Sonnets For M. Bariele
(1)
For the tearless beauty blue of eyes I
Could not but tell you where my strength lies. Black
Sheep of black paradise, I can’t defy
The seduction that promised what I lack
In my anomie state: your white breast drips
Onto my tortured lips, my tongue sips
Every strand of love you wear like the moon
Naked to bed. And when between your hips
I like a pollen is shaken, there to swoon -
How could I lie again since reason slips
Drunken to the floor of desire? No need
I for eyes when I can smell your skin bare
And taste your passion: grape without the seed
Blindness is but a candle lovers share.
(2)
Grind me as your Samson to corn and floor
I am bound by desire to love you more
Strip me of faith, and let me naked kneel
Where Jehovah in you His truth conceal
No man shall come to paradise again
Except through the portals of your yielding
Sweet water on the suckling fire of my pain.
You are the elixir of balm and healing,
The beauty no Israel brings to light
And before your wonder I lose my sight.
When grinding on the floor the walls shall fall
From the tumult of bodies free at last
To merge and melt and mellow to the call
Let us not despair that this too shall past.
(3)
I am an Israelite with gifts divine
Starved from the fleshpot and denied of wine
Your vine gates are opened and here I am come
To sip at your dewdrops, eat your sweet grapes
Wander the contours of skin and kingdom
And moan for your white hands to part the drapes.
I am willing not leave your bed again
Drench me pleasure make the most holy mine
I yearn for your Shekinah, and the stain
That frees us from the curse and the design
Blighting angels joy to sing. Take my eyes
A vessel without strength no vision needs
I am supplied by all that faith denies
In your betrayal my task succeeds.
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