VENUS AT APHELION

VENUS AT APHELION

 

Venus at aphelion

is as far as it’s going to get from the sun

going down over the backlit hills of Lanark.

Synteretic spark

where time and the timeless meet

I stand like a fuse asking for direction

knowing what must follow

will knock me off my feet

like an i.e.d. that’s been dying to meet me.

Lone blossom in an apple-green sky

little sister to the earth

Aphrodite in Corinth

where the strangers get laid like an isthmus

by the sacred whores

of your promiscuous devotion

to a libidinous ocean

where desire walks on water

like a fire that won’t go out.

You burn like phosphorous through our tears

until you glow like a hot pearl

on the seabed of a heart

that’s treasured you for years

by growing armour against its fears

without shaping spears to sling back

because you love the slain more than the slayer

the hunger more than the fulfillment

the prayer more than its answer

Atlantis more than any lifeboat

however many were saved

when you move someone to love you

like a mermaid singing to a shipwreck

that’s grown adept at sinking.

Sea-rose

on the coffin of the sun

lowering over the hills

in the afterlife of its light

you alone know what it is

to fling your flower into the grave

and believe like a root in the darkness

there will come another day another spring

when you will rise like the morning star again

and lead the sun up into the sky

and there will be nothing Luciferian in your light

except the bare essentials of delight

that turns falling from a spiritual height

into the sensual calling

of a solitary bird on a green bough in the night

burning with life.

 

PATRICK WHITE