Elves, Tartan, and Poets

[thrihyrne]

Today is a banner day! Not only is it the Elvish New Year, for those of you who care about those days, but in going to Wikipedia to look up a link for the poet who I'm going to include a poem by today in honor of National Poetry Month, I discovered that it's also Tartan Day!

So in working for Furious Flower, I stumbled across the poet Cyrus Cassells. This poem is from his book Beautiful Signor which was awarded a Lambda Literary Award in 1997. From the poem "The Risk-Takers," this is section X.

x.

As an acolyte in assiduous prayer
craves God's
galvanizing face,
so I crave your soulstuff,
your quintessential core.

How brave of you
to let me peer into your
one-in-a-million spirit,
beautiful Signor,
beyond shield and breastplate
to boyhood
places of wounding.

And now I bare, in turn,
precincts beneath my lids
that cry out
for redemption
or demolition,
where the bullying world
reigns, a slumlord —

Of all creatures,
my ally,
my accomplice in folly,
let me be grasped
and recognized by you.

All night
this lovers' engine,
this Pegasus:
seeing and being seen,
seeing and being seen.