The Contract

Love is an unraveling thing
That, after the contract pledged,
Reveals to each the lengthy verse
--The contract to be read.

Wearing horn-rimmed spectacles
Or sipping tea from cup,
The lovers' eyes traverse the words
Which then had seemed so brusque.

Litigation not required,
The lovers mend their terms;
With compromise - not compromised -
Once lawful love confirmed.

Slowly of its character
Does the eye discern,
In fullness only to be held
When lovers rest in urns.

And if law had held together then
When love would now suffice,
Was study of that Mosaic law
Not worth the sacrifice?

Flatulence

Some say my poetry is austere.
Curs! Venom-tongued snakes!
If they took the slightest glimpse
Inside austerity, they would weep
Ten daggered tearsFor want of ----
My forgiveness is, however, unconditional.
Pity for the passers-by, who know
Not what they see: Victorian custom,
Tight-collared shirts are merely
A measure of precaution; for in me
Wails a song, which bloats my belly
And, at times, is so inarticulate that my bowels shake.
Others dismiss it as a symptom of my poor diet. Wiser others
See that it is lunatic frenzy frothing inside me.
When it passes from belly through heart and to lips,
The mind snatches up what scattered fragments it finds
And, sensing that it can't make sense of the fizzing mess,
Reveres the music as
Revelatory.

If flatulence of word or deed does, as it will,
Overtake my outward felicity, don't think
But rather eat.
And find yourself, from then on,
Abiding rules called heretofore "trite" and "glib" and "unfree."
You will lament from then on, and pray
That what escapes will come out with decency.

Who will relieve us hungry men whose appetites are never cloyed,
And who feed upon what the eye
Cannot with certainty speak?
What adjective have your vocabulary
To properly honor the queen, the nymph, the bee?
Come Savior, with lotus to eat!
Come take us down from our terrible seat!
Our internal orchestra is not played out of key;
Only our words are remiss, constrained by the tongue;
That is what these slanderers forget.

So if I seem austere, I remind you that
Not Hercules has strength enough
To lift from my shoulders the weight of the object of my love.
And having no recourse, what little penance I can give
Is never enough.
The best a man can do is mind his manners,
And let out his euphoria most discrete.