PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

i
This is sufficient shelter for our night:
chateau of solid stone, founded on rock.

The tall windows are barred so that the panes
may be opened to draw the fragrant air

in, even past sunset.  The feral fiends
(drooping eyes crimson, and drool-dripping fangs

sharper than knives) cannot find any way
to breach the outward fence that has been blessed

by reading of the everlasting Words
of Scripture (thus, the inner fence as well).

The rotten stench that reeks from these unDead
cannot assail us through the garden's full

bouquet of fragrances from flowers, trees,
and vines clinging to trellises and walls.

This is Walpurgisnacht, in which their sort
grow bolder toward those not fully prepared.

But we need not suffer more than the least
effects---the murmer of their gibberish,

and that infernal red glow of their eyes
beneath those sagging, decomposing lids.

Such monsters do not think:  they simply lust
to be served and their appetites sated.

Far from their reach---the cold cadavers' touch---
we need only turn from their sounds and guise.

The dogs are all inside; the cats also;
each in its fireside place, stretched out, relaxed.

ii
The windows have been opened just a bit
so that the scent of life in bloom may fill
this chamber. This, with multitudes of lit
candles and, in the fireplace, dancing flames
provide the comfort of real life and warmth.
Our guests, who had arrived this afternoon,
have come out of their room after resting
from their long journey.  They are just in time
to watch as you descend the main, grand stairs.
Your beauty is in perfect aspect here:
well-coiffed; clad in a modest, floor-length gown.
Beneath its hem, your unshod feet are sheathed
in soft, white, silk stockings, translucent to
your toes enclosed in reinforcements---just
as soft but doubly woven against snags
(therefore opaque). Your footsteps seem to glide
over the stairs' steps and your winsome smile
gives invitation to our revelry.
The appetizers are soon to be brought
as we begin our Euchre tournament.
You are a lady, certainly, but swift
to seize a trick with trump or else deploy
both bauers with lightening speed (they always seem
to find their way into your winning hand,
and not the cat's hand; maybe that is all
the closer they can come to give homage---
applause for them---before your stockinged feet).
After the appetizers and the games,
we shall sit down to dine---a hearty meal.
But first we shall offer a grateful prayer
to Christ our regnant Lord for sustenance
and His protection from that pestilence
outside: those blasphemers who seek, by night,
to plunge us into absolute darkness,
despite the moon and stars that cross our sky.
Feasting, we shall share more of fellowship's
foremost delight---a conversation's flow.
Then back to the felt-covered table: there
we shall attempt, once more, to win a round
against your rather formidable skill.
After you gently humble us again---
a quarter of an hour or so before
the chime of midnight (when those unDead fiends
have reached the peak of their demonic strength)---
we will take seats beside the crackling hearth
as your best friend (from school days) entertains
us with her talent on the classic harp.
Shoeless like yours, her purple-stockinged feet
caress the harp's brass pedals in a way
that would have made me envious were I
not fully, wholly, solely satisfied
by your sheer love and teasing playfulness.
Meanwhile, her fingers pluck from those taut strings---
fastened erect upon the upswept harp's
handcrafted, upper frame---such gentle notes
in lilting melody that warms our hearts,
and with profound complexity, it takes
our breaths away; giving no cognizance,
not even once, to those foul things outside.
Crescendos, dimuendos, scherzo, fugue
(or so I think I hear) precede a short
sonata. And then she concludes with a
sacred adagio in minor keys.
My ears, though not well tuned, enjoy all that.
Meanwhile, my eyes cling to your stockinged feet---
the flex and curl of your toes, and the way
one foot plays with the other. As the last
tone falls away to silence, we remain
in quiet contemplation without words,
until the fire becomes embers. By this
late hour, our guests have tired, especially
our fine musician. So we shall part for
the night---they to their rooms and we to ours,
safely ensconced in this impregnable
secured, sheltered, chateau to wait for dawn.

iii
Worse than a noxious spider perching in
its web, littered with shriveled carcasses
of flies and fecal droppings, those dreadful
rebellious corpses (self-killers, each one,
or victims who chose the self-kill to please
seductive predators) begin to wheeze
and then to keen in damnable lament
that they have found no prey tonight . . .as yet.
Throughout the land, the well informed keep safe
within their hovels, cottages, chateaus
and palaces. Alas, from time to time,
someone too confident or some poor fool
will venture out too soon, and are devoured
or else converted to be damned as well.

iv
After you step into your bubble bath
(with scented candles and exotic salts;
your hair pinned up that it should not be wet),
I close the door behind me and fetch a
volume of poetry and sprawl upon
the downturned bed. The poems are signed "Etienne,"
of whom precious little is known, except
that he worked as a money broker and
his private life was mostly difficult.
In all his verses, many voices speak:
a comic on a stage, a man who lives
among the refuse other people toss
away; a tourist walking on some shore---
beside a storming sea---hearing a song;
an old man's memories of summer days
spent in the fields, and woods, and one cold creek
around an old ancestral farm, now gone.
All these and others, varied or combined,
present a figure who, in common life,
discovers new---or clings to old---delights
that he has gathered and described, despite
the gorgons, harpies, lycanthropes and ghosts
that lurk beyond his lines' parameter,
forbidden entrance to the hermitage
he has built for himself out of the words
inspired by delectations he enjoys.

v
Into the bedroom, from the bath, you come:
cascades of long hair falling all around
your naked flesh. But not entirely nude:
as you know what I like, your legs are sheathed,
once more, in sheer, white stockings. Without words
you move toward me and, one by one, remove
each piece of clothing on my body.  Then
you stretch out on the bed and pull me to
yourself with firm embrace and ardent kiss.
You offer me your tender breasts to please,
and I hope to deliver thoroughly.
Then you direct me, with the shyest smile,
down to your blossom's petals and its bud
of pleasure underneath a tuft of curls.
I lap the nectar as it flows---as you
almost vibrate with moans from time to time.
I do not cease until you have been spent
and need a brief respite, curled up and calm.
After a little while, you ask me to
move off the bed and stretch out on the rug
(a thick and plush antique) facing upward.
Stretching a bit, you sit up languidly
and placed your stockinged feet upon my face
and then, all over me---a long caress,
followed by teasing tickles---then a glide
slowly over the places where it feels
the best and most exciting; then around
again, more slowly still.  Perfectly sheer
and soft your stockings are; softer moreso,
the opaque reinforcements at your toes.
By now I cannot speak, or even think,
but am enrapt in this exquisite bliss
until the final thrust and full release
of love's precipitate upon your sheer
white stockings. Then you say you will keep them
on while we sleep, until the morning's birds
awaken us to our next, happy day.

Starward

[jlc]