Abstract Poems

	Requiem for a Fresco The hovering cherubs assume The poise of the playful With arrows of oak And hair of candy floss Each cheek is sullied By candle-wax and incense breath Curling lazily beneath The tickled rib vaulting One cherub smiles At the stream of organ air Wafting each cream curl With the caress of a sin Another prancer glances A chubby stub to the reredos Where the crucifix Quarters the crossing Each wisp and tuck of smoke Buries tears in some chapel Or crypt, sniffing the hope Of a hundred candles There is a woman below Her head bowed By the burden of love Her eyes are bedecked By the soporiferous Sweep of the cloud The cherubs bathe their feet In the rising sin One cherub faces the earth His eyes angry Like the hunger of heaven Tugging the arrowed Lust of a creeping choirgirl And her leather book Branded like adolescence With the braid of desire © David Incoll 2001
Back to Abstract Poems index