Orphia’s Liar

(inspired by a recent theatre performance)

———–

He hangs upon the frame of wood

With leather bonds at back and thighs

While she below who kneels and smiles

Need only upward pout her sighs

To see the flame behind the need

And thus give wings to Orphia’s skies

——-

Enmeshed in nature’s plot he aches

And dreams of blood which deeper flows

While past the screen of time she plucks

And through the strings of upturned mind bestows

A deadly trail for he whose flesh is fire

Now caught between the lyre and what it knows

——-

You dare to scourge the Christ? he says

I dare to scourge all Christs! she laughs

I am the wood from which you hang

I am the thorned flax which flies

Towards your skin which holds within

The breath from bonded lips where truth resides

——-

Too slow! she laughs, as silence writhes

Letitia, throw our man into the lair

Let spinning maidens hold him fast

While each one draws a brew so fair

And so reveal, with fleshly squeals

The notes that emptied vessels share

——–

No taste for such excess my love?

His wife, Letitia, says, with glee

Then let us poke and so provoke

To raise your game and straighten knee

And so return the man-child to his stroke

This long awaited, rising fire of oak

——-

And so the show with its tableaux

Comes to rest in time and place

From clapping sounds the stage resounds

For those who now wear smiles of grace

But curling out of meleed flesh is he now free

whose snarl is swapped for different face

——-

Alone within the outer, perfect, dark

She watches, still, as cat draws near

A glowing tyger lit with perfect stripes

Revealed in flowing stages–none of fear

Then hand and claw fold gently into one

And perfect silence fills each listening ear

—

©Copyright Stephen Tanham 2016