penetralia: a cycle



I. penetralia

the wisdom of lovers is kept to themselves.
shelves full of memories, melodies unremitting,
permitting a shared breath, a spared death of hearts
heated to the point of fusion, con or pro, infusing life
with the very mettle of the magma of the moment
melted between warm fleshes sheened with a thirst
that overcomes the manners of the manors of our stations.
forgetting nothing.
remembering it all
as we fall to our awakening.
or catch it, sliding in a subtle curve
that swerves to bend and wend and blend and spend
precious moments held in an intoxication.
a purification of wet heat,
sweet and regent.
seasons of doubt cast out for a solstice of dreams,
an equinox of essence when the unity gives impunity
for the trespass we kindle,
spindled on the point of no return.


II. a penitent lover

the violation of the temple of your beauty
is sin enough for me to bear.

accept my confession
and my penance.

over and over again.

as you have asked
and I have accepted
as my fate.
and my destiny.

with pleasure
second only
to that which I must give
in penitent penetration.


III. a trick of the light

there was that
shift
of a moment
when I saw through the veils
that shielded the ethereal
of the woman you are
and always will be
even when clothed and looking
off in the distance.
and I was gratified
you let slip your guard
for me
and showed that
which I know
no one else
has ever seen.

even you, in the mirror.


IIII. roses

I have seen enough roses
for this lifetime.
blooms doomed
to wilt under the weight
of their own fragrance and beauty,
for they have no hope
to rise as high
as you
to the heavens.
and I am but the
most fortunate of bees,
tasting nectars
reserved
by chance and happenstance.


V. Odin

taut thoughts
communicating to me
in essence pure, unsure
of anything outside of the sphere of our contact,
contracting fiber and sinew, and through sounds
barely audible to all but the listener
who shares the unsubtle tremors
when the world falls down
and reassembles itself for our pleasure
and privilege
and purpose.
for we are the gods in this creation,
however temporary our omnipotence,
however shallow our insight
into anything
but the way you move your hips.


VI. time and space

in this moment
in this place
in this jointed time in space
I am yours to command,
sand in the furnace
to make the looking glass
of your soul, whole and polished
to reflect the perfect union
of time and space.


VII. summoner

I call the fire in amomancies bright and proud,
loud curses cast at forgotten religions, faded and jaded
by pretenders paraded and serenaded when their forged credentials
hammered flat the steel of dreams into mockeries of love.
an excalibur and a stormbringer, cursed blessings perhaps
handed to mortals to make us the playthings of capricious deities.
for in these passions we become the players in the play of pain,
stained by our fluids and rude foods that fuel our sensory psalms,
alms paid in pennies and penetrations into the womb of our hearts,
starting from the end and working our way back against the maelstrom.
the road back is black, not yellow brick, and we stick to the tar,
far from home and roaming in tight circles as we miscalculate fate
and have nothing left but the blind vision of a childhood long forgotten.
but we will wear the colours of our chosen throne in time, prime fires
to the base of the burdening stones that block our chosen ways
for days, to dis/couer/rage us into surrender to shadows we beat
already ten thousand times in night folds you gave to me as favour
for these words, expecting hymns and threnodies and elegies eternal.
and I will keep my oaths, even those spoken in barter for a kiss.


copyright William F. DeVault (wfdv).