"syrinx" poems
of evident invisibles
exquisite the hovering
at the dark portals
of hurt girl eyes
sincere with wonder
a poise a wounding
a beautiful suppression
the accurate boy mouth
now droops the faun head
now the intimate flower dreams
of parted lips
dim upon the syrinx
8.3k
How this **** fable instructs
And mocks! Here's the parody of that moral mousetrap
Set in the proverbs stitched on samplers
Approving chased girls who get them to a tree
And put on bark's nun-black
Habit which deflects
All amorous arrows. For to sheathe the ****** shape
In a scabbard of wood baffles pursuers,
Whether goat-thighed or god-haloed. Ever since that first Daphne
Switched her incomparable back
For a bay-tree hide, respect's
Twined to her hard limbs like ivy: the puritan lip
Cries: 'Celebrate Syrinx whose demurs
Won her the frog-colored skin, pale pith and watery
Bed of a reed. Look:
Pine-needle armor protects
Pitys from Pan's assault! And though age drop
Their leafy crowns, their fame soars,
Eclipsing Eva, Cleo and Helen of Troy:
For which of those would speak
For a fashion that constricts
White bodies in a wooden girdle, root to top
Unfaced, unformed, the nipple-flowers
Shrouded to suckle darkness? Only they
Who keep cool and holy make
A sanctum to attract
Green virgins, consecrating limb and lip
To chastity's service: like prophets, like preachers,
They descant on the serene and seraphic beauty
Of virgins for virginity's sake.'
Be certain some such pact's
Been struck to keep all glory in the grip
Of ugly spinsters and barren sirs
As you etch on the inner window of your eye
This ****** on her rack:
She, ripe and unplucked, 's
Lain splayed too long in the tortuous boughs: overripe
Now, dour-faced, her fingers
Stiff as twigs, her body woodenly
Askew, she'll ache and wake
Though doomsday bud. Neglect's
Given her lips that lemon-tasting droop:
Untongued, all beauty's bright juice sours.
Tree-twist will ape this gross anatomy
Till irony's bough break.
8.6k
ghost-like, the song of syrinx,
seven hollow reeds plucked
to make a flute, a star-wish
where the dark waters ride,
(the horned god laughs and plays),
shrunk to a dusk, the river mute,
her voice trickles over stone
and leaf, branches reflected, pools and
caves where otters breathe, where
drinks the evening dew -
her voice fades like a star as pan
awakes, his pipe brushes her lips,
sings of the infinity of night of
a moon white-layered like stone,
dancing like a woodland breeze.
Sep 5, 2018
Sep 5, 2018 at 6:06 PM UTC
Look where she flies, fleet-footed Syrinx,
her chiton drenched, her sole bruised.
See the stalks that kiss her calves,
bend to embrace, then spring back:
green as the nymph, slender as she,
fragile flutes and ankle-bones.
She thinks to hide her in a reed;
but she has always been a reed,
always shown the promise of instruments.
She has been brittle; she has dreamed
of the god's hand to splinter her,
and craft of tatters, beauty and music;
awaits the lover of earthen nails
to put his mouth on her, his life's breath in her,
and make her broken body sing.
Nov 6, 2011
Nov 6, 2011 at 12:31 PM UTC
High upon a basalt cliff,
carpeted round with lily fields
and blanching poppys' lips,
high upon a basalt throne,
Persephone sits.
Frail as lily wands,
lithe as Syrinx songs upon a reed.
And there, below,
grim Sisyphus,
and there the Centaur-sire
spins upon a wheel of fire.
And there, Tantalus sits grinning
mumbling prayers of sin and sinning,
hunkered down to steal the peach
which quickly leaps beyond his reach.
Or there, a hundred weary sisters
with a hundred leaking jugs
and a cistern dry as bone.
High upon the basalt cliff,
still as infant breath upon the air,
Persphone, sits and stares.
Feb 1, 2017
Feb 1, 2017 at 12:31 PM UTC
Profanities,
declarations
bombastic, love/ hate sprayed, whatevers,
beer-stained brutalist underpass
the lake, a paper-mill, stink of pulp-steam,
dog-shit minefield ,fast-food cartons
park-and-riding, egg-fried verges
turgid outflow,
Down this squeezed tube,
of dead algorithm n' *****
blue-green algea ,wetland gangrene,
come Nightingales..
Meliflous revelry,
distinctive dichotomy,
obvious opposite
oddity
Beneficent Mediterranean
medicine chugged via
secretive syrinx
sweet,
sweet
sweet unplugged jugular
thick cut clarity, every
note a pearl-dropped hope for muddled
ditches, creeks and jetties, broken
wings of football pitches
blood of oak and bluebell
soaking smoke above the muddied tracks
and clearing,
clearing all
before their song
May 21, 2023
May 21, 2023 at 3:05 AM UTC
Bamboos
Bend lithely
To strong winds
Sparrow's eyes
Speak of admiration
You may fall
But this, I tell you:
Broken reeds
Play great music
Hark Pan's story
Of his syrinx,
Beloved.
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 8:49 PM UTC