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+ 3RD POEMS: To Matthew And Francis, 2
He has so much so trivial to tell---
and its source is candidly obvious:
reactions tawdry, trite, and tedious.
To credibility he might aspire,
but all his efforts toward that soundly fail;
gone, with his endless repetition, stale.
He never has to fear his words are fraught
with the least semblance of a civil thought;
he thinks his rants successful to debunk
flaws he presumes to judge self-righteously.
Look down upon him from Heaven's vast skies;
and pity his inchoate verbal violence
(he does not cultivate virtues of silence).
On Christ's Day, when that man is firmly put
before the Great Throne (as in Revelation),
having rejected Christ and His Salvation,
and long abandon to lost reprobation,
he will be sentenced to eternal Hell,
and tossed, headlong, into seething Lake Fire
where he will splash down with a loud KERPLUNK.
Meanwhile, enjoy Christ's stellar Paradise;
frolic through those pastel landscapes barefoot.
Somewhere, in the warm South, two adolescent
boys---slender, agile; their hair "a bit too long
girlish" (so say some old folks)---have walked to the
grassy banks at the slow river's shallowest
level (ankle deep).
To avoid suspicions of haters, they brought
cane poles, with no plans to fish. They are shirtless
and barefoot (shoes wear out quickly in summer;
and a Depression, raging, makes cash scarce as
local approval
of their desire for each other); the cuffs of their
baggy flannel trousers pool at their ankles,
so that only their toes are unconcealed as
they stand at "their" bend of the river, screened by
high overgrowth from
hostile scrutiny as their hands have been clasped.
Now the urge comes to exchange ardent kisses---
the kind that are (so they have been taught) sinful---
and shy caresses over uncovered flesh
(oh, yes!) there and there.
Their language has abandoned words for soft sighs,
moans, and giggles---sometimes punctuated by
sudden gasps at surges of overwhelming
pleasures that are much more than the sunlight's slant
through trees' leafy limbs.
In the small town beyond, in their exclusive
enclosures, smuglies nestle snugly in
the narrowness of their attitudes, and the
stultifying sameness that validates their
sort of existence.
Two (long-haired, shirtless, barefoot) adolescents---
beautiful in their love for each other that
this bucolic copse embraces, and over
which the stately grandeur of the sky rotates---
are not yet aware
that on the other side of this, their, world; in
an ancient city of which they have never
heard; in a land far older than they can now
comprehend---an old Poet (of the rarest
and most exquisite
appreciation of the very love that
they, even now, offer to each other; and
whose vision of History's meaning exceeds
any collegiate scholar's understanding) has
entered death, leaving
behind, and to unknown others who are most
capable of appreciation, the small
volume of poems (yet to be collected) in
which he becomes his most authentic self, to
celebrate their love . . . .
Starward
[*/+/^]
