So shall it be by night that next we meet,
Betwixt the opalescent lycan-stone
And soporific stillness of the street;
Our love between the earth and heaven sewn.
For love is not a thing to boast or bleat,
Its depth and colour far too swiftly shown;
The daylight veils its countenance as ‘sweet’,
But darkness wills its character be known.
Helios’ lovers revel in conceit,
Condemning nature to portray their own;
But Artemis delights for those who meet
Beneath the opalescent lycan-stone.

“The clown Pierrot sings of Columbine,
A creature fair as highest angels be.
To think that such a heart could e’er be mine;
The clown beset by cupid’s bow is me.
My lady is above all things revered,
And cut from thread which dreams are woven of,
But still she looked upon Pierrot, mere,
And promised him her sacramental love.
I wish upon you all delight as this -
Her dear Pierrot has been blessed to reap.
But now, enough rejoicing in my bliss;
I still my tongue a while, the lady speaks.”

“Bellow forth your love, Pierrot,
Tell of my unblemished graces;
Flourishing in apt affection -
To your words that reach all places.
Truly, gods have smiled upon you,
Furnishing your heart with passion;
Plain as you might be in essence,
Unassuming and oft outdone.
Venerate me as you promised,
Lest I stray to a suitor new.
Love me, and be lost, Pierrot;
As you sing for me, I love you.”

“Happily, Columbine, poetry pleases you -
Even to fall to the arms of a commoner;
But beauty, vanity, prominent majesty,
All of it calls to you, all of it beckons you.
Pierrot dissipates, living in monochrome,
Wasting his sentience crafting his arias.
Wouldn’t you rather be living in eminence,
Beautiful, luminous, glistening beside me?
Follow me, Columbine, elegant, ever-free;
Blossoming, glorious, shine as a firefly,
Enliven this colourless jester no longer.
Fall to me: Harlequin, worshipping all of me.”

“Colourless, perhaps, but loyal,
Pale, but never straying from me;
Songs of love, he has to offer,
Still you speak of absent beauty?
Yet you see my heart’s ambition -
And you promise luminescence
Where this simple fool has sonnets,
Ballads, choruses: naught but words.
Hold me not too dear, Pierrot,
For all my love was vanity.
I exchange your songs for sequins,
Into the arms of Harlequin.”

“How cruelly does this story culminate
That I end without a blithe word spoken;
Sweet Columbine absconds to live her fate,
And the poor Pierrot, he is broken.
Now my laughter, smeared in sombre lipstick
Is twisted to a still, despondent frown;
Lost amid the comic and the tragic,
And who has pity for a grieving clown?
Upon his knees, the poor Pierrot weeps -
For Columbine, whose love he bears within.
Forsake him here to tend his sorrows, deep,
As inky tears malign his silver skin.”

White cotton caress,
Flowing brown hair;
Delicate clouds
Of shimmering starlings.
Attentive eyes,
A smile, helpless;
A rabbit in the grass,
Startled and still.
Bated breath,
A pulse disturbed;
Gentle breeze –
And clear skies.
Bitten lips, anticipation;
Still so pure;
Youth, hope and passion;
On the bridge, a pebble.

Life is but a waterway that feeds the sea inside,
As rain into a reservoir, and blood into a lung.
How is it my galleon became a vessel,
Hollowed out and swallowed by the waves.
How is it my northern star has burned its last,
And left the sky as cold as winter mist.
Has it come to be that Neptune’s fury lashes
As a rabid hound from in the deep,
Or have the angels wept a torrent of their sorrows
Down into the blighted, black abyss.
Upon the far horizon, there resides no dying light,
Nor lonesome moon to draw upon the tide;
In the darkness, I will suffer what awaits:
To drown amid the sea inside.

In Willow’s gaze, the dawn is dusk,
The night is set ablaze;
And every living mystery
Is carried on her lips.
Her being stills revolving skies;
Her beauty breaks my heart.
Her light ashames the lustrous moon
And glistens o’er the dark.
My Willow’s eyes are elements,
Both infinite and rare;
Of matter hewn, ambrosial,
Bejew’lled with em’rald light.
My Willow’s touch is liberty:
Demise and life anew;
The glory of awakening,
The end of all before.
Serene aloft the tainted ground
On streams of amber air;
The earth itself recedes, unfit -
To press upon her feet.
Her sacred words are tapestries,
That weave amid her voice.
In Willow’s wake, her rapture glows
Like fireflies in June.