|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
In Helen's slightest gesture, Some find signification. Surely she has mastery of the flawless arts: Silence, grace and poise. Her stance perfects her mystery, Weighting her footsteps with a measured tread Which dignifies the very ground she walks on. Paris sees as praise portrays, Yet dares to know her lower nature. Surely she urges, hot as a monkey, Concupiscent as a hare; Surely she sweats and stales, Digests and dungs, And, Daily, Grows older: Her end to sink to silence, Then decay. Knowing so, He dares. Their eyes meet often, Their slightest glance aspiring to conspiracy. And when at last the shadows make them one, They speak Not to propose but to confirm. And so it comes to pass, the half-made animal Forcing its urgings to a single humping shadow. Skilled in the ways of love, young Paris Whispers of his ardour, her eyes' sky-glory, Murmers of celestial adoration Even as his goat ruts hard and home, Ramming his swollen heat to her clenching gash, His bulb unleashing in her humid rose, Which holds him, Hot as tongues and urine, hot as steam, Tense as cramp, as urgent as a fist, Yet soft as cream, and shit, and pulp, and petals. Locked hard, Mouths gape toward conclusion, Motive of gravity shifting. Paris Breathes no violets, Finds no stars in Helen's eyes - Yet owns himself most favoured to possess This cow's milk skin, This gold-spun hair light-weaving, These thighs grape-smooth beneath his touch, And this wine-coloured birthmark which he finds Sprawling, like a map of languid aftermath, From wool-warm weather of outer thigh To damp and hairy heat most intimate Of inner buttock. The leisure of the talk of love Renews their ardour. They touch, and hold, And copulate, and kiss. A good fuck. He'll keep her. Of rumour and of rumour's rebuff Let's tell: A simple story. First understand that this is Sparta: a place Where Menelaus has construed the law To hold in check the ruler with the ruled. And so, when rumour puts him to the test, He weighs the flesh of shadow against the substance, And merits out the facts: then reckons fates. When Helen stands accused, says Menelaus to his ministers: "What quote you?" And they, These brighter wits who think their lord betrayed, Can quote him nothing but the smile which floats: Too light to be but bliss upon her lips. Can quote him nothing but the pace of peace: Love's lotus smoothing to an even meditation Her songlight passage and her sunset promenade. Says Menelaus to his ministers: "What, then - what quote you?" But they, though sure the obvious is truth, Can quote him nothing more - except, except That hint of stars which lights within her eyes Cosmetics of celestial charm. Now men have burnt for less. But Menelaus says: "And has her guard denounced her, Or has her maid? Or have you caught her, her and him? Well, have you? Have you caught her flaunting with the peacock, A pit to his javelin? Well? What answer, gentlemen? What speech, denouncements, facts, figs, figures - What rags of underwear, what Timetables of admission, What charts of exit - What maps of bottle and stopper, Of corking, plunging, oiling, greasing - Dorking! - Mapped and figured, charted and painted - Proved. Well? Is it fact? Or is it fancy? Tell me! Have you been dreaming, gentlemen, Mistaking clouds for elephants - Or have you caught him? Have you caught him, slapped him, held him, proved him? Have you caught the couple dog on dog, Her tongue, hands, buttocks, breasts, Splayed - wrenched - vomit - wet - And him, And him - His panting nub, his cream - And her - Well - have you?" Here Menelaus pauses, then he says: "I put upon your silence, I put - My father used to use the words, you know his habit - I put a negative construction on your lack Of claim to certain knowledge of time and place, Of breach and stain, of hip and haunch, Of tongue to tongue, and of - Configuration. You say - You say you think, but what, What, when we weigh this shadow for its stone, What, when we grill these feathers for their gold, What do you say? You say - you say she has two legs, and makes their use. At dawn, fair Helen walks: At sunset, walks. Well. Then should I have her carried, or take an axe - Blood griefs me! She walks, talks, smiles, sees - By what - what excess of astrology, By what - by what divining pidgeons Do you make this out as treason to my bed? You say she has two eyes. Two eyes to see with, eyes - What was it? You randomed cliche, and called those eyes Bright stars, or was it islands - Islands of light, and lit - I bought her for those eyes, and hope Those eyes will stay awake and lit forever. In all my life, I never heard it sin to see - and if it is Then should I hood her like a hawking bird? Or pluck her face? Or keep her in a bucket without a key? She smiles! She sees! You call it treason! And I - Am I to hold you traitors for a frown, Or think your indigestion treason, or think A war-wound limp is laziness, And your arthritis equal in delinquency?" So speaks King Menelaus, and speaks in anger: Suspicion rounding on suspicion. For, make no bones about it: Though Menelaus denies it to the heavens, He fears his Helen a traitor to his bed. Now Menelaus knows himself a jealous man: A man, please note, Who thinks himself betrayed. For she who once was woman has become Estranged in silence, obdurate as rock. Critique must still admit this sculptured stone Most marvellously expressive of the flesh. The statue more than breathes: it walks and talks, Equips itself with etiquette, and speaks With accents made in Athens, and exported Free with every purchase of the flesh. Yet stone is stone regardless, and this Is just such insult to his bed. There was a woman, once, More than the moulded marble of her flesh. Estrangements have taken her. But now - She makes herself a paperweight in bed, And moulds herself to shadows, and holds her silence. But why? King Menelaus introspects - but finds no cause. Surely he has given her his best. He has housed her under granite: Has fed her with the soup of turtles, Has bathed her with the milk of roses, Has graced her with the oyster's moon, With sheens of gold and butterfly endeavour. Attendants are hers, and service: A slave to each fingernail, if she wants it! Ever his queen, she lacks for nothing: And least of all for him. In Athens, when his brother's gold had purchased, He made his pledge: And keeps it. He's wenched no slave in owner's right, He's mobbed no drab in passing lust, But saved and saves his all: saves all in gift for Helen. Nightly to their marriage bed he brings His energies, his drive: Not for himself alone, but for them both: A mutual pleasure, this, This strength which bucks and rides, Which sweats both bodies to a single string: Which strives until it melts the harpstring's bones To a sweetness soft as melted cheese: A sweetness Of music wet beyond all echo, Soft, soft in closure. And then fatigue, in spiders of caesura, To web them down to nightslum sleep and finish. Thus the ritual, Making flesh of flesh, And making of two complex human creatures Two snoozing bears, two badger-lair incumbents, Anatomy at rest at one With paw and claw, with snore-down hibernation. Thus love. Thus lust. Thus nights with Menelaus: Taking Helen. At minimum, This discourse of the energies Must make the woman certain of her value, And make her - what? Must make her pleasured. Or so at least one hopes. But who can tell? For, when a woman moans, then is it passion, Or is she merely seasick? Or faking it, and wishing to be gone? King Menelaus fingers Helen in his thought, And finds her curves, her moist, her sinking grease: Constructs and reconstructs his rutting, And merits each thrust by angle, by depth of gynaecology: Ponders each encounter, and seeks to judge If he by serving Helen served her well. He knows her flesh - And yet, To know the hills is not to know the battle. And, as terrain to war, Thus Anatomy to pleasure. Effect remains uncertain, but this he knows: At least he tried. He matched his flesh to hers, and only hers - And, diligent in duty, Has shunned all other women: Has cleaved to her, and mightily has cleaved. And, if his cleaving has not pleased - well, if not pleased, She never asked for more. The king has done his duty, And does not think the woman serves him well. When she plays imitation to a statue. This much King Menelaus knows, And knows for certain: That Paris, young Paris was not yet guest, Was not yet known When all this started. This change to stone began by slow progression When Paris was but a distant grace of rumour. When Sparta's bounds were all young Helen's world, She shifted dew to diamond: And then the king first thought - He thought himself betrayed. But how? And why? And who, with wom and where? And when? What favoured wish came dancing in To flaunt the woman from her king? And was it wish? Mere woman's whim and fantasy? Or was it fact? And if some fact, some fact of flesh - If flesh, then what flesh? What slave in sweating secrecy, or what - What girl, or dog, or digit, What bursting soldier hoisting with a grin? What flesh? Now Menelaus knuckles fact with fact, And argues out causation, then declares That cause existed, acted, took effect Before young Paris played upon the scene. Hence Paris was not cause. However speculation rifes, Beyond all doubt, young Paris stands Quite innocent of all initations. And yet: The king takes counsel from his ministers, And they persist - To shortcut past all trials of innocence to declare That Helen has changed, And, as her change has cause, That prancing cause is Paris - so they claim. Since Paris is their whipping boy, They lash on well - But repetition stands as all their proof. And Menelaus, Though no great master of the logics, Yet knows that repetition merely heaped Is sheaves of air and bales of empty laughter. Now: stone repeating stone creates the castle. But words are water: their heap is but a puddle: And so says Menelaus, and says: "Were I a jealous man," says he, "I'd say the very shadows Seduce my wife to join them in the sheets. But jealous am I not And hence not maddened by suspicion To think that Paris breathes the self-same air, And walks the very earth she treads, And at the self-same table sits, Indulged by Helen's graces and her smiles. This I hold to be not yet adultery, Nor hint of such - nor proves That even thought has seized upon the flesh. You what? You say he looks! No doubt he does. I saw it from the first, and see it still. Of course he looked, and looks the more As each day passes. A man would have to be Dead in the stone - Or sick - Or locked in lust for cattle, dogs or men - Were he to pass such beauty without a glance. I say To look is yet no crime. A cat may look at a king And think to mouse down monarch, boots and all - But such a whim bespeaks no actual monster. This Paris is but a boy, And I a man, And Helen a woman made for a man, Wherefore I love her, And she loves me, And whims for no boy, However much he looks her." Thus: thus Menelaus closes out all argument. A king can silence tongues: But tongues have teeth Which gnaw as much in echo as in action. Much vexed, much gnawed, much knuckled by his musings, The good Lord Menelaus stands relieved When Paris says: he's going. And, Paris thus announcing his departure, The king declares a prompt relief by banquet, And ladles wine, and stacks up meat, And heaps up honours for this prince of Troy: All, all for Paris: A welcome guest: a guest Whose prompt departure will be welcomed even more. Late afternoon. "To Paris! Drink!" They drink. They drink up large and lush; They drink until the bifurcating sun Drowns down in an oxblood rush of wines incarnadine. And still they drink. Upon the blood of grapes they glutton, Souse riot home and loose the guttered cups. Though all is staked on enterprise, young Paris Outdrinks the rest: Drinks with a steady fist Then lifts his cup for more. Squanders sobriety, and then, at last, Bestirs himself to act. Go: it's time to go. She is ready. Yet. Almost. Not quite. Her hair in snatching coils Clutches her comb in tangles. A bedside table flails toward the floor. Cascading perfumes sprint. Down on her knees She scrabbles for a spillage of jewels. Gold gutters beneath her fingers, The glittering heads of kings and emperors Cascading to the dust. Arresting hands molest her. Shocked, she gasps a breath - Then hears him laugh. "You're ready, then. We'll go." "Ready?" Still half-dazed with shock she speaks: Uncertain. "Ready, yes," he says. "Then come - Come. Let's go." Go. It's time to go. She grasps his hand Which slips away and leaves her. She follows, her breath Flickering from fear to panic. |
|
read on |
|
|
|
read on |
|
|