Sea-Roads (Feb. 9, 2005)

No one said the sea roads to you
would be safe or sane or even
mortally true. The trackless
path has indeed unmade the man
like a bed unmans its riders,
one by one, along the sword-length
of that night not found on
any map of shores in this too-
faintly-blue world. Still your
lovers voyaged on, harp in one hand
and puckerpeckering heart in
the other, reckless exactly
where you dreamed of trespass,
the guards deceived and your
door unlocked in those hours
before dawn when a song
is pure plunge in curve, the
refrains dipped in angel-dragon
fire. You wove deceit and delight
like snakes around their
rousing staffs, the whole
enchantment greater than
the doom of priests and
the quartering horses now
whinnying softly in
dark stables. Yogis of
the first chakra, the least
of heaven’s lights, your
men burned brightest in
your eyes when transgressing
all the way to frame your door
and plunge right in, your
welcome like the curl of wave
which commences to crash
on down the aching shore,
a tumult of blue bliss.
Ah how their songs were
all ferried back from that far
land, like buckets from a
well, brimming over with
daze and dazzle, pierced
and stricken with the color
of your eyes, the glint
of moonlight in the sapphire
hanging between your
breasts as you heaved
your penultimate of sighs,
its facets cut and polished
by every wax and ebb
you’ve altared since lovers
have dared to dance a dream.
Centuries have long passed
and only the songs do
scant remain, a ghostly
choir in miniscule
on ancient parchment,
bereft now of all actual
sounds. Those refrains
down the page are like
markers, perhaps of shores,
perhaps of all the beds
which turned into doors
into vaster regions
far below, beneath all
oceans and most dreams,
where you are every
long-suffered ache inverted
and requited with a Yes,
and heaven is all it
seems when lips to
lips we slake the
hell we now undress.