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.
Since long before the Russians shook your walls, And ere the Prophet’s prophets spread his word, Or Alexander feasted in your halls And found you even fairer than he’d heard – Your golden domes upon your golden sand Have tempted men and kings since Darius. Who needs the Muses when we’ve Samarkand ? What would ye, Ladies ? It was ever thus !
I met a maiden from an ancient clan, Who held a gaze as old as Summertime, She traded finest silks by caravan Across the Steppes that only camels climb I should have bid her health, and gone my way, And never mind the henna on her hand, But no, I had to make excuse to stay – Men are unwise, and curiously planned.
She showed a little of her precious stock, The bolts she brought from China to Tashkent: She laid them out upon the desert rock, And stroked the fibres of the Orient. Countless caterpillars gave their lives for each, In patterns joyfully superfluous – Not that they care what moral they may teach: They have their dreams and do not think of us.
We spent the chilly night beneath their thread, As she unveiled the promise of the East – But come the dawn, her cloths-of-heaven bed, Like her, had fled – and I woke ached and creased. I wonder if, in dehydrated spunk, I’d summoned her mirage at my command – We Englishmen, when we get hatless-drunk, We take the golden road to Samarkand.
Two Ways to Samarkand
What wouldst thou, Flecker, it was ever thus – Readers are wise and rhythmically planned. They have their Road, so do not make a fuss. They think your Journey never really scanned.
This is a sort-of rondeau redoublé, except that the first verse whose lines then get repeated as the final lines of the others is missing, and wasn’t written by me, but by James Elroy Flecker in his famous(ish) The Golden Journey to Samerkand. From what I can gather, the poem appeared both ‘album length’ in a play, and cut down to a ‘single’ containing only the last part, both of which end with the four lines I’ve borrowed here. However, different references seem to say either ‘Golden Road’ or ‘Golden Journey’ in the last line, hence my second poem. ‘Darius’ is intended to be pronounced with the enphasis on the first syllable – I realise that some people place it on the second, but that just wrecks my rhythm. Incidentally, by ‘hatless-drunk’, I mean sunstroke.
My darling, do you not yet see That you, and you alone, Have access to my being That to others is unknown ? My body, dressed in nakedness, This flesh in which I’m sewn Is yours and mine exclusively, With covers slipped and thrown. For if another eyed me Like I love to have you spy me, Then I’d take offence most highly At the violation shown. And if another clutched me, Like I love to have you touch me – Then they importune me muchly In my most forbidden zone. But when that touch is yours, I shall not blush, Nor hold you back, except to slow the rush – Don’t fret you are rebuked if we sometimes must postpone.
No other gets a look-in Once my modesty has flown – To only one I’m willing, And to only one condone. And though it’s never yours to take, But always mine to loan – I choose to lease it full and free, To weave into your own. But should it prove unnerving When my body’s joyful curving Leaves you feeling undeserving, Then allow me to atone – Perhaps you need remindings Of your fingers and their findings As they slip my many bindings, Be they button, lace, or bone. Besides, the sweetest part, in the event Is not the act itself, but the consent. And that I give you gladly – to you and you alone.
This is written with a female voice, incase it wasn’t obvious.
Rhyming Couplets 