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Thursday, March 25, 2010

BY LOVE BEGUILED, In Mood, Subjunctive, Edited Version

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BY LOVE BEGUILED,
In Mood, Subjunctive, Edited Version



Don't get me wrong.


If I appear distracted,
Look knocked out by the light,
You make a very strong performance,
A singularity round whose axis my mind spins.

I remember once, years ago,
When I landed in New York,
After living a year and half in Europe,
How the neon of America,
It appeared so awesomely garish, and bright.
Yet, when I close my eyes and picture it,

All seems pale before the radiance of your face.

That two people might meet for morning breakfast,
Look out the café's window at the steady rain,
Walk here and there along avenues of
Inviting store fronts, and before the day is over
Fall into grand attachment one for the other,
As though there be something in the air,
Perhaps some electromagnetic charge.
So the occasional electricity might overwhelm us.

Or that cupid might steal behind fixtures of thoroughfares.
(I spied him crouched near a mailbox,
At start of our walk on Main Street in Point Pleasant!)

That the winged child might pull from his quiver, arrows
Whose heads, dipped in love potion, that once he aim
And shoot them, grievously they would tear mortal flesh
To make for a ruckus extraordinaire
And expectations suddenly become great.

This romance presses hard upon me.
Its an affection I am compelled to profess.

To gain your confidence,
To prove my mind sound, not at loss to reason,
I couch my verse in mood, subjunctive,
A grammar I use hoping to temper
My over-wrought affection and quiet,
Soften the immodest and elevated parlance.

Were I not to employ this principle of language,
One might believe my love for you be shameless.

The mood, also, provides proper relief
For the all, too-far-out attitude, the conceit,
Whose command animates my senses,
That I have come to possess a gift, as it were,
Higher power grant me prophetic mantle.

Understand. I solely express my own wish and desire.
That all I say remain contingent
Of mind still hypothetical and dependent.

I do not use the imperative, I make no demand.
I have no special outcome in mind.
I dwell in fortress called Zion,
And come from it in the Pilgrims' coat and hat.
I look in the mirror and see their collar and tie.
And, like those passengers on board the Mayflower,
I know the Lord to be my helper. I fear not.

Who among your former friends has ever said it better?

And were you to live a long and hearty life
As all actuaries predict, what future friend
Might ever phrase it near as well as I have put it?

And if you for a moment ask

That this lyric arrive, transcending everyday concerns,
That it join, Sentiment Supreme, Him, the real pilot,

That when we drove in the white, Ford van and crossed
Jersey's North shore highways, while the soft brown,

Oh that magic, dream-like, living, pale, ethereal,

And somewhat golden light accented the downpours,
Whose constant unleashed falling, more
Like rain the Lord had promised Noah,
Than any explicable, temporary weather.

Wie es eigentlich gewesen.

The carriage held but just us -- and immortality.

That when we traveled our first day together,
Though it is months ago, and now becomes the years,
All the time which has passed, I ask you,
Whether it would feel shorter than the day, that day
I first surmised the engine's mounts
Were tied to point, and that we, too, were belted,
Hurled straight ahead in solemn league.

Mercy, let it be known, Mercy freely bestowed,

Not for this, the one earthly moment,
But for our childrens children,
Drawn and signed, delivered,
A grant for us and them, settled in this verse,
Sure as Word once promised Abraham.

I hear the text my grandmother spoke.
I see her at work while she ironed and folded,
I watch her nod the affirmative nod,
Repeat to you what she said to me,

"And I will bless them that bless you,
And curse him that curses you:
And in you shall all families of the earth be blessed."

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