Fermented Fruit

There is no need for anything to end,
Although everything must die.
Suppose one day I lift my gaze,
All onyx and obsidian,
To find I cannot brush your cheeks
With stardust fire,
To find I cannot stop the world
Within those iced-mercury eyes,
To find I cannot, dare not say it,
Press my tongue into a cliche
And bring it back laden in
Fermented fruit?
You belong to my smiles and whispers,
I don't want to abuse you.
And if one day I lose those
Corridors and dragon dens
Between black-bleeding heartstrings,
Then let me, darling, let me
Fade away.

Calypso

I want to stand at the edge of the universe
the red-black calypso
waiting-always-waiting
where words can be so sharply tasted and
morphine tar is only
one
step
behind
I want to breathe, to scream, and drink as the world
falls apart apart apart
and know
your hands on my stomach
chin on my shoulder
ten fingers tightly twined
I am safe
I am bright and beloved
I am yours
as all other things crackle and
die

Beethoven Whispers

Smooth, smooth, a trickling descent,
A shine, a glance, a sigh.
Dipping each too-thick fingertip
Into pearl-scented longing,
Into dusty vanilla dreams.

Alive and asleep,
Cascade, slip, trip, fall.
Lifted and plummeted,
Snowfall and raven,
Crystalline discordance crackles.

Here I find love,
Coaxing oh-so-sweetly love from
Clumsy keys.
Debussy, Mozart, Clementi,
Oh, unravel me your secrets!

Piano flight, piano voice, Beethoven beauty.
Tonal whisper, with me forever.
Hush, child, hush.
You were always meant
Always meant
Always meant
To be
Alone.

Smell of tarnished paper,
A yellowed edge,
Long-forgotten staffs and stems.
My name, Yeong:
Eternity,
Alone within this.

I belong to blue-aurora water,
Swaying seaweed.
I belong to autumn phoenix fire,
Bright decay.
I belong to music, to music,
All the voices of the earth!

Let me be a part of love,
Of harmonic symphonic and
Atonal love, the
Sweet Discordance.

What cost, Ludwig, Johann, Maurice,
Forsaking mortal love for that
Eternal song?
Only your humanity, child.
Only your humanity.

Reclamation

I am no more than a poet,
An arcane apprentice to a wordsmith.
Full of formless ethnic allusion and alliteration.

There was a time when tedium gagged my muse,
Took her to that lake of black-green waves
Whose name is Trivial, Little Use.
And thereupon she languished, each lustrous word devoid,
Blind and hungering for beauty, well-destroyed.

Let us go, then,
To that corrosive crest which rests upon the swells,
Crumbling cliffs where languor dwells,
Let us truss the blank-faced captors in a white-gold thread of dream,
And cast them in the black-green waves which reek of soured cream.

My soul is weak and wavers at soulful tasks
In which you, Helios, reign undeniable.
I shall perch upon your chariot-seat and bask
Within the gently lapping sunbeams and the butter-yellow clouds,
Cast away the burlap shroud,
Send my spirit soaring on and singing all aloud.

I hope I am no damsel in distress,
No coquette in a silken cherry dress to you.
I pray my lame and birth-wet charm had not disarmed
Your faculties, for that was nothing but a crude excess.

You are the knight who climbed upon my bower,
Unchained latent power which devours all despair,
Let me set my circlet on my raven hair,
Declare once more a nation of my amateur creation.

I love thee in the setting free of words,
In lifelong celebration and in strife,
In revelation which awakes stiff life.

If Helios should pass above my kingdom only once,
Leaving lonely sun to rise apart,
One tiny flame remains sequestered and preserved
To light the jeweled candles in my heart.