greenstorm | More Poems

Sometimes greatpoets sings for me.

Humbly Fireside

sitting humbly fireside
watching how you move the acts
from one scene to the next
effortlessly.

your laugh is unpoisoned,
a little nervous,
and a family dances around you that
is quaking with love.

there are no chains between you and them
only kite strings,
dew-heavy spider webs glistening
in the fire-lit night.

how do you do it?
live in the rough world
without night-haunts, bones breaking
or a wide crying mouth?

i observe this from the nice green chair
you and yours have placed here for me
my heart overcomes itself
longing to be from your blood-tree, mutually obliged.

i do not fear that i am no one.
as they clap for my paintings and your face adores me
i know i belong to Heaven

yet a human hand
could do me some good
maybe hold me up here,
while i struggle to endure your joy.

Sarah Slean

The Imperfect Lover.

I never asked you to be perfect—did I?—
Though often I’ve called you sweet, in the invasion
Of mastering love. I never prayed that you
Might stand, unsoiled, angelic and inhuman,
Pointing the way toward Sainthood like a sign-post.

Oh yes, I know the way to heaven was easy.
We found the little kingdom of our passion
That all can share who walk the road of lovers.
In wild and secret happiness we stumbled;
And gods and demons clamoured in our senses.

But I’ve grown thoughtful now. And you have lost
Your early-morning freshness of surprise
At being so utterly mine: you’ve learned to fear
The gloomy, stricken places in my soul,
And the occasional ghosts that haunt my gaze.

You made me glad; and I can still return
To you, the haven of my lonely pride:
But I am sworn to murder those illusions
That blossom from desire with desperate beauty:
And there shall be no falsehood in our failure;
Since, if we loved like beasts, the thing is done,
And I’ll not hide it, though our heaven be hell.

You dream long liturgies of our devotion.
Yet, in my heart, I dread our love’s destruction.
But, should you grow to hate me, I would ask
No mercy of your mood: I’d have you stand
And look me in the eyes, and laugh, and smite me.

Then I should know, at least, that truth endured,
Though love had died of wounds. And you could leave me
Unvanquished in my atmosphere of devils.

Siegfried Sassoon