Souls..(A confession).

Chapter three..Wilderness.. 

“Wanderer above a sea of fog”..c; 1818..Casper David Friedrich.

Chapter 3.

Perdatur ille pessime qui feminam

Duxit secundus, nam nihil primo imprecor!

Ignorus ut puto mali primus fuit.

“Foul fall him that brought the second match to pass,

The first I wish no harm, poor man, alas!

He knew not what he did, nor what it was.”

(Eubulus..in ’Chrysilla’..from Burton’s ; Anatomy of Melancholy).

*

The Ballad of an Innocent Man.

’Twas not me wot done it,
I can tell you that first hand,
For what stands ‘ere afore you,
Is the form of an innocent man!
Never have I deliberately lusted,
Nor crossed a madam’s palm,
The demon drink has rarely touched these lips,
Of this innocent man.
I rise each and every morning,
Aft’ the sleep of a babe,
I wash the night-dreams from my eyes,
And confront a busy day,
For I knows full well the devil’s work,
That idle hands will play,
But for my hands there’s work aplenty,
As I fill my innocent day.
I’ve never a cross nor abusive word,
To sling at my fellow man,
On the contrary, I declare I am a poet,
When it comes to required verbal command.
And as for dogs and other beasts,
I only show a respectful hand.
I honour my father and mother,
And give reverence to my spouse and lover.
I praise the works of The Lord,
I donate to my church ample reward,
Attend to take regular communion,
With that congregational union.
Whatever are my private consults,
They are kept within memory’s vault,
For whatever sins I have secretly thought,
The origins were not all my fault.
For the wicked world lays many traps,
That can trip an innocent man,
Perhaps ;
The glance of a woman’s tempting eyes,
The tender touch of a woman’s hand,
The curvaceous tilt of her supple thighs,
Would be ungentlemanly to refuse to attend.
A soft spoken word she whisp’s in an ear,
When at my weakest and hunger to hear,
The brush of her tender lips agin’ my cheek,
May make manly resistance grow oh so weak,
Add to these nature’s fierce command,
To refuse the urge of blood demand,
‘Twould constitute against her gift agrieve,
The one sin God WILL NOT FORGIVE!
So when you accuse that I am condemned,
For this one duty of irresistible command,
Remember you are making unfair judgement,
On the life on this innocent man!

Cast as a reluctant bachelor into the wilderness of social isolation, I became prey to that most debilitating of heterosexual male afflictions; a hunger for the company and companionship of women! Such a fierce want brought me in contact with some quite desirable and some quite undesirable companions…but such is the variety of human condition out there in the suburban wilderness.

One lady whose name was Jaquelin, I got into a temporary relationship with, that I thought could be promising for a longer attachment, suddenly, after a night of making love and sleeping together, I woke with a “morning glory” and whilst laying in an embrace, her buttocks to my crotch, I went to take advantage of the congenial position to join our bodies in another session of morning love-making…when she just as suddenly demanded to know what I was attempting to do..

“What comes naturally, my love..” I crooned into her ear.

“But you didn’t ask me!” she angrily responded…Now, perhaps I did presume too suddenly on her naked person after a delightful night of sexual delight, but I thought the continuity of intercourse was a natural progression of our mutual affection..

“That is rape!” she cried…

CLANG CLANG CLANG!! Alarm bells started to ring out and a multitude of red flags were hauled up the pole…and I very quickly called a halt to that relationship..after all, it would only be a matter of time before I committed some other faux pas and then to have the full force of feminist victim law brought down on me…no..no..best give ground and make hasty retreat, for there is no defence against a victim’s…any victim’s accusation!

She.

Herself be chaste and her honour unstained,

No fault to her my advances declined,

For a man may lust and seek favour inflamed,

Beyond the knowledge of any woman inclined,

As is ordained by God and Nature inscribed,

By voice, eyes, turn of hand and body naived,

And let no-one deny what is ever ordained,

That union of man to woman is ingrained,

To an order infused and will indelibly remain,

Regardless of whom would otherwise declaim,

For a woman’s touch, voice, such ecstasy renown,

Is unequaled in splendour by any jeweled crown,

Heed Ulysses, Menelaus and Marc Antony combined,

So if to adore woman splendid should be a crime,

I seek no forgiveness…

leave the sin be mine.

But I worry about you ladies .. For I wonder if all this astute attention to small details you do in walk, talk, dress and style is appropriately appreciated .. NOT that it is only directed AT or FOR that section of the male fraternity, whose unfathomable and deluded vanity seems to heed not the wise sayings of the sages of old … : “A house without a woman is like a lantern without light.” So they proceed stumbling blind to all womanly beauty, into the lonely darkness with neither clue nor idea of direction nor destination … I weep for them .. : “Perfume of embraces all him assailed, with hungered flesh obscurely, he mutely craved to adore.”

But what I most worry about is that there is a confederacy of people .. mostly middle-class idealists and zealots who wish to take control of any conversation about the relationship between women and men and steer it away from mutual affection or admiration .. EVEN allowing for the massive blunders of emotional, sexual and physical misdemeanours that have blighted so many relationships and brought so much hardship to so many and they want to steer the conversation to a dark and lonely place, isolating each from each other by focusing on the eternal and predictable violence and conflicts between the genders .. an absurd and bizarre denial of the unstoppable and natural impetus that pulls a man toward a woman and through all its faults creating a connection that is physical, emotional and spiritual the like of which cannot be matched in a knowing intellect toward each other by any other force in the known universe … no matter how much we want to fool ourselves .. by any other relationship in the natural kingdom on this Earth .. The joining of man and woman is but a start of a long journey toward adoration.

Amelie Gautreau, Painted by John Singer Sargent..1884.

True beauty cannot age in this painting held sincere,

Of such delight even after one hundred and fifty years.

Let other men ogle and froth over a film star queen,

I have you, my absolute delight, to finger-tip touch on the screen.

Though your person be long gone into the corruption of the grave,

I hold faith to this image perfect, so perfect, of my fair maid.

I cannot for the life of me remember what vision splendid be,

Better for the tone of ivory touched skin, nor delight imagined within

Such a splendid volume of gown with all the grace thou hath worn.

Fortune itself preserves down time via the artists brush or poem,

To deliver gently to me such beauty when thyself is so long gone.

Timeless is the natural purity of a vision splendid from Nefertiti,

Herself a cause célèbre before even the wiliness of Cleopatra,

With her beauty did stupefy both Antony and the great Caesar,

So did a natural gift granted in excessive splendour lead her,

As with any woman graced of perfect curvaceous body armour,

To take as given and earned gifts of a legion of besotted admirers,

Thrown carelessly at her feet along with volumes of flattery,

Would drown in an ocean of adjectives the nine lives of a cat,

But in the end, there is but herself, undisputed beauty,

Fixed in a silent, stilled, forever young loveliness..and that is that.

Another strange affair of the heart I had was not with an actual body, but rather a woman I corresponded with who spoke to me with voluptuous eloquence and told me stories of her pastime of caning men on their buttocks with a favourite set of  birch switches..Jane’s descriptions of the uniform she would dress in and then administer the canings were most instructive…and the pictures she sent, NOT, I might add, of the caning (I’d abhor such things), but of the leather, skin-tight one-piece she would wear opened a new world of secret and arousing erotica in me..several of such pictures showed a full bosomed body bursting from a partially unzipped jump-suit…or a set of feminine buttocks scantily clad in “G-string” underwear and I have to confess that the world of dark, salacious intrigue did suggest itself to me…but thankfully, she soon grew tired of myself, not wanting to go any deeper than scant erotica, I was seen as a “lightweight” in the world of sexual deviancy…and I cannot now be more thankful for such a correct diagnosis..I did, however write a collection of sonnets (can I call them that?) to that woman in gratitude to her awakening in myself the acknowledgement of the spirituality of sexuality that lays dormant in all of us.

Passages to a Dark Lady.

Prelude:

Come..my friends, you readers too,

Come bask in my story told so true,

My journey to the heart’s desire,

A lesson forged with touching fire..

Come sit with me and without fail,

In comfort here and I will aspire,

To tell sweet fortune of love’s travail…

#1.

Though thou has vanished from mine eyes,

Like yesterday’s blue from Summer skies,

I can find no reason for to say goodbye,

Even tho’ my heart be shaken.

Even if my words to thee spoken,

Be valued so little, such fastidiousness broken,

Worthless now as a financier’s token.

#2.

So journey with us down memory’d lane,

Down dark passages we’ll roam again,

Speak us richly the arriving here,

The joy, the laughter .. moments drear.

Let paint the canvas with colours bright,

Weave a tapestry of pure delight before ….

Passing into this long goodnight.

#3.

Was a summer day breathed on my cheek,

Her touch of affection calling, sweet ..

As soft as a rose petal gently falling ..

Silent, tender, and so very, very deep.

Whilst her eyes did suggest a wicked desire,

Burning into my psyche a white-hot fire,

Beguiling, bewitching her commanding attire.

#4.

Softly she spoke my given name,

In syrup’d voice of a Siren’s song..

“Yosef”she said..t’was but Calypso’s whisper,

As sweet to my ears as a lover’s tongue,

Inviting me to dream strange dreams alone,

In darkened hollows, over wild, wild seas,

To vision splendid places only a lover sees.

#5.

And like two lovers on a frolic dance,

At times I led with a stallion’s prance,

And then I’d follow in wanton trust,

Giving myself, my heart, in besotted trance,

So let us weave in rich hued blend,

Tapestry thread fateful lovers held,

Together weft’d, together fell’d.

#6.

‘Twas an evening blanched of pure light,

I first show’d how my vanity did write,

My words I’d spoken on a page,

My word!..but it was a foolish sage,

Inspired me to speak that erotic piece,

Wrapped in verbose tender-speak,

In this, a cynical day and age so bleak.

#7.

Was tale of a man and of his loved wife,

Departed she since this wretch’d life,

And of another who became his lover,

In loneliness both did find each other,

Over mutual thought’s, over dinner,

The beguiling twist of life’s fine art,

Bequeathed each to each a new start.

#8.

“Tell me”She said and I listened enthralled,

“What does thou know of what lies behind the shroud,

Where men’s thoughts are worn less proud,

And dark desires cried aloud?”

She paused to straighten her garter there,

And with a ‘snap’ sharp on her underwear,

Held my eyes with coquettish stare.

#9.

“My thighs have many men embraced,

My hips have also their hands encased….”

My word, my word!..if could ever I such beauty taste,

“Woman”, I cried “thou has a splendid cast,

Enough to make a man breathless gasp,

Enough to make my pulse miss a beat,

Enough to lay one’s heart to waste.”

#10.

She before me lay in her scant attire,

Such beauty splendid I did so desire,

And she turned showing to me soft rear,

Breathless me .. such a peachy derriere .

There basked In that afternoon sunlight,

Those curves of Venus, oh soft, soft delight,

Swooned me fair away .. did that sacred sight.

#11.

Oh that blind time could endless stay,

Beauty held precious as diamond hard,

But shadows lurk most in brightest day,

Like a stain on the soul of a lively child.

‘Twas I and I alone did break the spell,

Drove our love down into Sheol .. well ..

Regret now leaves me rot in mine own hell.

#12.

The language of love be a childish thing,

Playful, silly, prattling childish things,

Spoke with giggle, babble, panting breath,

Simple, throw-away lines, ungracious mirth.

But O so tragic when regret comes forth,

To remind one of one’s pathetic thoughts,

To twist the ear in punishment wrought.

#13.

Beauty O beauty what have I done,

Chased thee far from my wanting arms,

Bade thee curse the days when alone,

Together such pleasantries, each charms our own,

Hark now must thee move aside for another,

More thoughtful? More kind? .. less selfish lover?

Or would life’s mould cast us all to suffer?

#14.

There was a time in my youth naive,

Where I thought a kiss enough to please,

A pretty girl at my sleeve,

All was needed to solve life’s mysteries ..

Weary now in time’s long run,

Lessons not learned, wisdom undone,

What was the point now all has gone?

#15.

The Siren sung her song.

Irresistible in comeliness..yes!..I answered..

But O .. the seduction of her face,

The perils unheeded of her warm embrace.

Small things I gave..gifts and trinkets

To secure her exclusiveness.

To become but shipwrecked upon her palliasses.

#16.

We kissed, on the day she went away,

The air was heavy with the scent of cut hay.

On the day she went away.

We kissed and her kiss was as soft..as soft,

As a thrust of air from a parakeet’s wing,

Her touch; a downy feathered thing.

“I’ll call”..her parting say “I’ll call”..but never made.

#17.

Though her-self is gone, her scent is entrenched,

And memory .. more precious for the hint of hunger,

More perfect than a fleeting romance,

Perfect makes its own promise.. it remains entranced.

Now, as morn’ wakes with air on air of breath intake,

I touch her dress..with tender memories, kiss her nape.

For we were so much in love.

#18.

Nature may mark the species, history the men,

Lies shape the person fortune has already dammed,

The stupid repeat their mistakes – and

A fool is condemned in vain.

These things our memory has seen,

Not to be forgot, nor to be disdained,

Lest that we most treasure, be lost or left forlorn.

#19.

Beauty are such things once memory sees,

Cannot be forgot, nor scorned.

Things that we do treasure, to please,

Things lost or all forlorn looked for in vain,

Which I did adore is grown pale and wan,

THAT beauty that ever once was,

Is gone…is gone.

#20.

Now, behind cold glass I touch her face,

My fingers tremble on lacq’d plate

Of the silvered frame.

She smiles out at me, Siren song fills my heart.

Again she is calling..she is calling…!

I cannot resist..does she love me still ?

I am falling…I am falling…I am falling..

#21.

It’s canny how nature can frame it,

So the briefest blush of female naked,

Arouse blind lust in a man and,

Then steer his intent toward senses bent,

With a desire himself will so weakly consent,

For such a loose fragment of life is so brief,

That it cannot represent a changing truth.

#22.

That we now live our lives in fragments,

Small moments of awareness teased with touch?

Like penny peep-shows in old side-shows,

Wisdom via knowledge in photo-ops’,

Literary grabs no more than 1,000 words,

Writ’ in witty, sly, evocative pedantry?

Hinting, not over-playing, loquatious vocabulary.

#23.

Just allow enough to thoroughly suffocate,

The inadequate language of the great uneducate,

To then go about the task to them of explaining,

Your “truths” of subjective-objectivity to the unknowing.

But “what is truth”? .. of’t we fob.

Did not Pilate ask the same of Christ?..

BEFORE he threw him to the mob..

#24.

So THERE, mark the difference of our times..

Now, a baying media mob plays the role of Pilate,

A victim corraled onto their sticky slime,

Of venality or what can be construed a crime,

And torn apart BEFORE they are judged,

THEN thrown to be intellectually eviscerated,

By a celebrity expert on social media hatred.

#25.

Sensuality has morphed into sexual depravity,

Desire morphed into lascivious groping…

So do we as a collective embrace debauchery,

Where once flirt and tease were things chanced,

With all the skills of an exotic dance..

Now..one could observe that brutality,

Is become entrenched as the new eroticy.

#26.

Where once was the hiatus of anticipation

Of a new date a thrill of elated emotion,

“Will she turn up?..it’s getting late,

Surely..Oh, there she is…wait !”

Is now no more than Tinder app’ checking,

Made over a shoulder to cheek mobile clamped,

As we wander random aisles shopping?

#27.

While one is a viewer lame these days,

Of those so-called dark, “Scandi-noir” plays,

Where is a display of nudity, sexual forays..

Though sadly (perhaps down to my age)..

Even with music sultry, silkily played,

And soft photography shot erotically,

The sexual scenes come over cold, clinically..

#28

Almost brutally, the bodies harsh .. brittle…

Certainly not as a girl in a yellow bikini; attractive,

From my young years remembered..and in reaction,

I confess to often wincing my eyes shut,

At just that strategic moment of coitus abrupt.

These present-day scenes of bodies-naked,

Is more apt a display of the “body-corporative”.

#29.

Can there be such thing as “Fascist sexuality”? …

One being left with the cold, clinical reality,

Of a surgical examination less inspired,

Than a warm inner-glow of unsettling desire..

We sense the silent glare from the unseen eyes,

Of the society examiner of sexual morals …

Of we “don’t you even dare think!” mortals…

#30.

I fear a steady fall toward authoritarianism,

Motivating these principles of debased mannerism,

So many imitating persons of perceived exemplar,

Those banal personas in life’s guiding sampler,

Being steered down wrong ways, wrong adventures

Accepting immoral social norms’ of such starkness,

To be herded onto a path descending…descending into darkness.

#31.

The heart is a lonely hunter indeed,

So let no man declare his love an ease,

Lest such love be impure and base,

And all tender touch and talk made waste.

Let flattery and accolades be laid at thy feet,

I have no such volume of false aesthete,

But to thee there is none my serenades cannot beat.

#32.

Even in rejection, to me you do inspire,

My love, now you have thrown me over,

Never to answer my letters no more,

You won’t talk to me on the telephone,

Nor acknowledge my knock on your door.

No longer welcome in your arms, I see,

Preferring your haberdashery, To the dashing me!

#33.

When playing with fire, we expect to get burnt,

When drinking much wine, we expect to get drunk,

So when seeking the longed for ecstasy of love,

Can we not..at least..expect some heartache,

Is not oppose it the equal of suppose it?

So let ecstasy of heart-love equal pain of heartbreak,

And consider the bill of fare paid to the centre stake.

#34.

A part of me is as a petulant child,

Another part to be a creature wild,

There also within lives a demanding man,

A hungry man, that loving man..sensitive too,

Perhaps deep in my body also an angry man,

All these I have openly revealed to you,

To be me, at one time or another, what else can I do?

#35.

The only way I would’st communicate,

Is with a vocabulary weak on convention,

No voice inflection or body mood to translate,

So many, are my misconstrued intentions,

Sentences run over each other post to post,

And the eye-signal that tells one at least to desist,

Is not there…my mistakes too many to mention.

#36.

Neither mean intention nor insidious, as a fact,

I try to reveal the true self of myself so that,

I’ll never squabble with thee…

I don’t believe you think me so cruel,

To be those things you accuse in harshness,

Kind word and support does help it’s true,

If not materially, then at least as a light in darkness.

#37.
Is each of us an idea of what we wish to be,

Face, body, wealthy King,

Gold crown with sparkling jewel’d ring…?

In the end I am but I..MY jewel of mine own eye.

I too have come a long way,

From innocent young man with a mile-wide smile,

Rowing a boat, through life’s many trials.

#38.

Goodnight .. I go now to my ‘quiet room’,

Where I let my thoughts wander, to think of things,

‘Shoes, ships, sealing-wax..cabbages and kings’,

I have my “solitude room”, quiet…thick limestone walls,

One small window, so dark it enthrals,

I lay in that dark, let my mind think what fulfils,

Think up stories, poems..reflect on the day, tranquil.

#39.

In each of us perhaps there is that twist,

That in the end will come to this,

A friend is someone you can trust,

Where even a lover will behave remiss,

No matter the culture, the mother, the art,

Each to each, Heart to heart.

Remain thou to me; contradiction and mystery.

#40.

I laugh..‘tis a lover’s laugh, love’s smile lifts my heart,

When I weep, ‘tis with a lover’s tears,

My love hath gone and my heart grows drear,

When I lay at night, ‘tis a lover’s thoughts,

That I think of my lover and my love flows clear,

A rippling stream o’er flowering fields steeped in snow,

These thoughts I think .. I do think my lover knows.

#41.

How severe laughing mockery does come,

In equal part to that sweet flattery given,

When once a lover fresh to a lover’s flesh,

Would worship the pleasures to a lover done.

How severe the critic’s envy edged tone,

The laughing, pointing, cynical drones,

Who never, never sought love’s sweet home.

#42.

I seek no redemption nor crude condescension,

For what I did purposely invite,

Was not the game I played my every right,

To every man or woman seeks fancy flight,

To that wonderful world of erotic height ,

Sight, sound, fury of sexual dreams at night,

‘Twould leave one’s heart in breathless delight .

#43.

Such are lowly ambitions of so many men,

That they would scorn contact familiarity,

With what is granted in such sensuous beauty,

By which we call Mother Nature by any name,

Truly a reward of tremendous, high bounty,

For no simpler outlay than honest compliment,

Have warm desirable beauty of a woman lent.

#44.

What poor cut of man would not lay pride,

Would not purposely lay his manhood aside,

As trophy to the feet of a woman’s grace,

Should she grant him choice of place,

And let this woman be the one whose love,

Would grace his table with banquet fair,

And sing his praise in songs of a loving air.

#45.

Every man with lived knowledge harbours,

The courting of favour to a woman he favours,

Demands the doing so with fearlessness,

For the female of the species..ANY specie,

Is a being most unforgiving and ferocious,

So court her from a wrong angle, make blunder,

Is to risk wretchedness of a heart torn asunder.

#46.

But that is the risk such pleasure brings,

For there is no pleasure greater for man,

Than riotous joys of womanly tidings.

Such sensuous delights and eroticism,

Is worthy the treasures of any kingdom,

And the caress of a favoured concubine,

Be greater than riches of Croesus or Midas combined.

#47.

“Somewhere between the soul and the divine,

Between that love you seek and the love you find,

Is a place of absolute beauty, there confined.”

I sought that place of beauty concealed there,

And indeed, I touched it so gentle sometime,

But it….I could not keep hold in my arms,

Could not contain such wild desire with naive charms.

#48.

Be bold young man and not allow be scold,

By any number of finishing school frauds,

Castrati eunuchs playing their role of tools,

To harridans bent on re-writing gender rules,

Yours the choice, young man, yours the voice,

Let no lost soul’s fiction, rewrite your diction,

Look to yourself and make do with best intention.

#49.

Disregard outrage t‘would demand we conform,

To crazed zealots that would take control,

And bend the genders to a shape awry all,

Take to a dark, lonely place isolating each from each,

Deny to women their beauty – to men that admiration,

Capture emotion, sensuality to sterile debate,

Blindly drag mutual desire into that lonely heartbreak.

#50.

From mutual affection, Focusing on conflicts,

 An absurd denial of an unstoppable impetus,

That draws a man toward a woman, creating connection,

Physical, emotional, spiritual, matched in honest intention,

More knowing dedication to each other than any other relationship,

In natural kingdom on this Earth, toward adoration, journey of delight,

For in truth; “A house without a woman is but a lantern without light.”

#51.

Come the end of Autumn will you think of me?

Those days of Summer passing, languid by the sea,

We loved through those wild days so recklessly.

But with Autumn leaves now falling,

Now come the end of the season,

Meaning lost, time gone by, a great distance,

Between thou and I..so far away from thee,

#52.

Will you recall one sweet kiss in summer’s bliss,

When cold wind blows, will you still think of me?

Now gone..no desperate acts from me,

Tho’ gone the love..the thrilling eroticy,

Let just be grateful for what once was and…

Give gentle reverence of how it came to be.

Yet still leave perchance, to fate’s possibility.

#53

‘Twas the uncertainty of the relationship,

Made it thrilling for me..and for thee?

Please..never, never stop being a mystery.

Tho’ I have not in this time laid eyes on thee,

I have a vision that all too frequent touches me,

Sending shiver of thrilling sensation over my body,

Starts near my heart and spreads over completely.

#54.

A voyeur’s desire…I do see thee…

Long, black gown, tight, kid leather gloves to the elbow,

Small clutch purse of ermine and black leather show,

Lace of emerald jewels platinum set on thou’s pale neck…

A fine slip of silk, black-stockinged legs,

High heels…………

Would you show yourself to me?

#55.

Undress the clothing from your body…slowly,

Or pray..let me?…

Gown, silken slip…no..leave the high heels on,

Fine brassier, lace underwear, let them fall to the floor,

Done, one at a time, With measured movements of soft sounds,

Would you show your scented body to me, naked,

Only to me…for that I may adore?

#56.

Circe!

Beautiful Queen of an ancient regime,

Lounging decadent on her jewelled chaise-lounge,

Feted by many suitors seeking her favours,

So she lay there in quiet contemplation..her elation.

A bowl of rich cherries at her elbow she chooses,

She plucks one from the bowl every now and then,

With slow, halting, deliberate lip movements, consumes it.

#57.

By which she both excites and taunts her suitors,

Until, deciding upon one for the night to “amuse” her,

She brazenly spits a cherry-seed to his lap,

Along with a following smile on her lips,

Disdaining the wanting eyes of those left,

Throwing careless accolades of flattery to her feet,

To see such desperate words fall dead in defeat.

#58.

The tragedy of the age is for beauty of spirit,

To become the plaything of a cabal of cognoscenti,

Mystics and priests babbling chants incoherently.

Beauty of heart become ideology of political identity,

Bending humanism into twisted individualism,

While beauty of body be scorned as futile effrontery,

So is natural evolution steered to cosmetic surgery.

#59.

That old tent-maker; Omar Khayyam’s,

Rubaiyat says ; “I often ponder on what the vintner buys,

One half so precious as the stuff he sells.”

I too ponder on a similar conundrum,

When I come to consider about thee and me,

While obvious to myself your sensual delight,

I do wonder on exchange value extracted by thee.

#60.

What value a woman’s contract with man’s incessant chatter?

 So too the draw of men to feminine beauty, no case to answer,

Just to accept the situation as casual gender banter,

A silken thread woven into our life tapestry,

Precious stitch winding through mine own senses,

Like a glory-vine about trunk of an aging gum tree.

And for thine disquiet eyes, O’ Dark Lady……I indeed thank thee.