Beauty and Truth

Shall I speak the truth and be heard? Listen
and understand with disbelieving ears,
for I speak the truth, indisputable
as sunsets and true north, if other’s sun
sinks upon a different horizon
and world turns on a separate pivot,
sensible only to them, I will state
my truth and not standing their weak dispute,
my claim is true or I am not myself
and deny my own face in the mirror,
the mad know not themselves, but being sane,
barring hesitation, I will say it,
you are beautiful, as beauty was created for you,
as you were formed and crafted to be the mold of beauty,

to be the key which fits every lock,

opening doors as you pass,
and all who look upon you are held, unable to turn,
knowing not and caring not
why they no longer control the object of their attention,
feeling only the hunger no food can feed and the thirst no drink can wet,
and I am the humming bird drawn to the crimson blossom,
but not for the beauty of scarlet petals
which only signify the sustenance in the sweet liqueur
born deep in the bloom, but because I must,
just as the flower twists on its stem
drawn to follow the Sun’s arc overhead,
I extend my tongue, hoping to taste the air in your trail,
the never bottled perfume, brewed from the alchemy of your skin,
the transmutation of flesh into love, the reduction of my will,
for to say I will this is to say I will to breath,
and I cannot will to not breath
as the will submits to the need,
as a suicide leaps smiling into the river
to spend his last breath clawing back to the surface,
it is all beyond my will, it is my must,
my lust to be the wave which washes you off the beach
into the surf and embrace you as the ocean holds the shore,
to be the earth and open a chasm under your feet,
dropping deep inside, closing over, sealing us as one body,