floated toward the iris bed,
Wrapped in a whispered perfume of the dead,
And her gaze followed slowly in its wake.
Now was the summons come she must obey,
For Beauty pleaded from the charnel house,
For violet nights and violent carouse
To free her from the cerements of decay.