was not the Pole.
Notions about cosmogony,
occultism became confused.
The surrealist depiction of the Sun
seemed to be
an apprentice’s draw from Nature.
The vision was head and shoulders
above virtuoso Hoffman.
Primitivism could have explained
whether these two
were at the Creation
or the Apocalypse.
Nearby was his Beatrice,
but no Virgil
who could interpret
where they were.
A place of Hell, or
a paradise of fiery wizardry?
Either they were pushed
at a forge,
where the sky smith
would flatten them
into new stars
for his tailcoat,
or they were already
on blood-red Mars:
unearthly landscapes were
where the glance went.
Gradually fears disappeared:
not at the end of light,
but at the change of light.
The two in love looked
at recently bought
golden rings,
admired.
A long kiss returned them
to the Earth.
Youngblood bubbled.
Clothes – down.
The girl allowed him to caress her.
Engaged, they agreed
not to copulate before the marriage.
Soon, very soon.
Still, to understand how
the agreement could survive,
well, read “Kama sutra.”
There, a bride and a bridegroom
find comfort,
variations and variations of sex,
unknown to many couples.
Such was
the chosen version of love.
This resilient body!
Perfect lines and shapes,
each the Indo-European
ideal of beauty!
Then in a moment,
the two decided
to break their agreement,
and pronounced
a scarlet-hot desire,
at that moment —
for the first and the last time —
they hear a rolling rumble.
A warning blood smudge
of a sacrificed fantastic animal
appeared in the sky
as if the Sun wished
to communicate with the lovers,
“The outcome will kill your love,
proud, wondrous, all-time.
Don’t impoverish yourselves.
A wedding will reward
your love forever.
Just outwait it.”
The two understood the omen,
ran, quenched the fire of lust
in the amaranthine ocean.
The bridegroom plunged under the bride.
An hourglass waist.
The hips filled
in the Sun frame.
He kissed the V-shaped spot
on his nearest Sun,
weighed her down after him,
then saved
only to be drawn again in her arms.
She, Redskin, liked it,
intercepted the amorous initiative
and attacked,
until the Redman
took her in his arms
and carried her ashore.
Hours elapsed
in their embrace and conversation,
before night came.
Feeling the Shiner wanted
to finish its explicit story,
to face the truth out,
and to lengthen the light,
they found rough timber in the forest,
and made a grotesquely high bonfire.
Like an icon-lamp,
it served as a liaison
between them and the world
beyond their conception.
Earth, water, air,
and fire —
all four elements
gathered on the shore
besides the Sun – inactive
when inside the logs,
then calescent in half a sky.
It’s dancing protuberances
evoked a fantasy flow —
snatchy flame visions.
Appeared
a Zoroastrian fire-handler
seen in Gujarat.
Nietzsche came up to him.
They talked, disappeared.
A widow has seen in Bihar
allowed to cremate her alive.
Her dead husband
in glary white clothes
met her, embraced, took off.
Historical recollections
and the Nature
crossed over
in vaulting groggy ecstasy,
animating zestfully
thousands of Bengali lights
and fireflies at night in Bengal.
Mixed them
with a pyrotechnical nonesuch
of the XVIII-century France,
and it seemed,
the French outshot the fireflies.
The symbols of fire
in cultic buildings
of all world religions
existing in India
in ancient or modern types
streaked.
Skryabin,
composing “The Symphony of Fire,”
was