"I named your lips Fate"

I named your lips Fate
to give myself no choice.
I wouldn't have had the courage,
I would have burned my eyes.

I brushed Fate thrice with my tears
and the preacher mouthed foreign words
that bounced from rooftop to rooftop
like grains of sand in a storm.

The blister squirted me in the eye
and I wept rose liqueur,
mixing salt-sand grit and fig juice
on my cheek and lips.

Bitterly, I bathed in them
with no power to turn them to gold.
I am no alchemist, no tyrant,
and the buskers kept playing to the beggars.

But they call to me, I said, the waves.
If I were captain of a grand ship,
they would all be mine,
this temptuous tempest.
Yet I have neither the courage
nor the roses to woe what I would.

"Katharina"

The king sat proudly on his throne
with looks stonelike, beyond reproach,
and said he naught nor blink'd nor yawn'd,
for wasn't there foe forever known?

But then with no warning nor shout
the castle hold did melt below;
molten keep and crown begone,
and they unknown forever more.

Amidst the heap all lay the vanquish'd,
charred and broken, tired, forgotten;
for there she stood, glorious Beauty,
and her in their eyes forever more.

"Alas, young lass, we've no defense:
your lips too soft, your tread so light,
your eyes lush gardens of delight.
For what power is this that rends
our heart from hand, this cruel paresse,
your loveliness all blinds the bright!"


Clouds sift the sun, and grass does grow
and many years on the meadow waits,
springs well, winds dwell but the King sits
still by the castle thinking ever more

With pain does he who muses poorly
and pours what thoughts of drops that laid
where only night had blindly reigned.
He ponders, silent, and happy.

Then, softly do they float with him
on its lovely scent, this ever-blossom.

"One moment when I was dead"

When I was dead,
There was one moment
When it seemed I was living;
and it lasted for four days.

On the first day, I awoke from my death
By cinnamon breath and grass,
Surprised by the very Greatness
Like a new-born faun, trembling.

On the second day, my heart ballooned,
A jellyfish caught in sugar wind,
Drunk with the sweet syrup,
Without a single thought, simply a-flight.

Yet by the third day, I saw the present through the future.
You laughed, oh you laughed,
But I could only smile
For I knew I would be dead again
the moment I turned away.

The fourth and final day came with no fanfare.
My hands working next to yours
Steeped in tagine, safron fingers.
I see myself going forever through arid plaines
With thick heat scratching at my neck.
But on that last day, you were there,
there to say
Goodbye.

And now I am dead again
With no chance against these thousand hordes;
Yet this time I have a weapon:
They vanish at the echo of your voice
And fall under the memory of your eyes.