PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

"Vieni a veder Montecchi e Cappelletti . . ."
---Dante,
The Divine Comedy, The Purgatorio, Canto 6, 106

1

So much misinformation has been spread
about by our four parents, and their staffs
of servants:  all the intrigue, suicide,
and sorrow that they said we brought upon
their houses was a most elaborate ruse
maliciously connived, an outright lie
to save their honor that we dared defy,
then.  Name someone who actually beheld
our bodies carried to---or who was last
to see us in---the tomb before the doors
were shut and sealed.  No:  under cover of
the darkness, and by starlight (love's own sign),
we made escape.  Verona found itself
lost for an explanation:  hence, the tale
that most have heard.  Sometimes, I even think
that poets, somewhere, someday, might pick up
those fictive details, and expand upon
familial bitterness that could not rest
until our love was buried---seemingly,
in noised repute if not reality.

2

Speaking of Poets:  on the open road
we walked a long way with a Poet from
the town of Florence, exiled on the pain
of death if he returned.  Their politics,
corrupted by twin sins of pride and greed,
accused and judged him without evidence,
without regard to obvious innocence,
or even some due process of their law.
He, too, had loved---and our experience
with obstacles had been like his somewhat
(except his had been too much, we agreed,
in that his Lady had, too early, died).
Then he described to us a long, vast poem
(that, at the time, was mostly an outline)
in which his Lady drew him to herself
and brought him (who would gladly kneel down to
her stockinged feet) upon a journey through
the realms that follow death.  Around a fire,
eating roast game with other vagabonds,
we listened to that Poet's triple rhyme
as he recited what he had composed---
only a small part of the greater whole.
Came far too soon a parting of our ways.
He wept, as we did, when that day arrived.
But, of his kindness, he directed us
to this safe haven where have since dwelt,
anonymously and luxuriously
to some extent, and sheltered from the reach
of those who might want to interfere.

3

While on the road, we had acquired a book
of poems about a couple---lovers---named
Jason and Guinevere, whose love expressed
itself (and if I may say so) caressed
itself (as they were one flesh and not two)
in sheerness of exquisite beauty.  We
having been, in Verona, fitly wed
took that slim volume with us to our bed
(when we took ownership of this fine house,
our villa in the peaceful countryside).
Back in Verona, long before we met,
my lover (who is wholly masculine)
was taunted by his so-called, faithful friends
as being, in their opinion, feminine---
for his long locks (almost as long as mine)
and his deep-searching eyes (that plumb my soul
whenever he looks at me) and his heart
(from which emotion is exquisitely
set forth).  But their dislike of these aspects
did not discourage him back then; nor now.
(Our Florentine friend told him, on the road,
not to dispose this part of himself to
the lost world's whims.)  With the example of
Jason and Guinevere upon his mind,
he asked---"What difference should exist between
"my leggings and my Lady's stockings?  None!"
And thus resolved, he sent some gold coins to
a weaver cunning in the use of silk
who made the stockings for him, several pair,
exactly like my own---silken, and sheer,
except where doubly woven at the toes
and heels (preventative against the change
of runs, or snags, or other accidents).
We wear our stockings, daily (and, upon
the trimmed lawn or our marbled floors, unshod);
and, in our bed, when love proceeds our sleep
(as it so often does), these stockings are
the sole adornment to our nakedness.
 
Starward
 
[jlc]