Sonnets For M. Bariele

(1) For the tearless beauty blue of eyes I Could not but tell you where my strength lies. Black Sheep of black paradise, I can’t defy The seduction that promised what I lack In my anomie state: your white breast drips Onto my tortured lips, my tongue sips Every strand of love you wear like the moon Naked to bed. And when between your hips I like a pollen is shaken, there to swoon - How could I lie again since reason slips Drunken to the floor of desire? No need I for eyes when I can smell your skin bare And taste your passion: grape without the seed Blindness is but a candle lovers share. (2) Grind me as your Samson to corn and floor I am bound by desire to love you more Strip me of faith, and let me naked kneel Where Jehovah in you His truth conceal No man shall come to paradise again Except through the portals of your yielding Sweet water on the suckling fire of my pain. You are the elixir of balm and healing, The beauty no Israel brings to light And before your wonder I lose my sight. When grinding on the floor the walls shall fall From the tumult of bodies free at last To merge and melt and mellow to the call Let us not despair that this too shall past. (3) I am an Israelite with gifts divine Starved from the fleshpot and denied of wine Your vine gates are opened and here I am come To sip at your dewdrops, eat your sweet grapes Wander the contours of skin and kingdom And moan for your white hands to part the drapes. I am willing not leave your bed again Drench me pleasure make the most holy mine I yearn for your Shekinah, and the stain That frees us from the curse and the design Blighting angels joy to sing. Take my eyes A vessel without strength no vision needs I am supplied by all that faith denies In your betrayal my task succeeds.