An Arousing Aridity Poem by Richard Blanch

This day is dry; smells fuse
Into a memory of hotter lands. They wind up
And wake up the soul. Laziness
Takes on a rosemary keenness. This muse
Wants warm marble, sandals, rocks,
Prickles with heat, bare breasts charming
The burning light with an illusion
Of spiky thorns and dusty olives. An alarmed
Memory is scored and bruised
Into awareness. Here are no mindblocks
Of watercolour haziness. Here no soggy leaves.
No rest. Here, indeed, is the fine clarity
Which deceives and does it well
Has slipped with us down the years,
Shockingly old, terrifyingly new.

No nervous frowning now: embrace the rousing dream
Swim in its sweat, shelter under its pines,
Celebrate the red and the brown and the gold.
Don’t be timid. She won’t like that. Peel
Spirit, strip body. Don’t wait. It is you who must choose!
What, in the name of the many, have you got to lose?