  Torban Lightly sharp and even, Your voice is the sound of an airplane Darting high above your unreceptive face. Your voice is unrelated To the structure of your face, And on your lips an echo merely rides, The pagan shimmerings of your face Receive the voice with a subtle disbelief. Indeed, your intellectuality, Speeding though spaces over your head, Must seem of little consequence To the nymph who listens far below. That you are thus divided is not strange, But you contain a third Self And it regards the other two With a grave and patient interest. Woman Phantasmagoria, Ruling arabesques of words, Your attenuated variations Of thought and emotion will enrage The blunt convictions of more earthly men. The pagan rituals of my face Distrust your words, and my mind, Dropping its voice from fancied heights, Resents the indirectness of your style. But the third Self within me, Generous and immobile of face, Cares only for the skill With which you elevate Vainly celebrating shades Color, form, and substance— Three complaining slaves Engraving the details of prearranged tasks Within stationary brains and hearts. My third Self would release them To an original abandon That exchanges intangible countries, With a gracious, gaudy treason. Torban Lacking a better name I will call your third Self “soul.” The ancient, merry game Of fighting over labels Must not dismay our duet. To most men soul exists Only when their sensual weariness Needs to be gilded with a religion Or a deified memory of flesh. We contain a lurking wanderer Upon our inner roads, and he Sometimes stops to drop pitying hands Upon the forms of thought and emotions Branded with scores of prejudices. Men have hated him for centuries, And hatred, symbol of sly cowardice, Has draped its desire in false scorn And named him Decadence. Thus ends our decadent duet. Come, there are roads on which we must pirouette. The proper contrast will be furnished By philosophers, scientists, and sensualists. |
|
