3. The Hourglass Hostess
I
Among the bowls of
lilacs of an April afternoon
And so the scene arranged itself – and it shall seem brand new –
With, “I have sacrificed an hour for you”;
And four good posts within the red-lit room,
Four minutes past the hour that struck and moved ahead,
The meeting in the Paris Catacombs
That was made for things unsaid which should be said.
We have felt, let us say, that Charles Baudelaire
Wrote his Nevermore and lost his fingertips.
“So tale-told, his heart, that I think the dismal soul
Should be holed-up and cemented in,
His friend a casualty, should not therefore presume
To draw in guests while in the drawing room.”
And so, the conversation slips,
Among talismans, preternaturalisms,
To leave the paternoster
(Howsoever it ends)
And begins,
“You do not know how much he means to me, this dog,
And how, how rare, and strange it is to find
In life proposed to be as such, as such of odds and ends,
(For indeed he still does love it…he knows…he is not right.
How good you are!)
To find a dog who has a quality,
Who has, and takes
That quality upon which his master gives.
How much it means to him that I say this to you –
Without this doggy – life, what “Quibbling!”
Of more than sonnets
Inside my brain an iamb next begins
A trochaic inversion of its own,
Spondee perhaps postpone,
That is at least one definite footnote.
Among the habiliments,
Discuss how life cements,
Check to the heel if he begins to bark.
Then let him run off-leash around the park.
II
Now that lilacs do not bloom
She has air freshener for her room
And sprays mist with her fingers while she talks.
“Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What love is; you who let it slip from your hands”;
(Spraying freshener while she talks)
“You let it go from you, you let it go,
And love is gone, and gives so much remorse
And leaves situations which before you couldn’t see.”
I excuse myself,
And ask if she would pee.
“Yet in this cold December, here I can recall
My only love, and not so much a fling,
I feel less hope and ill at ease, and find the world
Though in the Advent, less splendid after all.”
The scent returns from the white porcelain bathroom
Of liquid hand soap dispensed in a perfume
“I want to be sure
that you understand
My feelings, please be sure that you feel
Sure, the hour only gives this much sand.
You are indefatigable, you have mercurial wings,
You will leave me, and when you have parted
You can say: at this point my ship unfurled its sail,
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To advise, what advice can you receive from me?
Only love is cruel, and have sympathy
Of one who finds her voyage end at lands’ end.
I shall sit here reading what you’ve penned…”
I take my coat: how
can I make much sacrifice
For where she took me in?
You will see me in my habiliments
Trudging snow, praising less her sentiments.
Particularly I find stark
Her little dog has run away.
A love thought lost has returned to her a stray,
A German Shepherd – might have guessed.
I keep my thought composed
I return yet unconfessed
Except in feelings overcome,
I write derisive Platitudes in age-old perfect rhyme
In meter of dithyrambic poetry
Recalling things that men before me have required.
Have I a right to feel inspired?
III
The Winter night comes down, returning as before,
Except for a nice sensation of being more at ease,
I mount the steps and turn the handle of the door
And feel as if I’d have her on her hands and knees.
“And so you are being published, and when will it come out?
But there’s no certain answer.
You hardly know what your reader will glean,
You will have so much to leave.”
My joy overcomes me in the red-lit room.
“Perhaps you will see me less.”
My conscience flares up for a second;
This is not as I expect.
“I have been wondering
frequently of late
(But final say is yours or mine decide!)
Why you and I developed into friends.”
I feel us share a smile, in parting disembark
Slowly, and look upon the glass.
My conscience flutters; an hour on the mark.
“For everybody hates that, everyone,
They are not sure two postures can relate
So closely, I myself readily understand.
We are victims of our fate.
You will write at any rate.
Perhaps it is not too late.
I shall sit here, reading what you penned.”
And I may borrow from her this style
That finds expression…felt, felt
In the first octave,
Not humanity, but post-humanity.
Let us take up our pens in a certain stance –
Well! and what if she should call some afternoon,
Afternoon grey and snowy, evening icy and cold;
Should call and find me sitting book in hand
With the ice hanging down from off the rooftops;
Doubtful, for it would
Not be the best weather at lands’ end.
Such a visit might be a preternaturalism…
Could I yet have the advantage, after all?
The spondee still postponed by the broken glass
Now that we call that ‘glass broken’ –
So, all the sand which used to gather?
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