Well, actually, villanelles, if you want to get technical. French sonnets (of course). The concept behind a crown of sonnets is to link the first line of each piece to the previous piece by re-using the last line of the previous poem, then finishing up with one that is comprised entirely of the first (or final) lines of the original poems.
I did this crown a few months ago for my lovely friend and occasional cover model, Ukrainian photographer Mariya Andriichuk. Enjoy.
1: eyes of glass
An elegant beauty, eyes of glass and silvered
like visions captured now in a digital age,
caged in frames to lay immortal, white, black or red,
the pale pinks and greys of flesh and fantasy, sage
thoughts unspoken for the thousand word proxies caught
and projected to distant voyeurs, the silent
partners in a dance of your soul, flying and fraught
with consequence that slips away like a serpent.
You own your dreams, and barter them for ovations
and more material things. This is the nature
of a true artist, remembered after nations
rise and fall and call out to histories, unsure.
Your images, no matter kisses made, tears wept,
mirrors that retain their images, visions kept.
2: visions kept secret and secure
Mirrors that retain their images, visions kept
secret and secure. Dreams erotic and impure
are prayed away, the debris of yesterday swept
into the street and the new petals emerge, sure
that they are the prettiest flower. And they are,
for new life, new tender traces, these are beauty.
Every morning you rise and prize our bright star
as an omen of the promise of a duty
to find your vision in shuttered winks, never far
from yourself. You are more beautiful than the sun,
and yet you know the eclipse, and the night, they are
always part of your world, given but never won.
Day to night and you drink in what was done or said
as forever as light, as night, as earnest bled.
3: Alexandrite
As forever as light, as night, as earnest bled
by shallow, sallow lovers, brittle stone and bone
passing for alexandrite and sapphire, fear fed
the specter of solitude, of being alone.
I shall not desert you. I shall never hurt you
by intention or mention meant to represent
false feelings or facades that promenade in rue
of lost times and past crimes for which we now repent.
I would merge and purge and surge and emerge from you
reborn a better man, to give all that I am,
tribute to all I would ask in simplest hope, true
to your word and kiss and touch against those who damn
me for my love and loyalty, a lost concept
as prayer on the lips of a woman, words wept.
4: Words wept
As prayer on the lips of a woman, words wept.
No miracle, merely a repurposed pilgrim
seeking something more than mediocrity kept
in cold shadows, held in failed light to fade and dim
as a mistaken memory. I want, desire,
an holy fire. As mortal soul may reach for God
I reach for her, with the truth she can inspire
within me, revelation that evens the odd
cobblestones on a path that leads into her heart.
If the divine is in all things, then in my lust
I find sacred blossoming and rebirth part
and sum of my affections, not a graven dust.
I have dreamed of her in scriptures for her to bless.
I have dreamed of her in midnight kiss and caress.
5: Midnight kiss and caress
I have dreamed of her in midnight kiss and caress.
Exotic, the erotic possibilities
beyond my imagination, for tenderness
and urgency merge in a perfect heat, to please
her in sharp moments and sleepless nights, the delights
that would shock satyrs and sate each wish and need
is a command and demand of my passions, flights
of worship of her limbs and form and warm, wet mead
I would consume into a drunken stupor, voice
to brave and wicked utterances in the tongues
of forgotten religions, idolatry’s choice
of our histories and mysteries to be sung.
I would be the priest, temple tender to her fires.
I have seen her conquering the world as she requires.
6: Awe
I have seen her conquering the world as she requires.
Small corners taken from the darkness, vast vistas
overcome with the sweep of her hand, she inspires
awe in those capable of perceiving the laws
of a universe she is free to bind to her,
to make bend and flow and go her way, she is strong.
When she believes, she weaves tapestries to ensure
that all memory reflects her perspectives, long
after she is gone, she will linger in the hearts
of those who see the beauty she had seen and caught
in the faery nets of digitized silver, parts
of a mosaic of her laugh and smile and thought.
But not greater than her beauty, I must confess.
Sleek and slender, tender heart my passions to bless.
7: Tender heart my passions to bless
Sleek and slender, tender heart my passions to bless.
Reaching out to God, seeking a permanent peace
with the divine to find the truth and the noblesse
obligation to give of herself a release
to share her heart and soul in a colder world, grey
except when the tulips bloom too rare, too rare to
fill every day with their palette and to stay
as guardians and heralds of joy made anew
every day, every way. Snow is welcome
only for a season, only for a reason
in her street corners and window boxes, made numb
by the cold wind and colder hearts, the freedom
to be seeking sanctuary in her desires.
Holy water, her sweat anoints the sacred fires.
8: Nazarite’s hair
Holy water, her sweat anoints the sacred fires.
I would bathe in this purifying sheen, made clean,
the purity of her darkest pleasures, desires
to a purpose and to the moment, visions seen
a thousand times, the cascade of Nazarite’s hair
that falls as veil that fails to hide her rare beauty.
Dreams invoked and provoked, words spoken to the air
in hopes that God listens to hopeless prayers, duty
of supplicant and paramour, seeking heaven
in her touch and kiss, to be the missionary
positioned to enter the temple, no heathen,
but believer seeking to merge without tarry.
To be the lover ordained to her dreams and needs.
To be the father of her children, to plant seeds.
9: To plant seeds
To be the father of her children, to plant seeds.
A contemplation and consummation to love.
How many are so blinded by her that their needs
are far simpler. Far less ambitious, nothing of
the need to do more than see her beauty, frozen
in frame and to dream in liquid frustrations, held
at a distance by their own cowardice. Chosen
dreams that objectify her elegant heat, welled
as tears of pale sorrow to their own failed courage.
Delicate derisions and sour grapes to shield
fragile egos, they stare and dare nothing, they rage
and blurt guttersnipe appreciations, revealed
as shadow hearts, daring naught, never to ensure
joy and awe, the law of a prophet transfigured.
10: Transfigured
Joy and awe, the law of a prophet transfigured.
I watch you dance and see the grace of an angel.
The curve and swerve as you move me, so self-assured,
knowing that I must look, caught up as the stars fell.
You became the heavens in my heart long before
I could confess it in manner but clever song.
Your pout shouts and your smile is evidence and more
that there is a God behind the scenes, making wrong
into the kindness of your very existence.
You are worthy of adoration, of a grace
more than most can ever comprehend, persistence
of a melody as ancient as time to place
offerings on the altar to your released needs.
Grace in a place of madness, a sadness that bleeds.
11: In a place of madness
Grace in a place of madness, a sadness that bleeds
pain and stain and the grain of rough roads, the burden
that can take you, break you, make your rosary beads
worn and torn and shorn of meaning. Uncertain
yesterdays and the question of light, bright beacons
or a subtler shade. Draw into sharp relief lines
that define our divinity. Dead eyed deacons
preaching their own religions, never serving wines
of a Holy Land where you stand, an artist’s heart
brings forth revelation in the transmutation
of a beautiful woman into icon, part
of a plan to a sensual resurrection.
The vessels of our communion, we are assured,
warm wine and white blood, a soft surrender deferred.
12: Soft surrender deferred
Warm wine and white blood, a soft surrender deferred.
Take me to your bedchamber, I will anoint you with attars
I brought with me from the furthest corners of conscience, cured,
passed through the sunlight and the moonlight and the stars
wise, as my intent is both pure and plutonic,
I am consumed with passion for your bright beauty,
elegant, exceptional, sweet and ironic
that I am captured to pay a perfect duty
as hostage to your murmured sadness and the sweet,
for you are greater than I am, Hephaestus bound
to your Aphrodite, a bold acolyte daring to compete
for that which he could never be worthy, of, found
as foundation to what I most desire this night,
to love the lady with the eyes that capture light.
13: Eyes that capture light
To love the lady with the eyes that capture light.
Now there is a path that I would gladly follow,
happily walking, shadow or rain, day or night.
We are born to love the worthy that fill, hollow,
the center of our souls, where we mislaid the faiths
to believe in perpetual passion and fire
that there are those who can and will dismiss the wraiths
if we let them in with open heart and conspire
with the angels themselves to make a place of peace
where we may dare and share and care to fulfill life
against the hell others wallow in without cease.
We are made to rise above the pain and the strife,
we are made to dance and love and seek for the light,
to dream of memories to be made in the night.
14: Memories to be made in the night
To dream of memories to be made in the night.
To think of you, wrapped around me like second skin,
whispering your most wicked will for the delight
that you will never leave, never allow the sin
of sharing such intimacies with another,
holding nothing back. The hunger and fantasies
that you deserve to fulfill, lady and mother,
courtesan and princess, whatever would most please
your needs and make you but more hungry for my blood,
with smile and kiss and curve of that prehensile tongue,
I will listen for your subtle direction, flood
you with my essence, that all your sweet songs are sung
in my arms, cradled and enabled, my delight:
To dream of memories to be made in the night.
15: The Diadem
An elegant beauty, eyes of glass and silvered
mirrors that retain their images, visions kept
as forever as light, as night, as earnest bled
as prayer on the lips of a woman, words wept.
I have dreamed of her in midnight kiss and caress.
I have seen her conquering the world as she requires.
Sleek and slender, tender heart my passions to bless.
Holy water, her sweat anoints the sacred fires.
To be the father of her children, to plant seeds,
joy and awe, the law of a prophet transfigured,
grace in a place of madness, a sadness that bleeds
warm wine and white blood, a soft surrender deferred.
To love the lady with the eyes that capture light.
To dream of memories to be made in the night.
William F. DeVault. All rights reserved.
