Lover Lycus

It was you, Lycus, with waterey words pouring from your lips who invited me daily to sip; and I drinking them up hourly; for not whetting my appetite, they left me ravenous. Do you now float upon your briny bear, leaving me to bear this sad occasion with aught a drop of libation - neither liquor or lexeme - you out there, drunk on Adam’s ale: a weltering wolf submerged in his moon.
It is me, Nico, snorting the wilted myrtle you strung about my chamber and biting bitter berries, that I might derive some lingering essence, some adonyne to divine ~ Lycus is dead dead, swollen and saturated but you will not go unwept, without the meed of your dear wife’s arduous elegy to sing the story in praise of our timeless valiant love.
            You float in my mind upon hoary tides; my tears the mead to quench my thirst, a stream that pours onto the arid earth. My soul, a fallow land of shattered leaves, to be the arder in which I plant your seeds. For when my lover died, Hyppocrene ran dry. I am the gray-fly, battening on the willow’s leaves and the memory of your oaken heart - until taking rest, the treacherous sun clears the path for our gentle moon, listening ever and shall relay to you my horn’s sultry tune.
            Together both did we heard the flock in field - beneath the stars and fresh dews of night, under closed eyelids mine - pictures arose of each life we lived together, before you found me here. Deep in your heart in the heart of forested wilderness englesse, you felt one tiny acorn sprout and the beating double loud. During an extended stay within a desert cave my baby’s breath blew air afresh for your inhale. But it was over your rolling pastures my bright smile warmed your face, and having seen the darkest dark, this light you could not turn away. You played your ditties upon oaten flute, and I loved to hear your song and when you paused, the sheepish creatures muttering amongst themselves, wondering if you would be absent long. How you kissed me in those wet fields for all those years - I so young, born with my toes in the sand, daughter of the sun. I drew you in and kept you warm with my silent rays when celtish winds blew unfavorably over your back. You tried to sell, tried to trade, but had to consume each of your flock. You, lone wolf, astray from your pack, searching for relics and remains of your lost tribe, stole away set off anew amid the tide.
           Together both, we rode a fortnight or more. My voice hummed in undulations to quell travaille and tribulation inside your restless heart. The sea was just another bed for us to toss upon until the coming dawn, on your shoulder lay my head and you watching with half sleeping eyes the wind in the sails, the rise and fall of my chest. Then landing on the southern shore americus, whose waves could never wash away the mark of columbus, I did await you there, in body full for your eyes dear to look upon; and I was your codex and casket of coins, entombed in ever-bloom, your ghost orchid now sparkling bold beauteous bright. I was your wild thyme, the gadding vine growing inside – your muse to whom you would play each joyous song from then on.
             The morning of your precious arrival, I dreamt that I sat, eyes closed, beneath an olive tree and saw myself standing before a warp-weighted loom, such as I have seen depicted in images of antiquity. Back and forth I moved my fingers in and out and in between each taut string. My hands knew what to do, though I’ve never done such a thing, and my mind knew what this looked like as I lay in bed asleep, framing the cloth in a dream within a dream. As I worked, the clay weights knocked together, and the frame squeaked, and I thought it sounded like many birds chirping, faster and louder, beginning to sing. I opened my eyes - under the tree - as I realized I could understand their language, and they were talking to me.
Your clothes are all in disarray – torn and stained. Who would marry you this way - in the gown of a painted SLUT SHAMER bloodied and besmirged with dirt? And furthermore, you must find a dress suitable for one who attends you. Hwaet, are you whet with sweat? You’re burning red. Go down to the water to wash your wares, your hairs, weave yourself an heirloom suit, weld a basket full of fruit, go down to the water to wash off the juice. Tell your father the tomatoes are in full bloom.
                I awoke breathing slowly, my heart beat steady - a headful of serenity, though my dark hair tangled over the pillow around a dried flower stem, prickly, so I braided it in, slowly exchanging the thrice-sectioned tresses between my nimble fingers, clutching as if weaving to secure the messages I was just receiving. Head bent, the braid hitched to the side, and my eyes wide and wandering, reaching for what was it - something different. The morning light shimmered across glass and shell, and I could smell the sea. I could feel a light breeze, I could feel it through the torn seam under my left sleeve, arm raised in crafting the braid. Something else tickled my side there – a loose string – and I plucked it off and secured the end of the plait. Lowering my hands, a fingernail snagged on a ruffle around the collar of my gown; and undoing the catch, I saw dark undernail where should be white. I could hear birds chirping. The front of my gown was stained with tea. I felt sticky and so arose. There was blood on my sheets – the first small spot of dark rust – and one to match it on the back of my gown. Removing the garments, to be set in cold water pailed, I saw myself in the mirror soft and thick and lovely and bright, the first time to look so closely at my hips, which had born you a thousand love children before you ever touched them. I lifted up my arms to feel air and photons’ tingle encircling my waist, breasts, hips, heart – kissing the side of my face.
            I found my parents in their room and told them I was ripened fruit, that I would walk to town today for something wearable to suit and could be found laundering later on the beach. They handed me some coinage saying I’ll surely be betrothed soon.
           There I wait, loitering, laundering upon the sea’s shore when you floated in and stepped foot upon this land, nearly naked and sun-tanned. I thought you were a lion, lover, or a man of Rome, save for your cool eyes blue and famished which nearly chilled my bones. Your light brown hair flecked gold and long, curtained your shoulders so large I thought I saw the spheres of heaven them borne upon. I thought this must be a trick of the light-feathered, poppy-scented weaver of dreams, teasing me titanticly while I lay awaiting my love; until, resting my gaze upon your chest, I saw the place I had been carried all along. So I lept for my lover internally, slowly approaching, stopped and stooped at your feet, grasping each calf like sprite old palm trees which had traveled to and fro and far beyond while still rooted in the ground.            I heaved my breath in and out my chest – the same sound you floated in on; I was an ocean inside my skin. I was the sparkling bright light causing you not to see the water or sand beneath. And when your eyes adjusted to see the loving scion at your feet, the wolf’s coat softened, eyes glistening, knowing then that the ancient eternal knowledge you thought you did seek was only your puzzled self’s missing piece. Jolja, tikal, yaxha you hoped to enter were already inside you – the clouds lifted into a corbal arch to guide you through the zenith passage to the grail already of your claim. You bent forward reaching your tough paws to grip the burly biceps enjoining the heart to the hands which clasped your legs; and loosening the wrench, as you took my hand in yours, kneeling, your smile hardly contained its joyous laughter behind the brackish kisses bestowed unto my hot and shaking hands.
            I know no one else in this country. Show me the way to your town, and let me have anything you may have brought hither to wrap your clothes in. May heaven grant you in all things your heart’s desire –
Remembering how scantily I myself was dressed, I turned heel toward the line where hang coverlets both well-worn and fresh. In town I bought a long red ruffled skirt not quite so wide as the pollera, and for you a long, lightweight poncho, woven in yellow, brown and blue. I lead you to a garden grove to eat and bid thee wait for I to reach my home.
             So I was inside folding linens when Lycus knocked upon the door, my mother seated near the window spinning wool. My father bid the stranger enter, found him amiable, invited him for dinner. Over the course, the guest won my mother while glancing deep into my mind, and there was no doubt at the end of supping that the prize was mine.
               Lover, how long you had loved me before our bodies danced together on the shores beneath the glistening moon; yet you were inclined to waiting – how many years until I would be grown? But I said lover, you’ve already grown inside me. I may be a maid, but I’m not prude. I’ve admitted entrance unto glass bottles not so smooth as you. I would take up the weight of your make this evening to bear round a quarter globe and three seasons; but now the empty shell of my first egg disintegrates. So let your tiny spores tickle the nest. Leave your scent upon the carriage so the horses later know where to hitch.
Lover, you loved me then until the lordess of stars lay down to rest. And with one final epiphany, you left your foreigner’s madness, grapes of cold and lonesome frenzy - the god that comes - for the hot prophesy of the sun. But if I had known you were climbing into the erythrina to escape the deluge, I might not have attached myself like a nest of termites to that same tree, our children sprouting feathers, carrying all their songs to delos and delphi to sing.
We arose from our marriage bed of dew and returned indoors to my room, only to leave it with sheets untouched upon the bed and myrtle hanging to dry. You sat gleaming over breakfast, reading the textile of my skin as the morning glowed within; for I was the runes you sought, your truth. Was it the bright orb well on his ascent that spotted your vision, glinting off your plate and placed there bits of the baska tablet you later said you once had glimpsed? For you said let us to croatia, love, crossing on the bias the north atlantic, slipping between spain and morocco into the adriatic sea with beaches bright as boulder opal and water like the rare blue tourmaline, speaking nothing of dobrovit on that awful island krk or that our journey would have us tread through waters where little lucia might be stirred.
Alas! What boots it with uncessant care to tend the soft and salty soil? No eternal plant sprouts from the mortal foil. Yet I implore of morta before she yet discard our thread, that with thankless musing I might weave it into this world’s sticky web. So those who come by our story and are not be blinded ‘neath the light by which they read will see that light and love and language never begin and never cease.
                  As our small vessel ventured over murky waters deep, on the track to that blue bath which few will ever see, you told me of errands you ran over various lands while all those years I did sleep, all the while loving me within our self-same dreams. You spoke in cadence, verse, and sometimes song, reciting stories in all the world’s rhythm and various tongues: tales of problems sought and problems solved, battles fought and battles won. Until one day the worthy knight proposed to talk instead of fight and gained distrust of his own side, despite all years of shedding and letting blood and light. Surrounded then by sinister intent, your soul’s music charmed each spike and stone hefted and spent – those few precious moments the path by which you fled and then for years wandered, searching for home. For a stint you lie dormant in a cold wench’s heartcage of bones, until you –gray-eyed- convinced her there was more beauteous none, but other reasons you had to move on. You resumed your search for tablets-truthed in ecstacy, fennel-staffed and pinebark-teemed, a hungry wolf both his own subject and king. Questioning every gust of rugged wings, you finally found the sack of hippotades - - and here we are, and here we be, upon rocky shores sings tricky sleek panope.
         Had we made this mistake so many times before, my love? With sight behind, following only our own scent to find each other down the path we each had already went, which then divides till time and tide bring us back together again. Our small ship crashed upon the croated craggles; with laughter shouting, we leaped over the wreck onto the beach. Landlegs wobbly and weak, together both still laughing, we dropped to our knees. Of other care we little reckoning made, than to scramble for our bellies’ sake – for what recks it us? What needed we? We were spiral sped, steadfast in each other’s lover’s wake. We found strange fruit on that land to swallow and supped upon the mist which whispered upon a thousand hues the cool glisten of the moon. Yet our enamored eye then cast a sparely look towards our ship, where hung a flag upon the mast – that woven poncho I would you never had. You so desired to spread it upon the sand as coverlet for our honeyed bed. The ship, which perched upon the crag, whose tip you thought you’d surely reach, then throw aboard one strong leg, and let yourself upon the deck.
With lucias eyes we could not read the baskus print nor sense the maenads in the mist. I saw you strive; I watched you slip, then sprinted sorely toward the wreck. Your headblood clouded pearl-water dark; your body lost amongst the rocks. They bent my ankles and bit my toes, but still I thrashed and grabbed for firm flesh or bone, but every hair had sank or swept into the undertow.
I screamed you slimy sea – you have your boon!? How could you watch, you wretched moon! Forever I heave this stone atop the mount where awaits my love, only for all to tumble back down!
        The sun rises, mocking weep no more as I lay writhing and writing in the dirt which sucks in all my stale, once honied showers and purples the ground with varlet flowers: the pale primrose and pansies frekt with jeat, the mother-fucking violet…but look at all this belladonna rathe, with nectar pure and oozy, thickening on my tongue. It nips, it quickens in my lung. My blood is stung, before I’m stricken, over cliff I lunge. Lover, Lycus, here I come.

(some day to be converted into an epic poem)

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