Never In My Wildest Dreams Poem by William Jackson

Saint Augustine said, “Poetry is the devil’s wine! ”
And I suppose, I’ve grown accustomed
to drinking from its flask.

Still, nunca en mis sueños más salvajes
did I surmise meeting you, the woman,
who causes me to forget everything!

And the poetry I write - only for you-
lives in my mind and soul,
which Augustine would crucify
along with the body and the imagination.

Find men crushed by religion
with no praise for poetry or women,
and you have misogynists in the making.

I much prefer William Blake,
artist, poet, conscience for a nation,
as my patron saint.

“The nakedness of woman, ” Blake said,
“is the work of God! ” -Wisdom from a man
who saw heaven in a wildflower
and a world in a grain of sand.

Upon meeting you he would have penned
'My Pretty Rose Tree'. But, having done so,
he would have struggled to walk away.

Originally submitted June 6,2008