Supple Wry Instincts


Would wintry tricks of sharp melancholy
Draw out from nothingness a good idea?
O how idle gentility does promote
Ascetic rigour in self-discovery
Eschewing fun to run after success.

Palm trees are not often mentioned in verse
Because arabesque thoughts are feminine
Like forbidden veils in French cities
Or laced screens in Alcazar courtyards
Of Seville where one gets singing lessons.

If you were a lady, what would you wear?
O handsome lads who wait for the evening,
You know things beyond the grasp of the zen.
If there was a temple for every thought,
You would be charming Charlotte Gainsborough.

In passing by the world like a comet
There was no time for a calmer review
Of all the kinds of people who live there,
Some have warts and others smell like roses,
Shapes to colour in a big book for kids.

Forgetting the tug of strange desires,
What would you do if you had nothing to do?
Sit, stand, run, show, hide, ride, curl up and sleep?
There's the alarm and it starts all over again:
Thirst, hunger, and the magnetic touch.

When light-heartedness had wings of feathers
Young Icarus got too close to the sun.
The pragmatic pursuit of excellence
Heeds warnings and pegs the tents, down, firmly
Then squares up, eyes squinting, to the blizzard.

Between the tropicana and the frostbite
Are the green pastures of humble foibles
Where at once the dogs bark and the larks sing
At raw truth standing naked with nowhere to lie.
Such supple wry instincts will have you laugh.

Bevagna, 8 3 2008