ROBERTS, Kevin N.


Rondel

Our time has passed on swift and careless feet,

With sighs and smiles and songs both sad and sweet.

Our perfect hours have grown and gone so fast,

And these are things we never can repeat.

Though we might plead and pray that it would last,

Our time has passed.

Like shreds of mist entangled in a tree,

Like surf and sea foam on a foaming sea,

Like all good things we know can never last,

Too soon we'll see the end of you and me.

Despite the days and realms that we amassed,

Our time has passed.

It Is Too Late

It is too late. Though we would reinspire

Our dream, rewake a dead desire,

A dismal sea divides our sighs and smiles;

Between us now so many months and miles

And tears for all things torn away by time,

For faded flowers grown pale and past their prime.

And no sweet words can make sick joys revive,

no mystic kiss keeps loves long dead alive.

What mortal hand can stay the hand of fate?

It is too late.

She Held My Shadow Gently

She held my shadow gently,

Like a weakened, wither'd child—

My own morose Madonna

Sighing sadly though she smiled.

My haggard head, in darkness,

Press'd and heav'd beneath her breast,

Burrowed deep and nestled deeper,

Numb and naked in my nest.

As manic limbs and mangled mind,

All gutted yet ... beguiled,

Felt death—pain, darkened, down-turned eyes

Wept warm and wet and mild.

Through weeping-open, willing flesh—

Whilst still she sweetly smiled—

The ache slid snake-like into her,

And still she softly smiled.

Allayne

The dawn of day is drawing near—

Would that explain

Why I should wake and find you here,

My lost Allayne?

I see you wear the look of saints,

The face you feign,

To hide the hungry beast that waits

To strike, Allayne.

But parted lips betray the thirst

You can't restrain,

And kissing them would make them burst

And bleed, Allayne.

So relish now the single kiss

Real love has lain,

And when you die, remember this

In hell, Allayne:

To love you was my single sin—

Could I abstain?

Fair flesh has felled far better men

Than I, Allayne.

Your perfect mouth was made to please

And bring me pain

With brazen teeth that taunt and tease

My soul, Allayne.

That I should chasten you by the rod

The gods ordain.

What breed of fierce infernal god

Forged you, Allayne?

What sort of strange sadistic spawn,

What brand of bane,

Made you a dark delicious pawn

Of death, Allayne?

When you were born, the devil swore

He would obtain

Your body and the soul it bore

With shame, Allayne.

Your Lord's perversely pulsing heart

Was torn in twain

That he might place the blackest part

In you, Allayne.

But when he tore you from the womb

Did you complain,

Or did you like his torrid tomb

Much more, Allayne?

He filled you with each kind of curse

You could contain,

And left you with a lust far worse

Than his, Allayne.

Henceforth you were his cherished prize

And chatelaine;

You rule the world of grim demise

With glee, Allayne.

You hold his horde of fiends in thrall,

A queen you reign,

And walk in shadows where they fall,

By night, Allayne.

And though you hate me for it, yet

I still maintain,

I love you, though you would forget

I lived, Allayne.

A sweet and subtly scented sea,

Your splendid mane

Excites my soul, enticing me

To drown, Allayne.

Your shameless cryptic shoulder's curve

Is half profane;

It shifts with fire in every nerve

That burns, Allayne.

But of your charms that mesmerise

And seek to chain,

Your brilliant black voracious eyes

Are best, Allayne.

They seethe with all the eager slaves

Your love has slain;

You sent them gladly to their graves

Alone, Allayne.

The pressure of your piercing teeth

Would prick the vein

And draw the flood that flows beneath

The flesh, Allayne.

The fragments of their fleeting lives

Would rush and rain

To feed the fiendish life that thrives

In you, Allayne.

You flourish by the fevered lips

And life you drain;

With lusty sighs and hungry sips

You drink, Allayne.

You seem a vile, envenomed thing

And less than sane;

Your kiss so like a serpent's sting

Can kill, Allayne.

The poison in that brutal kiss

Now wracks my brain

And sends my blood to mortal bliss

In you, Allayne.

Against your scarlet silken dress

The nipples strain

And raise to meet the hard caress

You crave, Allayne.

But you could never stoop to love,

Nor would you deign

To hold a mortal man above

Yourself, Allayne.

Your only longing is for death

And things arcane;

Your breathing is the tainted breath

Of tombs, Allayne.

Destroying me will be the cost,

And what you gain

Is freedom from the soul you lost

Long since, Allayne.

But when I'm gone will you forget,

Or entertain,

The passions you could not permit

To grow, Allayne?

I've one last wish, but would my wishing

Be in vain?

Just once, I'd hear the hateful thing

You hide, Allayne.

So now I ask you to confess,

By love of Cain,

The joy it gives you to possess

My gift, Allayne.

I leave you something that will stay,

A fatal stain,

That you could never wash away

With blood, Allayne.

The touch of my deferring hand

You will retain,

A touch you may well understand

In time, Allayne.

Until the end of all your days

It will remain,

And then the fiend you dared to praise

Will fall, Allayne.

Angelic armies will descend

And him arraign;

They'll bring about his brutal end

On earth, Allayne.

The remnant of his writhing form

Will wax and wane

And perish in a reeking storm

Of dust, Allayne.

You'll stand alone to face the fall

Of his domain

And watch the ruin of every wall

He built, Allayne.

And then, my love, we both will see

If you disdain

The only soul that would not flee

Your touch, Allayne.

I sink into the strangest sleep,

Whilst you sustain;

As dark as death and twice as deep

I doze, Allayne.

With death die all my mortal fears

I shan't regain,

And I can wait a swarm of years

For you, Allayne.

You think you've seen the last of me,

You slavish swain,

But mine will be the face you see

In dreams, Allayne.

I swear it now, my wicked thing,

We'll meet again.

Then will you wear the devil's ring...

Or mine, Allayne?