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Karen Stanley
Klimt’s Kiss
Everything spirals to this
golden explosion of bliss
of being utterly his.
Limbs knotted, all else
is forgot in the universe.
In cold, deep space
your face burns hot.
But this is not the cosmos.
They are not garlands
on your feet, but fetters
binding you to this lonely place -
this Kiss shuns everything
outside its closed embrace.
This is not a never-ending
millefiori of sweetness.
This is the steep brink of an abyss.
Gilt leaves will flake away
leaving a grey ache of guilt.
This instant of absorption
will shatter in its after-blast,
and gold-dust will cool to ash.
This ecstasy won’t last.
Snow
It’s so rare now..snow.
I smell it when I defrost the freezer;
taste its iron on my tongue.
Sometimes I turn the heating off
to remember it; rise earlier
don’t close the curtains at night.
A thousand twinkling stars in black
play back glints of sea-cracked ice,
creaking in a deathly quiet.
I want to drown in it;
to let its cold compact me;
let its whiteness shine, shine, shine all about.
© Karen Stanley
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