Out of the unquiet town
seep jagged barkings
lean broken cries
unimaginable silent writhing
of muscles taut against strangling
heavy fetters of darkness.
On the pool of moonlight
clots and festers
a great scum
of worn-out sound.
(Elagabalus, Alexander
looked too long at the full moon;
hot blood drowned them
cold rivers drowned them.)
Float like pondflowers
on the dead face of darkness
cold stubs of lusts
names that glimmer ghostly
adrift on the slow tide
of old moons waned.
(Lais of Corinth that Holbein drew
drank the moon in a cup of wine;
with the flame of all her lovers' pain
she seared a sign on the tombs of the years.)
Out of the voiceless wrestle of the night
flesh rasping harsh on flesh
a tune on a shrill pipe shimmers
up like a rocket blurred in the fog
of lives curdled in the moon's glare,
staggering up like a rocket
into the steely star-sharpened night
above the stagnant moon-marshes
the song throbs soaring and dies.
(Semiramis, Zenobia
lay too long in the moon's glare;
their yearning grew sere and they died
and the flesh of their empires died.)
On the pool of moonlight
clots and festers
a great scum
of worn-out lives.
No sound but the panting unsatiated
breath that heaves under the huge pall
the livid moon has spread above the housetops.
I rest my chin on the window-ledge and wait.
There are hands about my throat.
Ah Bilkis, Bilkis
where the jangle of your camel bells?
Bilkis when out of Saba
lope of your sharp-smelling dromedaries
will bring the unnameable strong wine
you press from the dazzle of the zenith
over the shining sand of your desert
the wine you press there in Saba?
Bilkis your voice loud above the camel bells
white sword of dawn to split the fog,
Bilkis your small strong hands to tear
the hands from about my throat.
Ah Bilkis when out of Saba?