Love's Quietus

O’ Beautiful O’ Beautiful One I see truth through you You are my longing of longing In days of void, you are my joy My thoughts swirl to our unity The loneliness of hours is intensified When your richness is kept far from me The encircling of season upon season Lacks sense, the thread of ambition unravels The flower of desire faints, mortality uncoils The skin of reason undresses itself All that remains is a reclusive trace A chorus in the brier of seclusion A stream of twilight under scattered willow leaves The cosmic dream thus wafts without its finery The lotus languishes and the mantra of life is reborn Vainly the seers of Hope seek their end Brooding over whims contemptible. I Drank Wine I drank wine the night before And slipped away into the occult Of who am I? Where do I come from? Although I have no answer, I will return there For I am not from this place My soul is from another continent A realm of dreams and love and understanding Here that soul is a prisoner Like a bird in painted courtyards of illusion On its own accord it desires wings To lead me back to the passion of that realm Who speaks with my mouth? Who listens with these ears? Whose voice is this? The Science of wine will render explanation To return me from this tavern of Philosophy. True Effort O Beautiful One, make true effort To seek the path of sober eyes How can one be the teacher of others? If one has not learned the hardening lessons first. Be true to life, go down its road With Love as your only guidepost Triumph is the meed of those Who wash off from their hands The soil of earthly dependence If you wish to be the hero of the road First be humbled by it, find your place Then leave behind everything as you reach the end Of the wide nothingness into which all are born. Lost Children We are all as lost children In the great arcade of tragedy called Love Do not place too high a hope On that rotten abode, that regal height For in the red house of love There can be no expectation of comfort It is no palace, it is no shack either An edifice of grace it is at times Which one does not grasp the value of Until the hated time of repentance and regret Thus too often the white walls of our hearts Are stained with the dark wine of sorrow The doors open from the outside only The windows glare out more light than shines in Such is the construction of the soul’s world It is like a hostel that a weary traveler seeks For a night’s sojourn, but stays a lifetime Thus a lifetime is spent in such enclosures In pent suffering no liberation is gained Until the golden day when True Love Places its kiss upon Fortune’s lips And seals forever the crown of sweetest joy That otherwise only madmen and dreamers know truly. This World and All Within How is it that this world and all that’s within So subtly and briefly passes away Does not the musk of every blazing deserve vintage? Even if it is that of the emblemed sun Why must all affairs be so moon faced? Mercurial as the breeze that tethers to and fro And like faint preambles to Spring die unheard Why must the custom of friendship be farewell? Why must sorrow be the craft hammered in every soul? Cannot the bonds of loyalty be otherwise forged? Than with the ephemeral wires that hold up air in air? It is malice to believe that joy is fleeting? Or that harmony is more than a jaded warmth? That passes with the blinking eyelash of sleep What is the ferment of Truth worth now? When against the autumnal wind all embers extinguish And the spark of being is never born at all But rests in the asylum of glinting hearts… So the quietness blows again and again Until in the subtlety we and it are consumed. The Envelope The envelope slips under your door A fleeting sigh is heard, a rustle, Then it is gone. The slitting of paper replaces it As you read, the same words are heard Echoing faintly from the moonlit window sill You traverse the room, on the cusp of collapse And there, there your Beloved waits Resting His head across from where your image appears So you read the drawn ink as His spirit sings aloud: “How can Nature steal a portrait from its own? “And thus paint your lovely face as such “How can God in his practice of Divine Drama? “Create a sadder tale, than this, our Love “Reproved, renounced, reproached, remonstrated against “But not unworthy of awe, nor requited neither “For in you lives the ageless ode of innocence “The glass of purity is held up against your shine “Everything sublime, profound, the sweet virtues of art “Are held up in the honor of your charm. “Your soft embrace, it exalts me “So why then must this charity of bliss be denied “Lend me the succor of your Grace “Expound me with the infinity of your hold “In your sagedom I breathe life “Like a pagan in the furnace of Hope “I am indeed your addict “The musk that hovers above your Rose “Give me my essence much as the fundaments of the Earth “Water the flowerbeds of Heaven’s lone orchard “I write in a fever so great, a custom so unparalleled “That I wish to soar from this height “And be united with your lips, such an unerring kiss “Will grant me the all of salvation “And the hellish toil of this mortal wastage “Will be made worthwhile or perfunctory “Thus Unite with me, edify and abound me “The whispers of the night will no longer carry silence “But will stream with the blasting trumpet of Love “Reason will then stand as the desolate sophist “The golden streaks of the morn will profess their prospects “As we take the reigns of monarchy “Spreading the fragrance of peace with your unwearied name “As the Light slips away with the glistening breeze “And no darkness remains to take over.” With the drunken words confessed, the spell was broken Lover, Beloved and Love united then disappeared And all the wine of history dried in their place. Requiem There is little reason to hold on The hours of man are but few and numbered Steady and brief, so ease the grasp Untie the stone of worldly dependence From around the waist of your conscience Free your spirit from the restive weight Of the endless tomorrows that are dreamed for Those tomorrows are no more than dream Youth is not limitless though desire holds it to be Unclasp the heaved visor of ambition From before your eyes unencumbered days Whatever brace of life still keeps forth Kiss the plangent air of it and rejoice Let warmth pervade, be steadfast to Romance Make subtlety the sweet friend of experience Let desire hold as the mockery of the weak And hope to be no more than the jest of the dreamer Cup your hands to drink out from the well Whose water tastes like the ephemeral The sip of that brew is ever liberating bliss Hemlock to ambition, the elixir of modesty The ascension of lords, the gaud of the poor The trinity of freedom grows out from it And empires of thought are built on its base O’ but to based by that unfair heart To desire the racked canon of immortality At the expense and peril of a true soul! Nay, be hostile to all such grand wills As well to gestures of greatness and parables of unceasing days Make sweet death the deputy of your toil Make Hope the heir of some unlived life And allege no more of these brief mortal hours Glisten under the sun of that light alone. The encumbrance of a vast unknown lies ahead For a moment we sigh before the rhapsody resumes As we resign collectively to an insubstantial Yet united end.