Two lives she lived as the swivelling Door swung through her faith
Did Ol’ Khayyam keep her company absent during the day

The Ruba’iyat of Créteil Lake – Part Fifteen

She dreamed a dream all unfulfilled all through the dragging day
Even while she tossed and grumbled half-starved and in dismay
Two lives she lived as the swivelling Door swung through her faith
Did Ol’ Khayyam keep her company absent during the day

Through the empty branches on her shoulders the squinting sun blinked
Yet tore a dazzling path across her swirling lithesome loins inked
The constant lapping and lolling currents tilling her mien
Where the light-foot Lass of Lahore gravely treads lights fuse linked

Doleful night or dreary day the Door swings loose on hinges
As the Maudite of the Lake knows not whether Khayyam cringes
At his quest to seek and save her from the blindness of fate
Even as the sizzling orb blurs the horizons fringes

A lone lost dove hops from one Tim Burton branch to another
Damp benches under white birch trees keep lover from lover
Unseen seeds shoot their hopes through decaying wheezing morasses
As pigeons corner head-darting mates across her feet’s lather

The sluices of her invisible canal lie in limbo
Each level of water rises into some alter ego
Till the Door that she must cross opens on Ol’ Khayyam’s quest:
Now her brimming breast heaves with the Bard’s bold super ego!

© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013