NIGHT FISHING AT ANTIBES
A beach back of bric à brac,
wine goblet of sky ....
the horizon beginning
somewhere between Nod &
nigh unto forever with
only the sigh of a Casuarina pine
or sea-grape to force a smile.
It was entering into twilight
--our minds were sailing ships,
mere vagaries upon the waves,
mine more a clippership
on the Frisco to China run.
Soirèe intimée,
apèrtif, digestif?
A bottle of rum
with Eleuthera for a name
--the prettiest coves
have steadfast winds
dark about portside.
Silvery light of stars,
the stars like black hansom cabs
with livried footmen before
shark-toothed clouds,
a shark-faced moon,
the sight of a shark breaking water,
lemon-white its gullet with the
Big Dipper stuck in a shark tooth.
Diamondhead or Copperback?
Carpetbaggers ... the moon's silver tea-set
giving birth to wonderment
flooding in affection
a Raouel Dufy lithograph,
some decrepit Neapolitan fisherman
zoning his epic life
to human proportions.
[15]
SABBAT
Picturesque Tituba, steeped in Obeah,
in a hairball swoon
leads a harangue about witches with
some of Salem's more delicate
women, obedient children.
In verdant outcrops of the imagination
fuelled by a beldame's winter fire
amid sparks that prance with devils
thru tempest gloom
covens are conjured
so they implicate other pretties
with raven hair,
arm curled, in desperation,
about the moon.
With supernatural hands extended
the sea is a wretch's bitter vinegar
pounding the little, eggshell homes
where, at twilight, a dozen village Elders
with bell and taper,
candlelight and prayer
bind parchment oaths
to envisage clandestine pacts, sabbats,
obscene sojourns.
Peculiar cat--
straw hat,
thatch and loft
a drop of blood sputtering
then drawn over piddling flame,
the well-intentioned righteous
demask the pain-fed frightened.
Gibbet, arm's length of braided rope--
gang-plank, gallow stairs that smirk
off into Eternity
--a lucky few strangled,
the adamant burned,
fickle apostates swum
on a ducking stool.
Ice-fire hearths--
bonfire sheaths ravishing the strong
carnival veil
along pebble-strewn trail.
[17]