From the African Ambassador

HIS FOREBEARS

State visits were a ball.
Solomon wisely made
Love in technicolor.
Poetry must follow
When Sheba has been had
Against the Wailing Wall.

HIS UPPER CLASS LOVE AFFAIR

We were two states of mind
And policy, two states
Determining our fates
By a chance treaty signed,
Two shades of humankind,
Eyes, wants. Quick now. Who waits?
The moon rose, garden gates
Gawked on the undefined.
What’s love? Two swinging doors
Between the kitchen and
The feast through which by hand
Soup, greens, fish, meat, wine, cake
And dirty service make
Meaningful intercourse.

What do you hear? The cry
Of pinned worms from that neb.
What do you see? A fly
In that abandoned web.
Feel? Oh hold me! We held
Hours, years, held teeth and nails
Rounding to one hard-shelled
Universe like two snails.
What’s love? An open door:
New names and natures line
The revealed corridor
Down to its last confine,
A full-length looking glass.
You meet yourself and pass.

What’s love? Look at the sky.
The gate’s locked! Very well.
Teach me your magic! I?
You, only you! Oh hell,
There’s nothing one can tell.
If I can’t know, I’ll die!
Die. Of shame! You? You smell
Of last night’s drinks gone dry.
Back for the morning meal,
With all the rest I serve
Myself and dread they feel
That I feel through each hair
A vine-tip made, a nerve,
Love dead, love everywhere.

My features in the pane
Hung on an alder-tree.
Whoever stands to gain
In Murder Mystery
Is suspect of the Crime.
Love is Eternity!
I know that now for I’m
Awfully luckily
Well out of it in time.
But to have lost the key!
Open would mean unhinge.
Fool, said my Muse to me
(What’s love? A watchful binge?)
Look in your heart and cringe.

HIS BOHEMIAN LOVE AFFAIR

She came from the masses,
We believed that our love
Was like evening classes
And that she would improve.

We lived in an attic,
Oh how carefree we were
And how diplomatic
My relations with her.

We fought. So I screwed her.
We fought. I turned aside.
She called me Saujude.
I cursed her and she died.