The Book of Erato

Chloris’s Clock

The world’s encompass’d in a face,

Of neither beauty, nor loving sight,

Blind to love’s race,

Ticking with inevitable might.

Its hands in striving passion,

Run ‘round their fates away,

Are wound around eternal dereliction:

Compass of love’s curse: time’s sway,

How could one build such a rate,

As to make anyone cower,

How could one make two lovers for such a fate?

To run and meet but once an hour,

They can only a minute hold,

Each other’s hands in th’ other,

Yet, intrepidly they move on as bold,

As if made for the bother.

Yet such a destiny, how evil can it be?

That at least briefly they may meet,

A clock’s two hands beholden to their constancy,

Find some mom/vements of a spring divinely sweet,

For many, poor souls, run a race around,

In struggling search are bound,

And find no hand to grasp,

Nor any love with ecstasy to clasp.

II.

So pity me, fair hand,

Run with me my course away.

Let’s meet in a pile of sand,

And like the grains be lost in time’s untimely sway,

I’ll allot you not the cruelest task,

Of ticking the seconds away,

Of moving quite so fast,

That you too busy be to cheer me on my way,

No, I’ll be the furious one,

Moving at such a rate,

I mock the tortoise of the sun,

And travel desperately to meet my mate,

My journey will be long and harsh,

Yours, languid beauty’s care,

I ravenously churn a sinking marsh,

While you at my efforts stare.

They’ll prove to you,

My heart’s unyielding yearning,

A labor proving true,

I scoff even time’s unrelenting burning,

We’ll move toward the perfect fate,

Where only our time officiates,

Of which neither you nor I can escape,

And which no lesser clockwork heart than mine could ape.

A Farewell to Chloris in Free Verse

My heart has been devoured like an apple,

You consumed it with delighting hunger,

It became yours, one with you,

Its energy feeds your soul.

Its fabric mends your wounds.

You have taken it, my heart, in sections,

Digesting it bit by bit.

You found its inner, sweetest meat.

You relished it with a wine of fiery blood.

I used to be a banquet for which you hungered.

One you feasted on and after slept,

But now you've left the repast.

The table is cold, abandoned, littered with your leavings.

Worse while you feasted on my heart, did you feed me yours?

No, it was but a short meal, which left too little time.

Still, now you have within you me,

At least in the memory of the pangs I was pleased to fill.

But I am left empty and unsatisfied,

I must walk hungry into the night.

My heart is consumed and I haven’t another:

Only the dregs of a drained wine glass.

My future is unsure; certainly it will not have you,

And for that I may starve;

You having eaten my heart and not given another.

But leave me be:

Even a beggar can find a meal, though she be less rich than you.

Under Her Umbrella

She talked to me for I was under her umbrella.

Reposed with me while I was with her shade.

She chatted with me: she and I were hid from rain.

She sheltered me and I beside her walked.

She looked at me for we, our hips, did touch.

Borrowed Smiles

Your smiles, they once belonged to me.

They arched happily: they spread across your lips,

They climbed your face to meet your eyes,

Which, without price or prize, gave them freely.

The inclination of your head bid to me,

And placed a smile gently on my cheek.

The soft deposit of your kiss,

Said the world was given only what I missed.

But now your eyes have turned away.

Your head stays tilted back.

Your cold and silent lips

Say you lend me slips drawn from another's pay.

I am a borrower of your smiles, and the interest kills as it compiles.

Chloris’s Loss

For Sorn

Hello?

Are you there?

Yesterday,

I heard her near,

She listened

To every word I had to say.

Today,

I feel her near,

Yet she is gone.

Her head is turned away.

Speak to me,

My love,

I implore

and beg her

Tell me.

Say.

I am here,

I finally hear.

I am here!

Come speak to me

My love.

I am here to stay.

I turn to greet my love

Tender with excitement

Holding

Baited breath.

But still

I see her

Turned away.

But still I hear her,

Still I hear her calling.

Desperately,

I think to scream,

For screaming means she has to hear

My meaning.

So I do.

Still mute.

Then I see a calling,

Responding from the distance.

I am here my love,

Says a voice from far away,

Too far to be me hearing,

Or to be my echo saying.

I am here, my love,

Says the voice who now is running,

Screaming, calling, loving,

Embrace my love;

She is turned away.

Embrace another,

A love who answers

Another calling.

And now

Still I stand

Speaking.

But to whom?

Am I mad?

Speak I

And no one listens?

Is it me?

Just myself.

To Terpsichore (Instead of Chloris)

A dancer plays, light on her feet

While love lingers heavily fair:

One a feather wafting sweet,

Another thundering o’er theater stairs.

If he crashes down in audience seat,

She dances, thrilling to dare;

A beauty too deftly dodging ever to be

Captured by so ponderous a fella like me.

And so, like all the others,

Instead of love, I give you flowers.

The Moon and Sun Seen Together at Twilight
USNS Trenton, Somewhere in the Mediterranean

Moon and Sun grace the sky together
Twain lovers meeting twice a day
Longing for a moment longer
They can only for a moment stay
Beholding each but never touching other
Holding love’s twilight sway
A short, sweet glance after
One goes on to rise
While the other dies
In a lovely burning pyre
Of solitary sometimes icy fire

A Romance of the Sea

A ship plows the sea,
Driven forward by her screw,
Furrowing a path leading her,
Between the lapping waves.

She feels them as she goes:
Falling, rising, shuddering
While sea quakes ‘gainst her body.

The sea moves against her,
With a pushing passion,
Smoothly rocking, gently heaving,
Welcoming her into her body
While parting with repulsive force.

The lovers wage,
One ‘gainst the other,
As wind blows a jealous howl.
Aeolus filling hate with seething rage,
Seeing the two (one once his own),
In love’s embrace.

Rapture ruptured,
He vents his bluster upon the lovers.

The ship, she sinks before the tempest’s jealous anger,
Buried beyond his envying temper;
The twain and silent lovers lie in deep embrace.