The Dance - Shakespeare's Monkeys

The Dance

The mother - yes - but the daughter!
A man's blood is governed by his eyes:
I breathe to see her fluid flesh,
smell her skin beneath the apricots and olives.
She is lily and pomegranate, fig and myrtle.
I will rend her seven veils with the muscle of my lust -
how she beckons my burning with a dance of fire.

I swear before God and all
if she will shape the wanton air again,
vibrate the taut membrane of my bursting eyes,
she will have half my kingdom.

Dance Ishtar and Isis - whore of my senses -
dance to the anarchy of life and death.

Though I am politic, my oath is sacred.
If I have out-manoeuvred myself
you still curve and burn the imprints of my eye.
I know you ask what Herodias asks -
my brother's wife, my wife, your mother.
I will have that bitch's whelp;
I will seed a kingdom for this headless shame.

What do prophets know of craving loins?
This desert man! This crier in the wilderness!
All his futile abstractions embody nothing-
I cannot touch his fleshless words.

Celticlion -
Alan, it's so great to be reading you here. I love this poem. It has such an immediacy and genuineness as if you were the king himself lusting this very day. I was on my honeymoon in Europe- we were in Salzburg, Austria and rode by horsedrawn carriage to the opera house one night. "Salome" was playing and the soprano who sang her, did that dance of the seven veils-- and when she had finished she was gloriously nude. No body stocking, nothing. Not only was she an incredible soprano and actress but her body was a gift from God as well. It was a performance I'll never forget. The lust of men has been the beginning and ending of many great and important things throughout history. It would make an excellent subject for a book. Or a poem. Come by and see my site. It's quite jazzy. Love,C

U668857 -

Many thanks, Catherine. Salzburg is beautiful...I just wish

I'd seen that production of "Salome"...wow is an understatement...

and as for lust, he's an old friend of mine (unfortunately!)...Love, Alan.