DAVID VIRGIN's Comment Board

When I love

I feel that I am the king of time

I possess the earth and everything on it

and ride into the sun upon my horse.

***

When I love

I become liquid light

invisible to the eye

and the poems in my notebooks

become fields of mimosa and poppy.

***

When I love

the water gushes from my fingers

grass grows on my tongue

when I love

I become time outside all time.

***

When I love a woman

all the trees

run barefoot toward me...

The messenger with her hair

long to the springs

***

This is the story of the other side of creation

I discovered it, my eyes obscured

The path, my beloved,

Leads from her awaiting me

Leads from my return to her

This is the story of the other side of creation

Listen

Do not shoot the doors

The breakers bear the message to the wind

The wind to the trees

The trees to notebooks.

You, old men with homes, and you, young boys of the streets

Sit this very night in the presence of the lover.

You, who hurry about, did you really leave only to return?

Shatter the night for an instant

Come, gather round the one to testify.

Pray, my love, that I spread a feast, befitting their appetite.

Birds of the harvest season soar past

But your light does not recede, its hand before me still.

I am the collector

I.

AWAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night

Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

II.

Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky

I heard a voice within the Tavern cry,

"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup

Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."

III.

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before

The Tavern shouted -- "Open then the Door!

You know how little while we have to stay,

And, once departed, may return no more."

IV.

Now the New Year reviving old Desires,

The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,

Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough

Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.

V.

Iram indeed is gone with all its Rose,

And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one Knows;

But still the Vine her ancient ruby yields