Advice: A Book of Poems

<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">DIALOGUE BETWEEN A PAST AND PRESENT POET</h2> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Past Poet</span></div> <div class="verse">I wrote of roses on a woman&#8217;s breast,</div> <div class="verse">Glowing as though her blood</div> <div class="verse">Had welled out to a spellbound fierceness;</div> <div class="verse">And the glad, light mixture of her hair.</div> <div class="verse">I wrote of God and angels.</div> <div class="verse">They stole the simple blush of my desire</div> <div class="verse">To make their isolated triumph human.</div> <div class="verse">Knights and kings flooded my song,</div> <div class="verse">Catching with their glittering clash</div> <div class="verse">The unheard boldness in my life.</div> <div class="verse">Gods and nymphs slipped through my voice,</div> <div class="verse">And with the lofty scurrying of their feet</div> <div class="verse">Spurned the smirched angers of my days.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Present Poet</span></div> <div class="verse">You raised an unhurried, church-like escape.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">You lingered in shimmering idleness;</div> <div class="verse">Or lengthened a prayer into a lance;</div> <div class="verse">Or strengthened a thought till it heaved off all of life</div> <div class="verse">And dropped its sightless heaven into your smile.</div> <div class="verse">Life, to us, is a colourless tangle.</div> <div class="verse">Like madly gorgeous weavers</div> <div class="verse">Our eyes reiterate themselves on life.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Past Poet</span></div> <div class="verse">My towering simplicity</div> <div class="verse">Loosening an evening of belief</div> <div class="verse">Over the things it dared not view,</div> <div class="verse">Gladly shunned reality</div> <div class="verse">Just as your mad weaver does.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Present Poet</span></div> <div class="verse">Reality is a formless lure,</div> <div class="verse">And only when we know this</div> <div class="verse">Do we dare to be unreal.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />