Sonnets from the Patagonian

LOVE IN PATAGONIA

To Carl Van Vechten

LOVE IN PATAGONIA

 
Forgetting her mauve vows the Fania fled,
Taking away her moonlight scarves with her —
There was no joy left in the calendar,
And life was but an orchid that was dead.
Even our pious peacocks went unfed —
I had deserved no treachery like this,
For I had bitten sharp kiss after kiss
Devoutly, till her sleek young body bled.
 
 
Then Carlo came; he shone like a new sin —
Straightway I knew pearl-powder still was sweet,
And that my bleeding heart would not be scarred.
I sought a shop where shoes were sold within,
And for three hundred francs made brave my feet,
And then I danced along the boulevard!
 

PORTRAITS OF IGOR VYVYAN

To Pitts Sanborn

IN THE VICES

 
Gay and audacious crime glints in his eyes,
And his mad talk, raping the commonplace,
Gleefully runs a devil-praising race,
And none can ever follow where he flies.
He streaks himself with vices tenderly;
He cradles sin, and with a figleaf fan
Taps his green cat, watching a bored sun span
The wasted minutes to eternity.
 
 
Once I took up his trail along the dark,
Wishful to track him to the witches' flame,
To see the bubbling of the sneer and snare.
The way led through a fragrant starlit park,
And soon upon a harlot's house I came —
Within I found him playing at solitaire!
 

EN MONOCLE

 
Born with a monocle he stares at life,
And sends his soul on pensive promenades;
He pays a high price for discarded gods,
And then regilds them to renew their strife.
His calm moustache points to the ironies,
And a fawn-coloured laugh sucks in the night,
Full of the riant mists that turn to white
In brief lost battles with banalities.
 
 
Masters are makeshifts and a path to tread
For blue pumps that are ardent for the air;
Features are fixtures when the face is fled,
And we are left the husks of tarnished hair;
But he is one who lusts uncomforted
To kiss the naked phrase quite unaware.
 

PORTRAIT OF THE FAN FAN

Imitated from "Discords"

To

Donovan Blades

LOVING KINDNESS

Moscow

 
Her flesh was lyrical and sweet to flog,
For the whip blanched her blood, though every vein
Flooded with hate shot a hot flow of pain,
And her screams were muffled by a brackish fog.
He loved her, yet his passion could but fret
Unless he lashed her to an awkward rage —
But when his hand wrote terror on her page
He knew exultant joy of feigned regret.
 
 
Theirs was a bond that poured the wine of fear,
And he drained her stiffened limbs with cruel art.
He taught her that all tenderness had fled
Till she would beg the hurt to taste the tear,
And when she bent to kiss her quivering heart
It lit a Chinese candle in his head.