Railing
at M'lady
I'm incensed with you, Vincent
But adore your
poetry, your gift
The gemmy words studding
The pages where
I've found them
Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Sonnets by the
dozen.
You are to me, an historical anomaly
1916 girls should
be pure and demure
Not given to lovers chasing them
To Paris, or back
and forth across the Channel!
Ah, curse wealth and privilege, fame and fortune,
Skill with the
mouth, tongue and pen,
Why must they so inevitably lead to abandon?
Wherefore Anais Nin?
Damn it, poet! I'm sure I
would've been among
The manly crowd
admiring, longing, lusting
After your red, red lips, your flaming tresses. Perhaps even, scaling that tower,
I'd have shared
in your collective social malaises, Millay.
I refuse to read your biographies because
I'm jealous, out
of season, out of time,
I want Paris, too, the cafes, the words
Glittering like
dark red wine in crystal stems,
And tall, strong Nordic companions
Wearing crowns of
red and gold or onyx
Like the shepherdess of Shulam.
You died before I
was conceived!
But
I've snitched snippets of your life
In the Borders stacks, furtively reading in the middle
Looking at the
pictures, an undisciplined hack.
Your rhyme and rhythm enrapture me, wile’d flapper!
And I wish I had
been on the field then
I'd've won your heart, composed you verse
To show you how,
impossibly, I understood!
I know! My blood is as red,
my words as good.
That I can love
and long with the
Best of them - with
you!
For you.
But I have nothing to commend me
No one knows
these words, my languages
Are all foreign, oriental, scented with cloves and
Black pepper, cinnamon and tea, I have no proper degree
No peerage, no land, or horses, houses, industries.
I've not been to
Paris, I haven't known women.
Only jungle and granite, and deep blue saltwater.
Your price is ever beyond my means, as are all the beautiful
Ones, the
brilliant ones, the red lipped ones, catching the eye
With hooks and tearing the heart, provoking love.
And all I am able
to do is pound out my longing
In words that tumble, and do not flow like the streams from your
mouth.
You did some
pounding, too, perchance. But you had
fulfillment right
There! Why were you not
happy with your English god and all
His
sycophants? The lesser gods before and
after?
And here I am all out of time
My white charger
pawing sand, proud silver
Armor dulled by corroding air, chipped sword in hand
Seeking a flat
horizon for the damsel in distress.
Chivalry did not die with Alfred Lord, that Quixotic Victorian,
But my sword, my
pen are impotent.
Failing even now to rescue the living
Sending for the
dead
For places in the realms of vision
Where dreams
succeed, dragons are slain.
Pity, they are so soft
Rather they were
as real as pain.
