Wednesday, March 14, 2012

A TRYST WITH THE MUSE AT AN UNGODLY HOUR


A TRYST WITH THE MUSE AT AN UNGODLY HOUR

A tryst with the muse at an ungodly hour.
The past creatively adapts to the moment
as readily as the future does. The bronze age flames
of your auburn hair, withered petals
of a fire flowering in the rain
that may be down, but not out.
The wellspring of a muse is always
the third eye of a woman overwhelmed by tears
at the approach of spring. Last night,
pink-lilac Mercury on the short leash of the sun,
Venus as bright as I’ve ever seen it
and nearby Jupiter dim by comparison,
Sirius southeast of Orion, then Mars,
and shortly before dawn, Saturn.
I stood for an hour at the backdoor
of the all night laundromat, out
in the parking lot behind the Chinese Restaurant,
while the streetlamps held their heads down in reverence
as if they’d all taken vows or something,
and I, cigarette in mouth, looked up
like a chimney spark in awe of a radiance
so unattainably beautiful all I aspired to
seemed merely the ashes of firefly by comparison,
a runt of light in the vastness of the fire-womb
of a busy, busy sky, while
I waited for my laundry to dry.
And the last time I can remember feeling like that
was combing my hands through your hair
as if were laving my roots in your bloodstream,
without getting my fingers burnt
walking on fire all the way
to the gibbous moon of your earlobe.
And here you are at the door again
like the red maple key
of a rainy night loveletter
that’s let itself in soaking wet
to inspire me to write it in tears.
To shed my eyes like the starmaps
of last night’s luminaries, to tear down
the old spider webs of the defunct dreamcatchers
hanging like constellations
at the broken windowpanes
of the abandoned houses of the zodiac.
I was on my way to the homeless oblivion of my bed
as if I’d found a heating grate to sleep on
to keep me warm for another night.
As I once saw a man in old Montreal
after a poetry reading at Concordia,
curl up on his cardboard flying carpet
as if he’d run out of places to go,
friends, family, lovers he used to know
and pulling the shadows up over him
let himself by swept up on the concrete shore
like a dead starfish on his own private island.
Every time you step across my event horizon
you break another taboo of mine, your voice
slips into mine like a watersnake into a moonlit lake
and you become the connubial chanteuse
of an unspeakable solitude with something to say.
It’s always been this way with you.
A fire-bird flies into the room at night
like inspiration through an open window
just as I’m about to put out the lights
because the music’s over and the dancing girls
of the candleflames have completely disrobed
and stand naked in gowns of wax at their feet.
And just as I’m about to leave my seat in a dark theatre,
you come in the guise of an usher
to show me the way out of curtain call
like the moonrise of a crocus in the snow.
And I can hear you from way off
like a ghost being summoned
by an empty lifeboat in the fog.
Like a fragrance of life returning
to the apparition of my spirit
when you kiss me and it feels
like someone doing cpr on my deathmask
to prove I can’t hide from you anywhere
even here, where I’ve said
who I thought I was in my solitude
and buried my name in the night
like a silver star-shaped locket
deep in the palm of your fathomless hand
for you to remember me by before I drown
again in again in the eyes of Isis
like a sailor who sees a different life
flash before him every time
he goes down for the night
and can’t get Venus off his mind.
Because even in the empty parking space
of my deathbed in a dark room
lying there like a crystal skull
that’s gone prophetically blind
in the shroud of the black sail
I’ve taken down like the tent
of a wild iris in mourning down by the river,
even when my eyes fail
before the unattainable,
I can feel through my fingertips
you coming on to me like a stripper in braille.

PATRICK WHITE

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