WHEN THERE WAS WINE IN THE GOURD, NOT VINAIGRETTE

WHEN THERE WAS WINE IN THE GOURD, NOT VINAIGRETTE

When there was wine in the gourd, not vinaigrette,

and we didn’t put a brown paper bag

like an executioner’s hood over the bottle

we drank from each other’s skull like an sos.

Crazy elixirs that tasted like poison at first

until I fell in love with what they turned me into.

And the way you could purr when you were drunk

and I stroked you under the chin like a mantra, aum,

just before we made love to each other as if love

were a sin, not a virtue. Our irrationality was above

the reproach of the little test-tubes and telescopes

taking water sample of our tears to see what

what absurdities polluted us like acid rain.

We made love to each other and we couldn’t

stop laughing at the way people squirreled

their emotions like black walnuts away

in the heartwood of the tree that engendered them.

We weren’t being mean. The humour was existential.

And the last laugh was on all of us.

Just some very serious things seem funny when

you see them from a certain angle, unafraid

of making the same mistake twice, thrice, four times

a night, until there are more embarrassed mirrors

in the house of life than there are mice.

You wore huge moon hoops in your ears

and even your earlobes didn’t break the circle

we were orbiting around each other in

like a binary star system in the grip

of each other’s gravity bridging the gap

between us like a suspension bridge of toffee

or the action of dark matter at a distance

that spun silk mandalas out of its spidery psyche.

I overloaded your server, and you, mine.

After that there was nothing to opine about.

We were selfish, mad children amusing ourselves

with alternative zodiacs the astrologers

had forgotten about like ghost towns when

the moonlight ran out like a silver mine.

With you I lived six months of my life

as intensely as a war torn dragon ever wanted to.

You orgasmed like a supernova in a black hole

that had bitten off more than it could chew.

We exceeded the limits of each other as if

life weren’t fast enough to catch up to our afterbirth

like the light of a star in an ancient galaxy

millions of parsecs away from telling you where

it’s at now. We were finger printed like emission spectra

for the labyrinthine legends of our personal history

and as for the intimate details of the rest, they’re

just going to have to wait until they’re dead

to ride the flying carpet of the flesh

like a wavelength pulled out from under

the noose of sex they tied around their necks

like umbilical cords giving birth to them all the time.

Fire, fire, fire, in my loins that wasn’t fathered

by a mystic note sewn into anyone’s coat

when I see God framed like a woman in a window

fixing her hair for the night, plumping the tresses

of the willow who avers she’s mourned long enough

for deaths and abandonments she can’t do

anything about. Love would make martyrs of us all

if we let it. I wonder if the autumn leaves

ever wonder if they’re dying for something

bigger than they are when they immolate themselves

like moths and loveletters in the candelabra

of a tree they’re drawn to like crows in a winter sunset?

You were the amazing water sylph at the prow

of the moon ploughing the sea like a dolphin.

Seabirds and their reflections burned like kisses

on your shining skin and the poetry didn’t

have a cruising altitude where the worlds level off,

and we, who had drunk from our skulls, knew

of a certainty no one else could do our dying for us

so why let them live our lives, as if

wild grapevines had to grow like English cucumbers.

We were hated for this kind of freedom

to heed ourselves like two hurricanes on nightwatch.

And whenever you were pink, it was

a warning and delight to a seasoned sailor

who wanted to drown more deeply in you

than the moon would ever be able to again.

Love with you wasn’t a reward or a punishment

or training wheels on a dream no one

could make come true and remain

spontaneous about it, which kills it as a gift

and makes it more of a wage, than a windfall.

Our senses lit up like the eyes and fingertips

of enlightenment emerging from the dark like stars

we were quantumly entangled in like

the old moon in the new moons arms, or lovers

in a sacred hotel room that didn’t leave bibles

in its drawers for sinners who have trouble

sleeping at night even with the mirrors covered

with veils nobody can see through to the other side.

I never expected you to make the exit that you did

but, then again, every Perseid has its radiant,

and somebody’s got to wish upon a falling star

just to cover their bets in case the emergency

fire alarm breaks its glass ceiling and secularism

isn’t right, and anthropomorphism sees the light

and man is adorned by the garland and the garter

of a female god that fills the mangers

with fledgling messiahs that win their wings

after they fall for her without any spiritual parachutes on

that will return them to earth gently again.

God bless the meteor that wiped me out

like a species that had to change like a raptor into a bird

to be worthy of the moonrise it sang its heart out to.

PATRICK WHITE