Salivating for paradise: A poem 

Summer is gone. Even its shadows don’t remain 

Its heated squares have dissipated in the gardens, 

where the daffodils will sprout in the cold 

I feel a deep glow, as round as the moon 

in the cocoon I have salivated for myself 

I will have nothing else, no matrimony with cant. 

This waiting within walls, the undeciphered hieroglyphs 

like a past to be recalled by seeking archaeologists. 

I am not present in compromise. There is no self-doubt 

about my expectant composure. I have a will not to be brokered. 

Material gains for spiritual disillusionment is no bargain  

of merit. It’s an empty colourless shell. I can walk alone, 

and in the night and brave pastimes with blight. No sodomy  

of aspiration will I have. There is a swan on my shoulder 

pining to grow older. It has wings of fire like gold spreadeagled  

for anointment by earth and air. It is rare. It is only fair 

that it takes flight in magic’s moment. At destiny’s chivalry. 

The shrapnel of war-torn bastions will sound fusillades 

of salutations and will morph into the caress of feathers. 

I have known all along that the alleged saints of the world 

are not our troubadours. They are sinners in all-seeing eyes.