T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Emotional, XXIV
By Michael Strange (Blanche Oelrichs) (1890–1950)(From Resurrecting Life, 1921) SAD, we must find each other—ourselves—life—out | |
| Through this impediment of love— | |
| (With its billion toe-stubbings along the Olympian track.) | |
| Pathetic we must exercise by falling out of the sky | |
| And chasing our own tails for awhile— | 5 |
| Instead of feeling our manes tearing out behind us | |
| Along those freezing spiral vapours of the Continuous Ascension. | |
| O You and I have stood poignantly close upon the edge of perilous slanting— | |
| And with sublime sunbeams bouncing from upturned face to face | |
| And measuring upon each utter equality of dazzle— | 10 |
| O you and I have leant fraternally together in a light | |
| Reducing to proportionate form at last— | |
| All those melancholy grotesques of conscious life— | |
| Yea and together heard a conclusive goodness affirming | |
| Through vast harp-sweet spaces— | 15 |
| Then—then—the reverential swoon of our knees | |
| Before this momentary shining out of the beyond | |
| Has been cause for a touch between us— | |
| Ah what union in this accidental knocking of knees | |
| Before a Shared Presence— | 20 |
| When suddenly—suddenly— | |
| The thrown-back hood of vision clamping down precipitant, | |
| And a sadness in the air as of some Divine Retreat— | |
| When my claw stirring—waking—reaching out— | |
| And in your answering motion a gracious shoot of reverberating “yea”— | 25 |
| Then your eyes becoming a liquid gale | |
| Importunate—parting—pressing aside my branches— | |
| And your mouth a distortion of fire skipping—falling— | |
| Clinging strangely among my blossoms— | |
| My blossoms opening—shedding for you in ghastly broad abandon— | 30 |
| O love—love—unequipped—unaware | |
| Of the subtle fatality in your own repletion. | |