FOUR ALLEGORIES OF LOVE

I

OEDIPUS IS THE SPHYNX

Piercing the prison-walls of years
Piled up more stiff than stone, more strict,
My loud-mouthed orator, Memory.

Dissolves them with his flickering tongue,
Stammers again, Demosthenes
Rolling his ruined prison yet

As he wanders along the broad sea-shore
Haranguing the waves and mouthing
Broken years, broken stones, broken words.

The beach, beyond horizon's scope,
Circles the world, I know, measured
By other groups, figures on a clock.

Here two men fight, one tall, one small.
What giant-killer this who wants
To kill his Titan self and seeks

To tear with huge and hairy hands
His own tongue, the Other's, from its roots
And feels no pain or loves his pain?

I'll swear my riddle might remain
Unanswered, puzzling even me
Who dreamed the dream and write it now;

But Love's the answer, love and speech,
Both foiled too long for fear of pain
Till my frustration brought me pain.

III

CALIBAN

The lady with the lemon-drops
Strung round her neck, and sugared feet,
Trod on my heart. How bitter-sweet
Her dominion, my lovely estate.

Her man, an ugly bird at that,
Disdains me too, with suède-shod toes
Spurning my God-made body. Who knows?
I may revolt, then I may not.

Is there an end? Remember
The first kick. Or was there ever one,
Or a night before the moon or a day before the sun?
I've lived in mud a million years,

True to my slime-mould ancestry
That slowly, jealous of the stars,
Grew nucleus and spine, then scales or furs,
Then hairless limbs, and still reached up

But failed and fell. My starless hands
Are full of mud, but oh, too late,
For the biter cannot now be bait
And the fallen god is not a goon.

IV

THE GLADIATOR ON THE CHESSBOARD

Asbestos queens who feel no pain
And know not what my labors cost
Spitefully cheer each time I fail;

And I'm both slave and lion within
The circus of their lordly gaze
Who gave me birth and want my death.

Yet I must fight against myself
And all the world to prove my worth
If only by my vast mistakes.

For theirs the Kingdom, Dames of Hell
Who gave me body and soul at odds
Each with the other and with them;

The Power too, who taught me all
I know or ever ought to know,
These goddesses ungodly too.

This is the set-up: a game with rules
Within which I must toil and cheat,
Transgressing only when there's doubt;

And mine the Glory, should I ever
Know more than I'm supposed to know
And outwit them and mate their king.