So without further ado,
*drumroll* (Ok, I guess that, particularly, was further ado. Oh well.)
Phoenix' Bloom
J.S. Harlow
"It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person."
--W. Somerset Maugham
Tent. Night falls. Smoke rises.
I have followed a dead road. The brush
That brightened me has desiccated;
The sand that rubbed me is in the cracked
Soles of my feet. All out is flat--it's
Nothing. The phosphorescent
Eyes that were my brother's eyes
Have misted over and gone colder
Than dead meat. I
Have left him
Alone
Finding an earned
Lover.
In the tent the candle
Lights, and--
She is mine. The world
Burns in a blush. The wick
Blackens the candle's
Wax. I feel her
Beneath me. I feel. Radiance: A phoenix'
Radiance--A Phoenix
Beauty. A
Diamond
In African jungles
Hawked
With sweaty palms
On the bones
Of forgotten blacks,
Sold sterile by Death
In a tweed coat
In a bright lit mall.
Stop. Stop! What? My consummation's
Turning dark.
My thoughts of her are growing
Dim. Her form
Changes. She is so similar,
Yet, as she blazes now, she's brighter
Than before.
Epiphany: I see
Our shadows
On canvas.
Her heart beats rhythm against my
Chest. I cup it with my hand with
Greed.
Nas ilhas de outros homens
Her beauty is gold. In the islands
Of other men it severs native
Palms; it sets a red tide to lap at
Crusty trunks. I see their faces,
Cherry red, mouths gasping. And their
Wives raw rubbed toes are scrabbling desperately
In the grit. They are flinging themselves to
Death on the rocks and in the dregs of the ocean.
They are finding that they are dying in
Numbers to match all of them that are living. They're done for.
It's done. We've done it. Nós o temos
Feito. Acabou.
She is changing.
Her hair is: no. Her
Feathers are soft and red like the
Skin on an Indian girl's wrist.
They are soft like that
Wrist on that
Hand on
Those fingers: fingers that are
Calloused, thick and mauled.
If you saw them you would
Compare them to
Sausages that are bursting from their casings,
And they are bleeding on the cobblestones as she
Picks dropped foreign coins from between them
So carefully after work each evening.
But those wrists are graceful.
The girl's face is
Dark.
My Beauty. How?
Her eyes are black.
They are oceans of Russian oil
Boiling out of her. There is a
Youth now who cannot feed
His brothers and sisters while the fat
Are purchasing imported mustard
Jars and pickled wieners, trying to be content,
At least. One world
Away they're smiling. Here
The snow is falling and
The man in the black suit is smiling and
No one else is as
He leads the boy away
Between the silver trunks of the trees for no
Reason that the boy can understand and
His brothers
And his sisters
Will never see his slender face
Again.
I don't know if I can carry on with this:
Every part of her is gleaming like this
Fire, yes, and, in the dark night the way she looks
Directly at me has my heart
Beating perhaps
A pace
Apart.
Her talons are long and
Chrome and
Grasping hard, and, Lord,
What could they stand for but for
Themselves? Cruelty, perhaps:
As symbols of their purpose.
Now that I love
Her she has the aspect of a hawk.
What was my heart,
To kill another heart?
My heart rushes.
She is mine. My heart,
It is a people in the desert
Covered in black to
Ward themselves from
Storms and
From their fellow men
And women.
There is a glimpse between
Two lovers
Who consummate their sins for sin.
That is what my heart is right now,
Dragging at the corners of my eyes
As the sun rises and
She rises
To meet it.
She is too warm. She
Shivers as we
Pull apart--her
Bloom's a black
Corona--I shiver
As she uncoils
From the tent.
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