Post by thepoetslizard on Oct 10, 2008 16:03:29 GMT 2
Virginia R. Moreno
Bio from the ALIWW Website
rizal.lib.admu.edu.ph/aliww/pmb_virginia_moreno.htm
“Perfume Prayer”
Lord Healer! Lord Embalmer!
Exhale now Your root, aloe, wine, honey
Myrrh of Perfume Flower
Into his mouth without tongue, into his ears without drum.
Breathing incense
Ash, distilled from the smoking dead
Of all man’s wars, he must wake fragrant, singing,
Whole, but without his enemy, his knife.
*
"Lament of a Cathay Handmaiden in Marco Polo's Tent Pavilion"
(pdf file available at this Beloit Poetry Journal site:)
www.bpj.org/PDF/V13N2.pdf#zoom=100&page=57
*
"Order for Masks"
To this harlequinade
I wear black tights and fools cap
Billiken, make me three masks
For the three tasks in my life
Three faces to wear
One after the other
For the three men in my life
When my brother comes
Make me one opposite
If he is devil, a saint
With a staff to his fork
And for his horns, a crown
I hope by contrast
To make nil
Our old resemblance to each other
And my twin will walk me out
Without a frown
Pretending I am another
When my father comes
Make me one so like
His child once eating his white bread in trance
Philomela before she was raped
I hope by likeness
To make him believe this is the same kind
The chaste face he made
And my blind Lear will walk me out
Without a word
Fearing to peer behind
If my lover comes
Yes, when my seducer comes
Make me the face
That will in colors race
The carnival stars
And change in shape
Under his grasping hands
Make it bloody
When he needs it white
Make it wicked in the dark
Let him find no old mark
Make it stone to his suave touch
This magician will walk me out,
Newly loved
Not knowing why my tantalizing face
Is strangely like the mangled parts of a face
He once wiped out.
Make me three masks.
