Studioli (Dec. 25, 2004)

My study’s housed upon
the back of Brendon’s
whale, mid-sea of
all you turned salt blue
when you smiled and
disappeared from view.
Here are vaulted all
the beds and boats a
and books I found
the ghost of a warm
bleam of you in
these cold and rainy nights
when the world seemed
doomed to drown.
Your proffered breasts
upturns the bottom
of the sea and milks
its old lactissima,
a white smile so
sweet and warm
and frothy as to
smash every coast
and cape in ecstasy.
Guitar and pen
are my harpoons,
polished to a gleam
and displayed in thick
blue plush, fabled nibs
for hauling in those
finny angels whose
names I sing in
these matins of all seas.
Here are the three
rude cups you bid me
drink, poured to dregs
the swelter tonnage
of abyss; and here’s
the ravaged saddle of
the wave-maned horse
which is your
palanquin and my
writing chair.
Here is the spout-hole
of the whale which is
my darkling reach
to all the books cast
to the wave, a well
which spumes the exalt
psalms of every poet
since Taleissin to look
at you and sing. Here
is the heart of my fancy,
my outre madman’s
gaming room; ,my half
acre of black blubber
bathed by darkupswellings
of deep gloom; my chapel
of Iseult of the White
Hands who weaves my tears
each night upon her
dream-pale loom. Here
is the chambered
study study where
each artefact your
womb produced is
vaulted and revered,
the sum of every ache
and swoon I ever
felt for you, every
wave that ever found
a shore, every kiss
that turned the world
the wildest windy blue.