"peristyle" poems
In seeking where true beauty lies
I urge you to seek it in her eyes.
Youthful curves in time decline
with too much food and too much wine,
While upturned breast and graceful knee
in time succumb to gravity.
There are some, I know, prefer the smile
as true beauty’s peristyle.
For me, her eyes hold pride of place-
not just another pretty face.
Google bots may search the web
suggesting dimples, curls or pout.
That true beauty lies within her eyes
has long been known to Love’s devout.
Dec 10, 2011
Dec 10, 2011 at 7:02 AM UTC
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
Is equally converted into palms,
Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,
Madame, we are where we began. Allow,
Therefore, that in the planetary scene
Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,
Proud of such novelties of the sublime,
Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.
2.1k
Under the Bridge, along the Promenade: we
walked with words trickling through our
waxy lips. Where the Seafront was all silk.
Where the Waxwings, sealed wax tips,
lumbered about the Empyrean yonder:
splayed upon a Canvas
of Sapphire and Azure.
Before the Starry Night has come.
Before we reached the Shore only to
Digress.
"Liebe verleiht Flügel,"
I heard, or read in a Book.
The Streets are crimson rust;
The Spectators in Sanitariums watched
drab passersby. They shambled and
coughed admixt the crowded room, only
to find the Peristyle vacant and dead.
A Mantic Women, cards of dread,
stands on the corner; our
eyes catched, and She speaks:
"Wo bist du?"
"Wo bist du?"
Louder and fists shaking:
"Wo bist du?"
The buildings doddered, filled with
Cuscuta.
In Montauk, where we met, now withered,
covered in snow, I stood - my comportment
unsteady. Flashing in the distance I see
Point Light - Captain Kidd musing with his
Money Ponds - an Angel guiding wonderous
blights - The Recognitions, blimey,
Mr. Gaddis has gone blind - The Faustian
apotheosis abound -
The Streets are crimson rust
filled with dread.
Smelling of Jack-by-the-hedge -
I'm walking...
Noctivagant aura permeates -
Mich.
Jan 29, 2018
Jan 29, 2018 at 8:18 PM UTC