my ink, my super-nova, scarlet, green, gold,
your hair is a flourish of saffron,
your lips are the Genesis of ink to paper.

deprived of a tongue, I breathe
all the more clearly.

ondine, ondine, here is your mirror.
you think your lips are your shield,
your heart a weapon sharply whet?
is that sunlight through water in your pale hair,
or is it a drown'd fishwife's tangle?
have your cheeks, my ondine, the blush of white rose,
or the underside of a fish's belly,
white and clammy in the gloam?
oh, do your eyes draw me in like grey clouds thundering,
or do they cut me like shards of beer-bottle glass by the sea?
ondine, sweet ondine, pray tell it to me!

fierce red-tooth'd Infanta
of a kingdom of
fire, of copper,
and of sun-drenched orange blossoms.

ride your sky-lion
youngest princess of the old
rich hair tangled with its roars.

she wept for joy and
laughed for the immeasurable brightness of life.
her sword is her lantern, her lover, her life;
she shakes the battlements
O our Infanta, sweet sister of mine!

your eyes are pearls drawn
they sing to me from deep beneath
any semblence of light

the water glimmers gold above
like the sun has has cast its lot
and waits for judgement day.

sweet and fair we call our loves
and sweet and fair they be
but when the knotted limbs grow rough
it's the sea that waits for thee

and take your crown of stars
and see it fits your head
for when the the stars come toppling down
that's all that shall be left.

more precious to me
than all the pearls in the sea
were your teeth, laughing.

Bring me a smile, for I have none to spare
My wine-hearted maid of the sea stole them from me
And I will never go looking nor pining for her
As she looks for her skin in the eaves.

From sunlight through water we did weave her hair
'Til it shone with the gold of old stars
But I'd give you the honey of my lilit-daughter words
Had she not stole it from me with her eyes:

The dark in your heart and the dark of the sky
Met to dance in the storms of those eyes
Let me, oh, let me, just let me, I plead
Lose myself forevermore in their rains!

She's the grace of the undine and undulating waves
that crash round and chill you to the bone--

Would my love chill her bones, would she care,
Would she care, my wine-hearted maid of the sea?

Sister of summer, sweet sighing duende
Why are you so sad and pale?
The dawn sings litanies of your graces that make
The high sun itself mourn and quell!

Flower of autumn, with your crown of fire
Heart-seized and enraptured your eyes do make me,
Flash skies of dark'ning thunder in them
And the stars that bestir the crystal-cold seas.

Daughter of snow and ice-kissed queen
Your name is a prayer unfit for my lips
The white rose of your face the only dream I would dream
When the sun's burnt the last of its wick.

Lady in the orchards, brave lady, your tears are ever pearls
For spring has come and dawn has come
But I will never be the one to lead them in.

The Maiden Maddalena turned her child's face down
And shook out, unfurled like so many a herald's banner,
Her rapids of sunray'd scarlet-gold hair,
And with the frantic stretch of a marionette,
She let the white flesh of her arms extend
And let the shimmering sunrays spill into a glass.