Michael’s enchanting wings

 With half shut eyes, Michael meditates,

Slouched in his couch, his knees aspread;

Crème de Menthe, its green mellow glow, veils

Awareness of the attendant dead.

They trade their sundry viewpoints, like children

Marbles, bubble-gum cards and postage stamps;

Hold hot dispute on sacred mysteries.

Michael’s eyes burn like vehicle lamps.

Each takes his stand, assumes his position

Though the posit proves quite contrary;

Through spectres of whirling tobacco smoke

Michael expounds his latest theory.

 The lyric sweet is silent and demure

 While the disputed question rages;

  Fragrant song, its keenest sensibility,

Competes with cant for space on time’s blank pages.   

The most exalted beauty of the pen,

The painter’s highest aspiration

 Are sealed in scriptures, fixed in light, and smeared

With the jam of profane conversation.

One there lingers in the silent shadows

While the debate takes its torturous turn,

Preserves his wit for the meet occasion,

Perambulates while baleful fires burn.

He has a dame whose utterance echoes

His cherished thought in one perception;

In her utterance she always agrees,

A source of great consternation.

She gets a fright at the sight of geckoes

 And when from the sky rain falls in torrents;

 At forty five and forty three

 They sail a fortuitous, hopeful sea,

 And rising prows cleave contrary currents.

John Clinton