Globiana

This poem received
a 2003 Cambridge Poetry Award.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Soliloquy


To free the fantasy: that is the temptation.
Pleasure is bolder in the mind.  It proffers
Us wings and bids us to outrageous action.
Or to sink in another’s arms in a sea of troubles,
And by engulfing, mend them.  To fly; to leap;
To soar; And by a leap to find we lend
Our heart and reap the thousand natural thrills
That flesh is heir to.  ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.  To fly; to leap; --
To leap?  Perchance to fall!  Ay, there’s the rub;
For in that leap what disillusionment may come,
When we have shuffl’d off this mental foil,
Must give us pause.
                     There’s the aspect
That adds ambivalence to measured life.
For who would choose empty space and time,
Hear no other’s song, self-sufficient solitude,
The pangs of unspoken love, the heart’s delay,
The silence of one, and the loneliness
That patient restraint of the unloving fates,
When she herself might her pleasure take
With a bare body?  Who would not fondle ,
Grunt and sweat with passion’s life,
But that the dread of unquenched burning urge,
The discovered truth within the dream,
No mind forgets, fractures our resolve
And makes us rather bear those lulls we have
Than fly to failures that we know not of?
Thus frustration adds hesitation to the thrill;
And thus the urgent lusty resolution
Is silenced by the pale cast of less
than wondrous touch and motion.
So keep the dream, unspoiled by the real,
And cast a shadow over action.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Soul Sirocco

There is a wind that blows up from North Africa across the South of Italy.  It is very strong and very hot.  Its name is Sirocco.


And you, tumbler of giddy clouds,
Soul Sirocco --
And you, tickler of trembly trees,
Soul Sirocco --
Thief of winds of Aeolus,
Thief of fires of Zeus,
Heed the lure of my lush lust
And fly to me,
Soul Sirocco.

Ere your warm breath spills its sound around me,
I hear you, Soul Sirocco.
Ere your soft touch spurs my urgent yearning,
I feel you,
And that strange familiar almost teases my senses.

And now you swirl you curl around me,
Soul Sirocco.
Your airy winds caress me,
Your fiery tongues ignite me,
All air and fire
We writhe entwined
And bright the night
While men and gods
-- Who would aspire
To passion such as ours --
Seek solace in pale envy.

And our whirl whips our love song from our lips
Soul Sirocco,
And our cry inspires the wild wind to flow.
And we are hush, breathless, and breathed again
And then our dizzy improvised syncopated synchronicity
Catches, twists, and torments all the air from whirling earth to sky
Until the planet’s very breath is spent.

And now we laze and linger in our lusty scent
Soul Sirocco.
The jealous air recovers its ability to stir.
 
On the hot plain far away
Leaves flutter
And curious creatures pause, twitch their ears, narrow their eyes,
And sniff the breeze.

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