Dark Paramour

Here under tall oaks in her garden,
    Where so long she has lured only fools,
Her resolve she enflames and will harden,
      Like hot magma as it slowly cools.
Now over the storm-haunted headland,
      Far under the tusk of the moon,
I yet wander so lost in this dead land,
      Both night and at noon.

Dead specters are endlessly roaming,
    On the eves that mark their demise,
They are seen on her shores in the gloaming,
    As they stare with their pale opaque eyes.
She casts her strong spells on the mountains,
    Far down the glades through the leas,
Stone seneschals stand by her fountains,
    To stare at the seas.

Like a tall young reed, supple, slender,
    Or like aspens that sway in the breeze,
Her beauty can lull and can render
    You unconscious, your very soul freeze.
She’s nubile and facile, most cunning,
    With potions and aloes she’s laved,
Her beauty’s intense and twice stunning,
      All lovers are scathed.

Her gold citadels shine in the thunder,
    During storms that blow in from the West,
Here she’s scheming new ways she can sunder
    This poor heart that still beats in my breast.
Try as I might I will stumble,
    For she breathes in the rarest of air,
Before her are all men made humble,
    From here to Altair.

In strange fanes in her cities I’ve wandered,
    On dark nights when I’ve drunk to the gods,
Such hours with her have I squandered
    And survived against all of the odds.
Her talismans, spells unbecoming--
    She’s more lovely than Venus of old--
We’re all helpless as each one’s succumbing
    To kisses like gold.

Like the Sirens who lured with their kisses,
    On the seas where the Greeks sailed and roamed,
I feel like some latter Ulysses,
    On these shores where the breakers long foamed.
Over and under the ages
    I am pulled and I’m turned as I go,
My lover’s a cruel witch who rages,
    With me now in tow.

Her love and her ardor so taxes
    My poor heart as I hide in the shade,
I am like an oak felled with axes,
    For my dalliance well have I paid!
Her magics beyond all sane measure,
    There’s such guile in her tinniest curl,
This princess of pain and of pleasure,
      This magical girl.

Now span on great span of the star streams
    Has covered me like a dark tomb,
For she is the one who can bar dreams,
    Or enchant you with sighs and perfume.
She’s broken the spell of the wizards,
      With strange ores she has plucked from the sun,
And staunched all her foes with harsh blizzards,
      To oblivion!

Her towers are thick-walled and olden,
    Raised up by dead kings of the past,
Her turrets all silver and golden,
    Her courtyards all granite and vast.
Her windows all opal and garnet,
    And she sighs at the beauty she’s known,
This Jezebel lovely, incarnate,
    Whose heart is as stone.

On fields where her worst foes all die on,
    In great battles that raged until dawn,
Now ghost armies from Edo to Sion
    March nightly till morn when they’re gone.
Their bones bleach hard by these beaches,
    Where their ships were all snagged on the reef,
Now their spirits wail here to the reaches,
    All, all unto grief.

In towers all builded of sorrow,
    She will call up a prince or a swain,
These sad fools they will die on the marrow,
    By her manicured hand are they slain.
Each night there is plenteous laughter,
    And her songs which sound like some rune,
Will echo from donjon to rafter
    Far under the moon.

The horizon is thick with her galleys,
    Her tall quinqueremes carry such gain,
From her tower she lazily tallies
    Gold brought in from the lost mines of Spain.
Triremes with their long oars are rowing,
    Their great holds bearing spices and myrrh,
As fair winds in their sails are now blowing
      These ships unto her.

On eves when the moon seems a beacon,
    Under star streams of purple and red,
Her smile so allures and can weaken,
    And seemingly call up the dead.
Hold back your charms my sweet spellcaster,
    Let storm clouds here block out the moon,
One kiss from your lips is disaster,
    I fall in a swoon.

Her fleets come in Junes and Septembers,
    When the moon is a blade in the night,
And she broods and she smiles and remembers
    Her power and wealth with delight.
On rivers like Ob and the Yangtze,
    Her long barges ply out from the East,
On Nile and Euphrates, Zambezi,
    Bring foods for a feast.

Her lovers like cattle she’s herded,
    Into pens, this maleficent daughter,
With sweet songs so cunningly worded,
    She’s led them like lambs to the slaughter.
Though breezy and lovely and scented
    With rare myrrh and the finest aloes,
She is cold, and so harsh, unrepented,
    A most lethal rose!

So long have I searched and I’ve striven
    Seeking solace while catching my breath,
While all of my efforts you’ve riven,
    And forcing me closer to death.
Your love is like a sweet gallows
    That towers above me and then,
Your kisses are stale, each unhallows
    The lives of all men.

I will fast and pray in her garden,
    And seek God’s forgiveness once more,
And pray that her heart will unharden,
      My most sensuous dark paramour.
So under these oaks I am trying
      All her sins and mine to amend,
I’m through with deception and lying,
      And know it must end.

Her eyes in the dusk so like embers,
    As she waits by the fruit bearing lime,
She is dreaming and always remembers
    The lovers she pulled out of Time.
Her frown like a rip tide will sunder
    Your life and your soul from the start,
Her anger like Zeus-driven thunder,
    That will break your heart.

Now I try in these barren regions,
    Her ramparts to breach and to storm,
But she slays my war-hardened legions
    And leads me to ultimate harm.
She is winsome and guileful and clever,
    While her love is a razor sharp blade,
And with it she’ll dice you and sever,
    Duplicitous maid!

Her evil can startle and chasten,
    Yet too late for her lovers to save
Their lives though they scramble and hasten,
    They are buried, unmarked, in a grave.
Now we’ve tangled and tumbled and shouted,
    From midnight to dawn upon dawn,
Yet naught is to her once she’s pouted,
    Or rendered a yawn.