Incantation

Resurrect the shadows on the wall,
incarnate the wax that's dripped down this wine bottle's neck.
Flicker and sweep in the breeze of a summer's night,
magnify a fantasy projected on a screen.
Belie your soul's waste trepidation,
embrace a troubadour's vatic.
Shimmer and dream in the morning's rising light -
the dawn it comes too soon and death it comes much sooner.
A life to take is lost in the making without passion;
and a life to live regaled in sails.
Come fire, come wind, come moon and elixirs.
Come what will - such soft caress! -
such secrets on the brink, such lips that steer and mold!
Come what will - at worst heartache -
come now before the dawn.
Bring the muses, Dionysus;
build the fire to a bon -
encircle its heat and circle round its wake.
Bring Beelzebub in forked tongue,
with twisting tail and accent;
a tale he will tell in the swell of the tide,
a chorus he will beckon.
Come labyrinths and cocktails, candelabras and Voltaire -
come all and swirl in the tide of the deep.
Engines roar;
bloated whales swim anarchaic
to the chord of orchestras melancholic and unknown.
May the parakeets go berzerk and monkeys swing from the trees.
Call the chancellors and the abbots!
What protest in the fray? -
but to chance to put it on display?
Scream hyenas, dance giraffes;
quake beyond a measure
and slip into the sea.
Luxuriant are the swells;
luxuriant are your breasts across my chest
and the tilt of your brow in the shadows
of midsummer's night's candles.