The day done gray. “Of the gods,” Aeschylus

said, “Death alone does not crave gifts.” The rest

love their altars and praise; become jealous

and ill-tempered if crossed. For Death the blessed

and the sinner are the same and worms feed

on them all. “Death shall be Death forever,”

Sappho said; unlike us, love, with our need

to see ourselves in what we praise. Lover,

love me now before I become just dust

of ten thousand years. My gift is coaxing

of my tongue – stroking foam – sucking obscene

– tasting what you crave. Let the righteous rust

since Death won’t care if we do everything,

nothing or just hardcore bling in-between.

][][

Notes:

Aeschylus was an ancient Greek playwright, known as the, “Father of Tragedy.” Sappho, “The 10^th Muse,” was master of the lyric poem. I like what Kenneth Rexroth said about her art, “There has been no other poet like this. Wherever enough words remain to form a coherent context, they give one another a unique luster, an effulgence found nowhere else. Presentational immediacy of the image, overwhelming urgency of personal involvement — in no other poet are these two prime factors of lyric poetry raised to so great a power.”