Confessions Of A Troubadour Poem by John Lars Zwerenz

ANDALUSIA

I

I descended down shallow hills,
On the dappled laps of daffodils,
Where the breezes spoke of adventurous places,
Of beautiful castles, and the lovely, matin, sparkling traces
Of expansive, glittering, Spanish dews
And remarkable, feminine, astonishing faces.

Teeming, towering birches and yews
Hovered over eaves of wood;
I walked through brambles, as far as I could,
Beneath the arched Cathedrals' holy heights
As the Castilian sunlight graced trails of gold,
Where rainbows taste of ethereal delights.

At noon I found a rustic inn,
Where the warm scent of mahogany
Tamed the swirling, mountainous cold;
Amid the drunken, lively din
Which praised the glory of the sea.
Then a waitress tended to my tired mind
By serving me Chablis, and fine, Belgian port.
Her mane was braided, and tied in a bow,
(Her soul was of a dreamy sort)
Angels circled her, high and low,
Her eyes were deep, magic and dark,
Of a silhouetted, morning lark,
And her spirit was humble, docile and kind.

And as the afternoon wore on in an orange, hazy way
It sent the sallow sun to the tall, surrounding western mounts,
Where its tangerine light spread like fire across the bay
Gilding each square, and every throng of slender founts.

I left the old cafe, and stealing a crimson rose,
I placed it in that fair maiden's hand,
As the nascent moon ascended, growing ivory, round and near.
She took it with an ancient grace
And her sable eyes welled up with a tear
Which trailed down the softness of her dear, Spanish face.

Then suddenly the night arrived
As I wandered far into a forest, alone -
Where the sunlight died.
Then in the midst of a chilly, lonely zone
I came upon a barren, wooden pier.
I felt an aching in my heart as I pervaded the sky above.

And so I said goodbye to my Iberian love
Who wore a white dress, embroidered with frills,
Feminine and frail.
I ferried up the hill where the dappled daffodils
Bade me farewell, towards Holland and the mills,
To the ocean and a sail.

II

THE BASTION

Demons like to haunt certain ships
Which veer upon the toppling waves
Preparing arrogant seaman's graves
Lured by their Sirens' sanguine lips.

I once met a lady possessed in a keep.
How she attained my bastion
I will never rightly know.
Her family was religious though,
And knew what was sown the sinner would reap.
(In their profoundly livid horrid fashion.)

Her name was Dalia. Her tresses were sable.
Yet they were no where near as dark as her hating heart was able
To commit every crime underneath heaven's sun.
She ascended from the castle's yard
Where corpses walk with the devil's feet.
She hated all and cared for no one,
Yet one dark night our lips did meet.

The sheer taboo of her ruddy kiss
Set my soul on fire.
I could not walk away from her,
She slowly killed me with desire.

Now I wail, I sob and pathetically weep
As the fallen angels with steely red eyes
Are faithful to their eternal despise -
And never, nevermore shall my mind know sleep.

III

THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER

I once saw a Seraph rise from the sea,
Glorious and brazenly,
Fond of Grecian aesthetics, and Dionysian paints.
And there, to the west,
Rose a mountain of gold,
Where paradisiacal Saints
Brought death to the base,
As they resurrected a godly grace
With the grandeur of the old.

I was in the zenith of my youth, verily at my best,
And I donned a pirate's suit
Of worn, raven leather,
Roving in the briny weather,
A descendant from a Saxon, an Angle and a Jute.

Euripides'
Tragedies
Were on my weary, bohemian mind -
When I met a soldier quite unkind.

Yes, I came upon a Macedonian man
Whose disease was his liking
To give every horse his bloody whip.
His spirit was of a Viking;
His name was Alexander, the son of King Phillip
Who invoked the warlike malice of Pan,
To conquer Russians, slaves of night.
This tyrant knew not how to give
Although his deeds shall not outlive
Hitler in his blackest height.

I drew my sword, and raised it on high,
Into the gilded, Grecian sky,
And introduced this self exalted king
To the kingdom which echoes a fiendish glee,
To the realm where darkness reigns with nothing,
Where grim Persephone,
Swims in the Acheron's depths of Hades,
Where no being returns,
Where no one comes back,
Where loathsome men and ladies
Are met with the coals of everlasting burns
Made of only torture and a reddish black.

IV

A PARISIAN ANGEL

I indulged in every revelry as I did dine
In the wake of a penitential night
When every glass of bourbon and Spanish wine
Brought me only remorseful pain.

I waited for the dawning of the matin light
Beneath a silver lamppost in the misty rain.

And there, before me,
Went an angel of the sun,
Clad in a sailor's coat, redolent as a summer vine.
Two lovers of the sea were we,
Two lovers though as truly one;
I shook when her lips did glisten and shine.

She was French in her beauty to the very core.
(The Parisian sun was dawning.)
Her hair was of a raven hue.
And as she passed me on the avenue
On her way beneath a greenish awning
To the little grocery store,
In the silhouettes of a shady blue,
My heart could truly take no more.

V

THE CARAVAN

We left the harbor in the rain.
Our galleys had to flee.
For our vessels were too far out of safety
To anchor in the sea.

The billowing waves, all cresting and ivory
Almost tossed us over twice
As I saw the wintry breeze,
Colder than arctic ice,
Destroy the distant linden trees
On the shore one mile away.

No sunlight shone, it was banished whole.
The sky grew worse as the dying day
Cost one poor sailor the ultimate price
As the greedy, old ocean swallowed his soul.

A princess came along on my ship.
Her face was fair, and her frame was dark.
She possessed more loveliness than all coquets.
She offered to me her wild perfume,
And her lips of the rose
Which owned all of heaven's heights
As they did softly unclose
In the nascent sunsets
Of those furious, stormy, autumn nights.

And so we reached the Spanish Main;
The firmament was calm, and fragrant with the scent
Of terra cotta statues, and paths of mossed cement
Which shone like gold beneath the dusky sky.
I asked for her hand
On a mount near a grand
Throng of sweet gondolas in a courtyard high.

And her sanctified "yes" spoke with love in a sigh.

VI

SAHARA BLUE

It is better to be drunk with boldness
Than to suffer needlessly upon the shore
Reading Baudelaire's dour, depressing lore
Near the reefs in the wintry coldness.

It is better to be a romantic warrior
Than a pacifist who is deaf and blind
To the violent rages of siroccos unkind.

Shame on the throngs of sleeping masses
Uncaring and indifferent in their hearts and minds
To the dire sufferings of the poor in their binds!

To possess a soul in the upper classes
Of grand, ancient England frequently passes,
For the House of Lords is not what it seems.

I have met a lady in my dreams
Who donned a dress of glistening white,
With gold embroidered lovely seams
Which lended grace unto the night.

And all which dissevers wrong from right
Reigned in her eyes of sable brown.
We discovered paradise in the palm of the moonlight
One warm, October eve when we walked into town.

Her soul was of a princess, and her love was proven true,
For when we left the village, we ran as children do
Happily, and forevermore,
For she knighted me a troubadour,
Beside the sea of Sahara blue
In the cozy cradle of a heavenly den.
And I could ask for nothing more
Living as heaven's citizen.

VII

A TROUBADOUR'S SONG

Walking through meadows, carefree I shall roam,
As a troubadour in the south of France,
Where gypsies rove and blue streams dance.
In Elysian fields I shall make my home.

I shall not contemplate on the hardships of life,
Or relinquish my joy in a marble square
Where the fragrant souvenir of a lady fair
Is a lovely harbinger of a future wife.

And when Venus ascends with a graceful light
Above the gold boughs which bend in the night
I shall witness the ethereal with my eyes
In a courtyard where fountains sing to the skies.

JOHN LARS ZWERENZ