PALE WOMAN
Pale woman, cloudless face
as yet untroubled by the hollow moonlight,
crowd not the images of your plight
before me: turn your face
away lest your heart, breaking soon,
prevail upon me then to hate
the price that sensibility pays the moon:
too late, too late.
Your anxious, eager eyes
survey the world and find it good, and think
not sadness hovers on the brink
of disillusioning skies,
to damn the consciousness of those
who dare to contemplate the spheres
of harmony, seek the meaning of the music
in their ears.
Too soon you are to know
that even dreams of fairyland cost dear,
and that between each sob and tear
all the good moments go.
Pale woman, this is life’s mistake;
dismiss it with the poets sigh
is all that I can do, for hearts must break:
goodnight, goodbye.
CITY LIBRARY
I
And still she dances as she moves –
a winding sheet loose wraps
her body round, but does not hide
disdainful eyes.
No question but I’d like to slap
that bromide face into emotion, bruise
that mouth, and watch those eyes grow wide
in fear and the unwilling ecstasy.
II
He looks at me like one intent
on rape – with that same look
resentful; husband, lovers all
abuse my thighs
with force, and wait to see me struck
near dumb by conquest, ready to consent
to mastery: but their own fall
from mine thus disallows the self-deception.
III
They stare across the silence – her
indifference rooted in
a disregard for sex and sway
alike; and should
his patience suddenly wear thin
enough, he’d find no ecstasy or fear
in her, but on the following day
the same disdainful eyes for incapacity.
LAST NIGHT WHEN WE WERE YOUNG
As memory grows blurred
its pleasurable compass starts to wane,
till just stray thoughts of time remain
of that once magic circle. Thus we heard
the noisy and unnecessary rain
when we awoke.
I might as well have flung
each kiss into the garden there below
the damp, offending window:
to record our losses, bells were rung
behind the clamorous and malevolent sparrow,
where it sprang
to broadcast dissolution.
At breakfast we implored our memory
to keep such details of the coffee
as would form – unwitting – substitution:
and now it is the time that we
remember most.
REVERBERATIONS
I saw a photograph of you, a child;
your grandmother addressed you by
your mother’s name, her visions blended to a point
of function, saw your earliest ploy;
lest life spill, she gripped you tightly, smiled
in recollection – I saw memory anoint
each incident, watched her tilt awry
perspective, summon incidents of joy.
Rising from between your breasts, I walked
the intervening streets between
the anticipated image the possessed my room,
and recollected image of your grace;
each repeated pace retraced the yards we talked
till, unexpected in the gloom,
I saw you standing, saw you as I’d seen
you twelve months earlier, moonlight on your face.
And if a woman can ignore the long
fatigue of motherhood, in contemplation of
the single acts of loveliness
that, contemplated, crystallize your grace,
then these twelve months of perfect song,
reverberating images of happiness,
have with your being blazoned on our love
a permanence that nothing can erase.
Leaf, blossom, bole, dancer or dance,
the question is superfluous – those memories
that form your being are uniformly bright,
those images compose triumphal songs:
in all our love and labyrinthal dance
your action is the same sweet song of light –
whenever in your arms, I seize
the image of a love unchanging all life long.
Pale woman, cloudless face
as yet untroubled by the hollow moonlight,
crowd not the images of your plight
before me: turn your face
away lest your heart, breaking soon,
prevail upon me then to hate
the price that sensibility pays the moon:
too late, too late.
Your anxious, eager eyes
survey the world and find it good, and think
not sadness hovers on the brink
of disillusioning skies,
to damn the consciousness of those
who dare to contemplate the spheres
of harmony, seek the meaning of the music
in their ears.
Too soon you are to know
that even dreams of fairyland cost dear,
and that between each sob and tear
all the good moments go.
Pale woman, this is life’s mistake;
dismiss it with the poets sigh
is all that I can do, for hearts must break:
goodnight, goodbye.
CITY LIBRARY
I
And still she dances as she moves –
a winding sheet loose wraps
her body round, but does not hide
disdainful eyes.
No question but I’d like to slap
that bromide face into emotion, bruise
that mouth, and watch those eyes grow wide
in fear and the unwilling ecstasy.
II
He looks at me like one intent
on rape – with that same look
resentful; husband, lovers all
abuse my thighs
with force, and wait to see me struck
near dumb by conquest, ready to consent
to mastery: but their own fall
from mine thus disallows the self-deception.
III
They stare across the silence – her
indifference rooted in
a disregard for sex and sway
alike; and should
his patience suddenly wear thin
enough, he’d find no ecstasy or fear
in her, but on the following day
the same disdainful eyes for incapacity.
LAST NIGHT WHEN WE WERE YOUNG
As memory grows blurred
its pleasurable compass starts to wane,
till just stray thoughts of time remain
of that once magic circle. Thus we heard
the noisy and unnecessary rain
when we awoke.
I might as well have flung
each kiss into the garden there below
the damp, offending window:
to record our losses, bells were rung
behind the clamorous and malevolent sparrow,
where it sprang
to broadcast dissolution.
At breakfast we implored our memory
to keep such details of the coffee
as would form – unwitting – substitution:
and now it is the time that we
remember most.
REVERBERATIONS
I saw a photograph of you, a child;
your grandmother addressed you by
your mother’s name, her visions blended to a point
of function, saw your earliest ploy;
lest life spill, she gripped you tightly, smiled
in recollection – I saw memory anoint
each incident, watched her tilt awry
perspective, summon incidents of joy.
Rising from between your breasts, I walked
the intervening streets between
the anticipated image the possessed my room,
and recollected image of your grace;
each repeated pace retraced the yards we talked
till, unexpected in the gloom,
I saw you standing, saw you as I’d seen
you twelve months earlier, moonlight on your face.
And if a woman can ignore the long
fatigue of motherhood, in contemplation of
the single acts of loveliness
that, contemplated, crystallize your grace,
then these twelve months of perfect song,
reverberating images of happiness,
have with your being blazoned on our love
a permanence that nothing can erase.
Leaf, blossom, bole, dancer or dance,
the question is superfluous – those memories
that form your being are uniformly bright,
those images compose triumphal songs:
in all our love and labyrinthal dance
your action is the same sweet song of light –
whenever in your arms, I seize
the image of a love unchanging all life long.
Available now! -
New For 2008!!
New For 2008!!
Copyright © 2003,2006 & 2008
John N.F. Gibson
John N.F. Gibson
