Jewels
Knowing my needs, my dearest one was nude,
only wearing her jewellery for me,
these items made her seem perfectly lewd;
a slave in a harem eager to please.
As she moved slowly, gems danced, ringing out
subtle music – a mix of light and tone,
and I was transfixed by her jewelled pout,
lit up by sparkling metals and rare stones.
Reaching the bed, she spread voluptuously,
letting me love her in the ways she pleased,
my lust, like an ocean, was full and deep,
rising to her – a cliff mounted by seas.
Her eyes fixed on me, like a tiger tamed,
dreamily she tried various poses,
her candour and her willingness combined
to give charm to each metamorphosis.
Her arms and her legs, her loins and her thighs,
oil-polished, undulating like a swan,
were like a feast before my starving eyes,
then belly, breasts, her clusters on my vine.
When she thrust forward, this fallen angel
troubled me greatly, fuelling my desire,
until my lustful soul was half-deranged;
a cold crystal thrown on a raging fire.
In her I could discern a new design
of woman; smooth torso and rounded hips;
her perfect height setting off perfect lines;
her tawny skin deserving of worship.
And as the candle-light prepared to die,
and its low flames gently lit the chamber,
each time there sounded a contented sigh,
our warm flesh blushed the colour of amber.
The Metamorphosis of the Vampire
The woman, with her strawberry flavoured lips,
twisted and writhed her graceful, snake-like hips,
slipped off her silver top, thrust her breasts near,
and let her musk-soaked words flow in my ear:
“I have the warmest mouth, and know the skills
to make all men renege on their own wills.
I dry their tears on my triumphant breasts,
and help the old ones find their inner beast.
Naked, I am Salome without veils;
I am the moon, the sun, stars, comet’s tails,
and am so learned in voluptuousness,
that when I entwine men between my thighs,
or else let them frenziedly bite my breasts,
the impotent, the virile, and the rest,
while in this bed, collapse contentedly,
for those poor angels give their best to me.”
After she’d sucked the marrow out of me
and I had turned my body lazily,
to give her a long, probing and deep kiss,
a flask full of disease was suddenly
right there instead of her! I closed my eyes
and kept them shut until it grew quite light,
and then I looked, but she had gone for good;
no vampire lying next to me in bed,
instead, there were a skeleton’s old bones,
that rattled like a metal weathervane,
or some old creaking sign, or sheets of tin,
throughout the day, blown roughly by the wind.
The Sun
In this suburb, shutters are hung on shacks,
concealing multitudes of furtive acts.
and the sun with a cruel, redoubled heat
sears the city and fields, the roofs and wheat,
and I practise my swordsmanship alone,
finding in everything the chance of rhyme,
stumbling on words like jutting paving stones
and finding lines I’ve dreamt of many times.
Anaemia’s enemy, the sun’s gold yield
wakes up the worms and roses in the fields;
vaporises our fears, lightens the sky,
and fills our minds, like hives, with rich honey.
He rejuvenates the lives of cripples,
making them as supple as teenage girls;
makes harvests fertile, feeding everything,
so every heart can beat strongly and sing.
And when, like poets, he visits cities,
he gives a beauty to the vilest things;
like an unannounced king sans bodyguards,
he’ll visit hospitals and old back yards.
To a Woman Passing By
Deafening, the street around me roared.
Tall, slim, in black, wearing a look of hurt,
a woman passed by, her delicate hand
carefully holding the hem of her skirt,
lithe, sinuous, a model’s sculpted legs.
I stood, tense and witless, drinking my fill,
from eyes of pallid skies where storms begin;
of tenderness that snares, pleasure that kills.
A lightning flash... then night! – Fleeting beauty;
your briefest glance recharged the life in me –
now gone, you’ll live on in my circuitry.
You’re somewhere else. Perhaps not. I am. You,
unknowing of my life, and I of yours;
for an instant we joined – and we both knew.
A Previous Life
I once lived under giant porticoes
that the sea’s suns tinged with a thousand fires,
and whose straight and majestic great pillars
resembled, at evening, basalt grottoes.
The heavy seas beneath the rolling skies;
the constant music and its harmonies,
merged in a solemn and mystical way,
reflecting sunset colours in my eyes.
And in the centre of the sky and waves
I lived a life of voluptuous ease,
for I had perfumed, scented, naked slaves,
who fanned me every day with huge palm leaves;
whose only job was to stay and take care
of the secret sorrow that kept me there.
‘When she walks, it’s as though she dances…’
When she walks, it’s as though she dances,
for in her sequinned clothes she undulates
the same way as a snake sways to the strange,
thin music that pours from a fakir’s flute.
But like the empty desert skies and sands,
she feels nothing for human suffering,
and like the waves that break on distant lands,
for those she has broken, she feels nothing.
Her eyes are hardened stone, gems of onyx;
her strange, symbolic nature is a mix
of purest angel and of antique sphinx.
Dressed in her diamonds and her gold and steel,
she shines brightly like distant nebulae,
but without any real heat – quite sterile.
