Islands (Original Version)

I

In twos and threes we boarded the vessels
That bore us over the breast of the sea.
The stars were tipped with flame: the tongues
Of crimson fire, like thread stitched in the heavens,
Like grapes upon the vines: the royal purple
That burst in wines that flowed upon our lips;
O winds that drove the hulls of sailing ships,
The hands of Neptune, eyes aquamarine.


II  (The Dream)

We stood at the foot of the stairs
Like virgins, peach silk on our blushing cheeks
And linked arms, dancing, before we ascended.
Doves were loosed, the cages opened.
Wine we drank from tapered glasses.
Chandeliers, like pendulums, swayed.
The guests went into the Garden.
There were violins; the silver din
Of flutes; mad burgeoning of music;
Amens of birdsong from the leaden branches
Knitting leaves to fend the blight of winter:
Wands of wives that spend the soft green skeins,
The nimble fingers of the summer-weavers.

The dance of the virgins was beginning.
Barefoot on the velvet lawns,
Innocence kept like cherished diamonds,
Pearls of inestimable price. O harps
Of gold that undulate for hands
Of helping angels soaring through the aether.
Sharp the blades of emerald to the soles
Of tender-footed milk-white lambs that caper
Round the maypole, running glad for May;
Dew that pearls, that drips upon the petals
That make a white mandala round the sun.

O little sun, the heart of the sunflower.
Days and days of hunting in the clover,
Rolling over, between the shoulderblades
The grass is crushed. No tender place for lovers.
Fingers strike the spun-gold strings of harps
That make God's music on the hills of Heaven.
Tambourines and bells of Paradise;
Languid lutes that pipers play for Pan;
Dryads dancing for the Demiurge;
Old Silenus leaning in a bower
Made of faery dust and heather purged
From hills that plump the greenswards of Arcadia.


III

We stood eagerly at the prow and gazed
Half-heartedly into the chopping ocean.
Our girl, she cut through that black surf
And spit salt-foam, as brazen as a harlot:
Her front teeth forth, she took large bites
Of Neptune's muscle, and his bitter brine
Washed her back and swabbed the deck.
No thin black line appeared on the horizon;
No wisp of turf to whet our salty dreams:
We sea-dogs, madmen long uncontinented;
We drunken dancers of the lurching planks;
We saturated and demented rabble
Tossed in violent tempests of God's tears.

Some of us leapt into the bitch below us
And welcomed oblivion in her wet embrace;
Some of us met the Devil in a knife-edge
Below-decks and expired upon a curse.
Well may He judge us, should we walk again
Upon the earth that stays fixed to our heels.
Well may He judge, and save a little blessing,
Mighty Jehovah, who wrought the mercy of islands.


IV.

The queenly moon lurked in clouds,
Patient as the sun descended,
Bottles broke upon the boards,
Unbridling Bacchus, who stole a puking swab.
Disguised in that pale raiment
He reveled from stem to stern. The sails
Bellied. The ship lurched westward.
Gulls shrieked like Banshees in the twilight:
O ravenous coven, cawing reminders
Of lands we leave behind us.


This prayer we humbly whisper
At the altar of the Wheel

In solemn incantation
With a tremor of the eyelids

Beneath the skull and crossbones,
We children of the storms,
Thumbs upon the triggers
Of our plundered arms:


Sweet Christ, Prince of peace,
Tamer of winds, O make the waters smooth,
Wine-maker, Alchemist of Heaven,
Blond Trumpeter, Immanuel,
Be with us in the unbroken waves before us,
Be with us in the froth and foam of our wake;
O Conqueror of the ancient ones,
The ghosts of Rome and Athens.
Thy heel will abate the wrath of the pagan,
The Titan, the maker of storms;
Thy heel on the neck of the Giant
Will temper the wrath
That haunts the dreams of the mermen.

VI (The Dream's Reprise)

The bells on the feet of the virgins, who danced
With knees high on the grass, march-scented,
Made sweet music, like boughs thick with starlings
Or chattering sparrows. Old Silenus tipped
His tankard back and wet his throat with foam.
Stranded, we lay and dreamed of islands.
Siren-songs were gold threads gently stitched
Between our dinned and sea-sick ears.
We watched the silken ankles, the tender feet
And calves of virgins leaping on the greensward.

Watching the spray of dew that gemmed the grass,
We thirsted with fresh vigor, madness remembered:
To taste the bursten grape upon our tongues,
The crushed royal purple fruit of crawling vines,
Harvest of vinyards, splashed in earthenware,
Swung from the white first-fingers of the virgins
Who came upon us and steeped us in sweet breath,
Who wet our wind-cracked lips with fingertips
Ensanguined with chilled wine, a teasing touch
That wakened and enlivened us, we crewmen
Who slipt into the coverlet of Death,
Who with our last breaths pitched a volley of prayer
Upon the ceiling of Heaven, we sailing men
Who rode the black beast, who, with stinging eyes,
Stretched in the guts of ships and dreamed of islands.


1997