I love the way your halves combine. I love the way you place each lung With careless grace and good design On either side your centre line, And equidistant from your spine. I love the way your ribs are strung.
I love the way your shoulders fit, I love the way your arms construe. I love the way your kidneys sit, So each, the other mirrors it To keep the couple quite legit. I love the way your hips are two.
I love the way you wear your legs, So nicely paired, and just enough – For with a third, the question begs Of where upon your frame it pegs. I love the way you keep to regs. I love the way you’re up to snuff.
I love your face with eye and eye, I love the way they both are blue. I love the way they flit and fly In unison, to watch me pry Upon thy tygrish symmet-try. I love the way you’re balanced-through.
The penultimate line is inspired by how I always read the fourth line of a certain poem of William Blake’s.
I offered to take her to Pisa – I knew she’s never been. I offered the beauties of Giza, And ev‘er‘ywhere between. I offered her Sinan and Plato and Gluck, I offered her Ozu and Donne I offered her Titian and Tolstoy and Hooke, And ev’rything, ev’rything under the sun. The whole of the planet was waiting before us, And all of its wonders were ours. But no, she left with the stranger from Taurus – I could not compete with the stars.
detail from Experiment with an Air Pump by Joseph Wright
Soul-Lights
Perhaps she is just a chimera, Or otherwise born with this curious guise – For ev‘er‘ytime that I’m near her, I cannot but help to look into her eyes. Perhaps she has suffered a trauma, Where blood is now staining her iris tattoo That partially came to transform her, With one eye of hazel, the other of blue. And further, her hazel is golden Encircling her iris, but greener beyond. Her stare surely has me beholden, Her pupil eclipsing its het’rochrome pond. No contacts nor tumours nor ’Shop-tricks Are needed to give them what rarely occurs. If souls can be glimpsed in our optics, Then softly she carries a rainbow in hers.
detail from Woman Writing a Letter by Gerard ter Borch
Epistophile
Her lovers’ ink, the sneerful think, Is sentimental brine – But no, I say, for each cliché Is lyricment divine ! The very fact her tritesome pact Is heaped upon my shrine Is surely worth all laboured birth – Her rapturelust is mine ! Her spotted graft becomes a draught Of witticismic wine – Her passion grows in purple prose, To bloom incarnadine.
detail from The Moneylender & His Wife by Quentin Metsys
Caveat Emptor
You need saving, I think, you need saving – I don’t know from what, but you need it, and I got it. I choose to lease myself as investment in your craving, (Though nothing gets refunded, as your credit-rating’s rotted.) You think I look expensive, and you think you can’t afford it – When your faith is unsecured, and your int’rest rate obsessed. With all emotions overdrawn, your hope is due an audit – Now you’re out of guarantee and about to be possessed.
Expensive ? Me ? Most surely yes, And very very dear – I will cost you ev’ry single thing, and nothing less – I will cost you all you know, and all that you express – Your ev’ry laugh and ev’ry scream, Your ev’ry try and ev’ry guess, And I will cost your ev’ry lie, and ev’ry truth sincere. Your ev’ry insecurity and neurologic mess – They all belong to me, you hear ? Mine is your perdition, absolution and confess, Mine the power to repress, Mine the power to redeem. I shall be your angel engineer, To grease your thread and mesh your gear, And shine your rusting soul with my caress.
You need saving, I think, you need saving – God knows as from what – you don’t know it, but you’ll get it. I choose to bond myself upon the markets that you’re braving, Expose my soul to risk until we’re equally indebted. You think I look expensive as I gilt your fraying edges, But you’ll enter into contract on my exponential sureties. My platinum promissory shall underwrite your pledges As you finally take stock of all your life-assured securities.
Dizzying ? Me ? Forever yes, And very very sheer – I shall cost you ev’ry single thing that you possess I shall cost your ev’ry hope, and watch them coalesce. Your presentide is mine to gleam Your morrowment is mine to bless And though I know this terrifies, I’ll help you persevere. For mine shall be your ev’ry waking thought and sleeping dream, Mine your ev’ry failing scheme, Mine your ev’ry sweet success. Guilt and joy and lust and fear – They cost far more than money mere, And these are how you pay for me – by bushel, peck and ream. And then, what is more, I press My darling with an added stress – For not just shall you suffer this to give your love supreme. But see, you must attend my tear – For like you, I too revere – So now you must accept the very same from my extreme. Give my passions safe address, For we are quartz, my love, and we are steam.
I intended this to be a metaporical contract near the start of a relationship where one side is saying that they will monopolise all of the other’s attension, but when shown to friends they saw it differently – one thought that it was some pretty hardball divorse negotiations, while another saw the narrator was money itself. Hey, if these work for you, have at it.
I think it must have been a day When ants were flying In July. A long and hot and wingèd day When ants were flying By and by. And that was when we chanced to meet, With grounded ants about our feet.
Those virgin queens and horny males, On scorching days In late July. The queens fly fast to test the males On scorching days When ants must fly. The lads were swarming when we met – But then, one shot is all they get.
The lucky males take turns to mate With picky queens In late July. Upon the wing, the ants shall mate – As jacks and queens Shall fill the sky. And I met you beneath their flights, With royal weddings in our sights.
The girls bite off their wings to reign As wingless queens In late July These girls will never fly again – But hey, the queens At least don’t die ! And you and I were changing lives, As queens got down to digging hives.
Her hair is purest white, not quite, Her skin is hinted bisque, Her eyes are palest blue in hue, Her lips are coral kissed. Her subtleties of shade displayed Are never blanched, but lush – And with a gentle goose, educe A gorgeous crimson blush.
I would just like to add that the goose was consentual.
I was so shy and so urgent for love, He was so cocky and so unforeseen – Montecchi’s scion, forbidden and tough, Flaring my heart that was nearly fourteen. Ros’linda no more, now I shone so bright – Covert our courtings, the game thrilled me much. Made for a beautiful corpse, for one night, Till I awoke to my lover’s cold touch. Darkness his mistress, they lay ’neath my vault – Retching in dazement, I readied his knife. How could I live sans my Roman exault ? How could I die when I’d died and found life ? I did not follow my darling bereft – I betrayed him as he me when he left.
Don’t forget that Juliet was only thirteen, experiencing her first teenage crush.
Ev’ryone knows that love is real – Ev’ryone knows it, cos ev’ryone says. Ev’ryone knows how they’re meant to feel, And if they don’t feel it – well, who’d dare confess ? Ev’ryone’s doing it, Ev’ryone’s wooing it, Ev’ryone, pair-by-pair, Couplets in rhyme. Ev’ryone plays along, Ev’ryone can’t be wrong, Ev’ryone, ev’rywhere, All of the time. We’ve all seen the movies, We’ve all sung the songs, We know what succeeds and we know what belongs, We’ve all of us wanted and wanted to be So wanted and needed, So giddy with glee.
Ev’ryone knows that love is true – Ev’ryone knows it, cos that’s what they’re taught. Ev’ryone knows the whole hullabaloo And if they don’t know it – well, surely they ought ! Ev’ryone’s doing it, Ev’ryone’s brewing it, Evryone’s winning – It’s all in the art. Ev’ryone wants to shine, Ev’ryone toes the line, Ev’ryone’s in on it, Playing their part. And who wouldn’t want it ? And who could rebel ? And who’d be a heretic, breaking our spell ? We all of us want it, we want it so bad That all who foreswear it must surely be mad !
The sweetest thing you ever said, Of all the loving things you said, Is when you murmured in our bed That we were never meant to be. No karmas chimed when first we met, No stars were crossed, no fates were set, No providence in gold and jet, No single-hearted entity.
For no-one had foreseen us, Nor our destinies fore-planned – There was not a plot between us, Nor an ever-guiding hand. It is no spook, but just a fluke Your years are spent with me. For you and I, the augurs sigh, Were never meant to be.
The sweetest thing you ever said, Of all the loving things you said, Is when you whispered through my head That we are nothing more than chance. For we are random in our bearing, In a universe uncaring – Kismet never kissed our pairing, Nor the twists of Fortune’s dance.
For no-one had foreseen us, We were never on the cards – The statistics couldn’t glean us, Nor the sibyls, nor the bards. It’s only luck that we have struck – You were not sent to me. For you and I, the prophets cry, Were never meant to be.
Rhyming Couplets 