A SONG

by: Michael Strange

OR what have you sought my love,

Along those flashing wastes of passion?

Who move so wearily as the dawn's unwilling step

Over-stamped in ruins of unlimited woe.

O what crucifix you, tortured

Into nailing yourself against?

That your arms are become so attenuate

As those stark supplicating limbs of nightmare.

I wounder, have you assaulted life in darkness

And whispering

I need you so! oh let me--

Yet when the spear entering, nailing you

Into frantic submission,

You crying out from the very center nerve

Of such ecstasy, I have fear!

Since you selling then into bondage

What you might surmise only--

And for the witchery of moments

Since you denying of yourself

More than you could have known

Before self-betrayal.

And all in order to induce

Those scarlet wings of appalling lips

To glisten, close, across your mouth.

Yet when this tease of pleasure

Titillating curious truth-stained exclamations out of you

And their sense languishing mateless unanswered along the air--

Ah, then you turning to regard

The gracious youth of your sleeping love

Alongside of your waking, ageless heart.

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