The Prince of Time

"The nation bows before your tower ..."

The following poems are the final selection of
Libertine in The Fleur-de-lis by Emily Isaacson,
and feature the four seasons,
Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter
with their respective qualities.

The male and female voice alternates
in each section as four royal couples
court each other and find true love.

What better place to stage this play
heralding the Prince of Time
than in the Firestone, where soliloquy
is the medium of choice?

The dire opposite of communism is communion,
I once wrote, and now we see in literature
these opposites vying for supremacy:
the spiritual life, triumphant
over death and decay.

Emily Isaacson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Contents:

Perestroika

I. Purity
II.Communion
III.Charity
IV. Poverty
V. Immortality

Glasnost

I. Justice
II. Liberty
III. Eternity

Purity

I.

Where light meets shadow,
and the quivering day turns to dusk,
the threads of a thistle, bound with the field,
and thrush guarding nests with eggs, speckled blue—

The time canters on, a horse in the distance,
galloping strong on its course;
the night sky fills its bridle with stars,
each shining with beauty’s light.

II.

Signaling the moments of rest and solitude,
you work and play
like a young suitor, courting the day;
each sail riveting the shore,
the bay, a lonely bachelor, stalwart at duty,
in and out they glide,
changing course with the wind,
interspersing the blue with white.

III.

The garden grows with reserve,
peopling the beds with carrots and beans,
the stalks weathering the vegetables,
the water hose, a welcome intrusion.

The corn grows heavy in its sheaths,
the sweet pea climbing the lattice,
the tomatoes ripen and rouge,
the formidable geraniums
decorate the front porch.

IV.

The life road goes on in disbelief
at journey without a playmate,
the time for meals and
prayers in marked solitude;
and tempered squares
of patchwork sewn
now age without contempt.

With truth emblazoned on my belt,
and salvation as my helmet,
with faith my shield, and peace my shoes,
I shall go on, with matched prayer,
and on and on.

V.

The dead have no solace—
in the place of the dead they rest;
the eternal torment of the damned,
an unvying sword of pity.

The burning of deeds left undone,
the smoke of the evil in God’s favor,
the decrepit loss of home and love,
indifference at the cherished humankind.

VI.

I have mustered the courage
to follow the miles,
walking into the distance
beneath the noonday sun.

Capturing the marshes
through my softened lens,
captivating the clouds,
wandering lonely...

Over the fields we go.

VII.

The autumn shed its cloak,
covering the ground with an earthy blanket
of browns and oranges,
under the trees, stark against the bare wind,
reposed against the sky.

And the children played in the leaves,
relishing the dance of time and passing,
friends of the sky and parting birds,
talking in whispered voices.

VIII.

Winter came and yielded its white breath,
the mountainside was shrouded in frost,
and the birds perched on the snowy feeder
in profusion.

The berries were red, the blossoms had disappeared,
the fine etching of chalk and charcoal
enamored the snowflake-filled sky
at evening’s end.

Communion

I.

The red river on its way
through the countryside,
spilling its watery inferno;
the grace of day turning toward night,
and moment of moon’s first light.

At the end of the sun,
we shall see the stars appear
as faraway fires in other realms,
nesting in the night’s blue blanket.

II.

In chastised candor
the truth was seen as a veritable order,
the beauty became a sluggish
slave to time’s demeanor,
the light became a blindness to our eyes,
the path too difficult to find.

When once you loved,
the way was sought in purity,
your destiny was a joyful reunion
with eternity,
upon your head was placed a crown,
and now life’s burden has buried
mercy in the rubble,
taken our very soul,
dashed our son to pieces on the ground,
reduced his life to eating mud;
now hatred rules all.


III.

With your fair light
a thousand truths become one,
the night, your velvet gown,
the peace of nations, your bodice,
their seas, your diamonds,
their eyes, your emeralds,
their blood, your rubies.

And you dance with
the wild soul of the sky,
the old trees
rooting to paradise;
you move with the raucous wind,
delighting the sun and moon,
relinquishing the shadow,
smothering
the afterbirth.

IV.

We walked along the
cobblestones of the old graveyard,
revisiting the silent epitaph,
reading the right to life
after death to each invisible angel,
saying good-bye to old friends.

Where the lilies are carefully placed,
white adorning the cold stone,
peace and purity to the next life,
tranquility and serenity
to the sleep...

V.

The moon is my candle,
flickering in summer’s residual balm,
the sky is my ocean,
breaking upon an eternal shore,
the bread is my communion
with a holy God,
the wine is the outpouring
of his blood.

Where we lie in the dust,
spent with work and
old with journey,
the creases of our brow echo
the prayers of a sainted cathedral,
the stones cast down
one upon the other;
our stained glass eyes
see the moment of truth
and eternity.

Where, like a cathedral in ruins,
I fell,
after death
I will rise,
into the great still sky
weathering the storm of years
and fury of tears.

VI.

You are not cold but warm,
you are not false but true,
and the instrument accompanies you,
the music becomes you.

Black notes soaring into heaven:
the great divide,
the silent plea,
hear my prayer.

We are not two but one,
we are not separated by years,
the light wins out over darkness,
and candle lights the way
before us.

VII.

The rice-rose alabaster,
the night held still sill;
the sonnet of the door,
and shape of moon.

The pathos of spring
that death cannot unbind
nor love remove.

VIII.

From the silent winter came
the sudden bud of green,
a regal queen of beauty all
unfading and supreme.

Silver light upon her brow,
sage of the petal and the daffodil,
the empress sea, an azure gild
to far shores of sable and of gold.

Tall, stately, and without fear,
a plentiful garden at first prayer;
the nation bows before your tower,
and the government
shall be upon His shoulders.

Charity

I.

The longing to be found
secure in being,
in a melting pot of nations
like colored shapes in
a glassblower’s shop.

My small hands are lithe and brown,
the milk of goats bathes my skin,
and oils of lavender and anise
anoint my head, sweet perfume.

I was born into the world
for such a time as this.

II.

My hair falls to the floor
in its shining glory,
and youth, my crown
that echoes time’s vast grace:
the virtual hallway
of immortality
in which sit princes and kings,
queens and mortals,
reigning in all their
unnatural pow’r.

Their brocade of silk and jewel,
the forte of chance and innocence,
the crescendo of love
and diminuendo of chastity,
the moments of law and injustice.

III.

We seek to give
and it is given unto us;
the beauty of light dispersed
into darkness
is the drama of good and evil.

We share with others,
and they return the years
a hundredfold.

IV.

My horse is but a colt,
young and lively;
he is so sweet,
a temperament
with no harm.

Eyes of starry blue
beneath the shining rust coat,
and we wander in the hills
with a loaf of coarse bread
and water.

V.

We canter in the fields,
we taste the last light,
the ministry of dusk to dark,
sheep, kindling the fire
for warmth.

A shepherdess at day’s end,
tending to the flock,
turning danger far,
and listening to
the murmuring air.

VI.

The sun is blighted, red,
the moon has turned to night,
and stars fall from the sky;
meteors puncture the earth
in kind metaphor.

Where kings and princes
run in terror beneath the portals
from the poison of blasphemy;
in fear, we hide
beneath the rubble—
we camp in the open field.

VII.

The banquet, set for the elite,
aspires to silk and candlelight;
bone china, laden with pheasant
carrots, beets, and brandy.

Potato soup, Devonshire cream,
mutton, ham, tortes, and gravy;
spinach salad, French beans,
white wine, and rolls with butter.

VIII.

You take me by the hand
to dance across the ballroom floor
in unison with evening’s jeweled fire,
and the archaic dignity of the waltz
still graces your shoes.

In top form, with a radiant young bride,
a wife of chastised youth and martyred front,
in the moment of love and veiled purity,
with the setting of the sun,
she rises, a moon.

Poverty

I.

When I stood beneath
autumn’s leaf, of crimson, gold,
the cool frost just beginning
to still the ground,
in measureless silence.

And the field wept
at the loss of flow’r,
each leaf a stately
gown to clothe the living.

Once you stood here,
Autumn,
beneath this same old tree,
but now you die,
as you live,
if you forget the
treasure of the country you love,
and the moment
in which we are reborn.

II.

The linen-clothed
virgin in white,
the perfume of myrrh,
and cooing of doves.

A thousand martyrs could
not give themselves
on any altar but mine.
But the blood of the poor
is innocent blood
in the church of virtue.

Two poets, two prophets—
Justice and Liberty
stand in the street,
clothed in ashes,
with oil for their drink
and tears their food—
in the blink of an eye
they see paradise,
and kiss heaven.

III.

The leaves fell
about us in a lattice
of red roses,
where our hearts
forever entwined
shall withstand adversity,
shall rise with the sun of
each new day,
shall break like waves
upon the shore,
shall be one.

IV.

The poverty of love
stands in a place
that money cannot buy.

The cathedral of time
streams light
into the eternity
of passion.

The doctrine of birth
qualms of pain
that can endure
the suffering
that makes strong.

The thesis of wit
laughs at the future,
ignoring fear
and separation.

V.

In a torturous chair
I could speak to you,
of foreign lands and people.

My hands would explain
what is unspoken
of the domestic love
that cleans and cooks,
that mends—
of the foreclosed world,
where violence never meets
womanhood eye to eye;
the harlot neither eats nor sleeps,
and her bed is of opium.

I do ascend my secret stair,
the light, a beacon to each sea:
the night, a horse I ride to heaven,
and an angel for each wing.

The potent remedy is swung,
a sickle to the dead and dying;
we tread softly in our dreams,
in gentle poetry unsung.

In a foxglove countryside,
drinking in the beauty
of the nape of your neck—
Europe’s royalty speaks:
of a peace deeper than dreams,
of a solace of homes that
cannot be uprooted in terror,
a gentle freedom
beyond language and time,
that once we overcame
on Normandy beach
the army of insurmountable furor,
and now over the roofs,
the storks fly home.

VI.

When one has found the road
to keep on,
and fight for truth,
Justice, and Liberty.

To wear the sword as if for the battle
on this shore and the next.

To salvage from the castle ruin
what is a babe in arms,
to claim from the undersea wreck
what is the gold.

VII.

One bright head following another,
one sentence flowing on another thought,
and the meanings converge
as old friends,
the memories wear like a garland.

The softened light of the lens
takes your portrait,
and like a painting you emerge:
radiant, with dewy smile.

Your eyes are large and brimming,
rosebud lips are the sweetness
of time incarnate,
the petals on the ground
in a veil of snow.

VIII.

I will...
I will be yours.
I will laugh with you
and tell stories beneath the stars,
and bury children in the leaves
with you.

I will climb the old apple tree
in the orchard with you,
I will gather shells along the shore
in summer,
and drink cider by the fire
in winter,
with you.

I will mend missing buttons,
and kiss tender tears
and hope for happiness
through the years,
because I love you.

Immortality

I.

When first you came down the path,
of a winter garden,
your hands took mine,
and now we walk, hand in hand.

The arid snow, fluent in white,
the gown of mist,
and clinging to each branch
the moment snowflake, truest.

II.

My eyelashes caught the snow,
and rose-red, my lips
spoke in chance verse,
vespers of the sky,
my honest prayer.

Hair of fragile gold,
and spirit of the yesteryear,
the claim to rivet
the dusk into the theatre of night.

III.

Here come the characters
playing their human nature,
vying for their whims,
reciting eternal soliloquy.

Each one is indifferent
to love,
and wants himself to aspire
to the highest place.

IV.

Let the play begin!
O mortals, become immortal,
with sincerest grace,
depend upon the timing
of the stage.

Rise as a star in nocturnal sky,
bright and shining,
speak the fire of lines,
follow the dance of moons,
lead the progression
of planets.

V.

Of Saturn’s lyre,
and Mercury’s harp,
Venus' flute,
and Mars’s trumpet.

When each shall traverse the
solemn sky, metered;
benign in dissidence,
birthed and rebirthed,
from dawn to sundown.

VI.

O orchestra of constellations
accompanying the prayer
of saints, the slight stride
of angel wing and halo,
departed from this world
into the next.

The music begins!
Its tempest ordered
and elite,
each note, the measure
of sin abstained.

VII.

I look into your eyes,
the playwright of times,
and in their sincere depths
taste the purity of love.

Only the one enamored prince of time
came on a gallant midnight steed,
through milky universe and earth,
to radiant countrymen and
white-clothed bride.

VIII.

Your sword is silver,
and your speech is clean—
I taste the moment of truth.

Cloistered in the inner chamber
behind the wrought iron gate,
sitting on the hard bench,
with Latin voices
mingling in the hallway:

Now for hours
I presume
to be a dying Christ,
without a motion,
without thought,
I stretch and die
under the crucifix,
on the cold stone floor,
hang on a cross—

Immortality.

My heart is
and always shall
be yours.

Justice

I.

In New Poland,
wayward to the park somewhere
near the river in a Scottish kilt,
red and white:
the snow falling softly
and the earth, a deep russet
under the veil.

One German soldier cursed,
the smoke billowed
from stacks to the sky,
and Noel’s face disappeared
in a line once.
The little girl inside,
lost against the mist.

Kyria in stifled snow,
the black soot mingled
with the tear of heathen sun’s
falling gold;
one Gog and Magog
against the North.

Ruth, like a seamstress,
bought Noel a pair of ribbons
once for the school play,
and the dress,
a pinafore she wore
on a leisurely hot week
in June,
was pleated with indifference.

I took a photograph—in sepia,
and the board was carved in teak,
but she couldn’t remember
when she last played chess.

II.

The piano was too high
to find the notes,
but the sorcerer’s apprentice
played on—
I took her tiny hand.
That night the stars were
like saucy midnight
in the blue-gray world,
a rough weed
on the pond bank,
a small trellis of gold.

Yule logs, river roads,
window wipers made
of black rubber like galoshes
beside the door
of the mud room:
hanging baskets,
potatoes, rice, and lentils.

III.

Noel opened the package,
and the moment lingered,
languished, and
wasted its fingering
on notes already played.
She waited for a kiss,
but the apples just fell
into the courtyard,
and the smiles were kind
and old-fashioned.

One poor woman
had been taken away
once in front of her
for having two folded
handkerchiefs in one pocket.
Her fame spread
to the surrounding villages.
Then Noel was taken.
She had seen an angel
appear under the Star of David.

Under the door,
there was an envelope
with the food
stamps for rations.
A pear, an apple, a sunflower seed,
and the honeysuckle outside
wound its way over
the garden brick wall.
The poppy walk
was gay with bright
and earthbound
green stems,
red and white
tissue petals.

IV.

I was there,
blinking under the enchantment once
that one would never take
more from the bakery
than you could eat in
one handful: sticky
with sugar and dough.
That would be greedy.
But the sky unfurled
acid rain and dry
and burning with
an intense fever.

A chocolate wafer
from the Italians,
the seed-grown nasturtiums
came in four colors,
the eloquent sidewalk
buzzed with roses and daffodils,
and the cakes were piled high
in the bakery.
Like a French wine sitting
on a corner table,
a woman in a dream walked
to the back of the room.

Simply, Mara’s hair was auburn
and her face kind,
and the ebb and flow
of afternoon had caught her
like a glass of Perrier water
with ice, too cold,
but the irises
in the table middle,
the gray striped apron,
and the counter talk were all
as simple as the Queen.

The bowl had water
and a lemon, and she washed her hands
while I drank a ginger beer.
Like ducks swimming
in a pond, round and round,
we tried not to notice the scars
on the brown leather satchel.
Faded perfume was a watermark.

V.

Mara, with the candid smile
worked for the underground,
and when calls came in,
formed the plan of action.
Unlike a wholesome river
she swept along,
drawing a crisis to a crisp
drawing board.

Noel was released
three years later,
the time that passed,
almost an eternity,
and yet unlike only a day
or an hour.

We drove to the park gardens
where the iris day unfolded
as usual,
the pictures came out
clear and true.
The props had all turned
to wind and leaves,
and a faded portrait
strung its diction
beside the weathered houses
alongside the park—
Noel’s soul, a miracle of color,
her aquiline nose like fragile china.

The tree, under a reign
of candor and simplicity,
white in the sun and
the bird-blue, the fawn-gentle brown—
the palette, just a river day
winding sunward
toward illusive lettuces,
soporific, like toes dipped in asphalt.

The hot, hot illusory stage
in full color,
the dance of jazz and blues,
a sober equilibrium.
The toes tapping
on the floor
of the glass-cool club
and three directors
turning the page
beside the grand piano—
it was Noel’s moment
of finesse, the final
curtain call
and hands flung wide,
she danced with
momentum, lacing
her being with a deep
roar of gratitude,
an ocean of promise
to a heaven of acceptance
and fitting applause.

VI.

Bright yellow with seeds,
sunflowers streamline the walk
by the river, flowing
down to the bridge
beside the white house,
where I am leaning and looking
clear to the bottom, azure and silver.

Lake in pools of eyes,
ye have a sonnet per night
under the rocket stars
and olive moon, dusty
with old playing cards and
brave dreams.
Biscuits and wine
and mugs
line the counter,
should we forget
the milk.

O crusty lavender,
in wild profusion beside
the scarlet wild roses
just outside the screen door.
What hand picks you
and sprinkles you like a priest?

High society stands,
established and diametric,
striking as a clock tower,
eating their pottery of beans.

VII.

Ethereal tones
pealed from the stone
monastery,
the bell ringers
from English soil,
transcendent and demure.
It echoed
through the field
and down the valley.

The glass panes
were multicolored,
like cut glass mosaics,
and Latin rumbled
out from the inner circle.

Holy water trickled
in the sanctuary
where women wear dresses
and attend mass at three,
their hair done in buns,
their cars parked outside.
Hikers make it up
the mountain in boots,
anticipating the hill green.
The deer are far away,
like tiny Swiss flowers
in the Olympics.

VIII.

A storehouse of light
holds the morning,
and the chariot of the sun
crosses the sky.
Come into the dawn,
dear one, with clothes like lilacs,
and tears so sweet and dear.

Tiny hands
and a small mouth,
your burnished bronze skin
is as sacred as the hot stones,
and your fountain of innocence
is your love,
spilled on the heads of priests.
We rub our necks
in holy oil and pray.

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day
our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory,
unto all eternity.

Liberty

I.

I appear,
small and diminutive,
in an anointing oil, painting
the doorframes with crosses,
a jeweled and ornamental
collection: a fragile petal
in the darkness,
solemn perfume.

Hundreds upon hundreds
cross my threshold,
under the majestic
white pillars, and everything
I do and say
has consequence to the poor.

II.

The government’s dictation of
procedure, due sanctimonious
speech, address, and law
signifies the end of anarchy
to sit in squalid prison cell.

Rebellion with a saucy tongue
spent itself in cheap jewelry
and gaudy lipstick,
outspoken with resentment,
unwanted, bereft,
ill-willed.

III.

The ugly mold of society
without enlightenment
and teacher to hasten
diligence, cast
a lectern of parental neglect,
morbid insults,
death wishes,
cuttings and anorectic
hunger.

The black sky
without a star
lost streams of film
on the editing floor once,
and feminist scars succumb
to bitter years,
disownings,
stonings for sin.

IV.

The angry mob
became indifferent,
sauntered away,
tears blinded the eyes of
nonchalant youth,
children without a name
hounded the high-end
fashion stores,
gaunt and tapered.

She asked for a set
of pearls,
an embroidered dress,
warm cotton towels,
and hot milk.

Tall and strong,
no one decided
her fate, and all alone
she was practiced
at modern conversation,
comforting
the infirm and lonely,
planting the daffodil bulbs
in the flower beds,
one by one.

V.

When you are free,
the world will not offer its restraint,
but the doors of heaven
take you in as orphans
to a mother’s table.

When you are free,
your face unshadowed,
your delicate grace
will move a nation,
from shame to birth.

When you are free,
you shall be free within;
no prison release,
nor hospital walkabout
for these seven angels
will touch them like a coal.

VI.

When I am in pain,
tortured, writhing under
torn leaf, and bloodied flower;
sincere conscience, guilt
amending itself
by ritual fear.

My hands in chains,
my paper-white gown,
translucent, and vacant
heart, beating and afraid.

I bow my head
and close my eyes,
quiet and modest,
simple and harbinger
of change for injustice:
any dream.

VII.

Within me,
there is a place
the clock beats
and minute by minute,
I match my own dance—
my feet,
bruised and bleeding,
until, I am like a swan,
beautiful.

Under the pressure
of the white and black dance
of pieces on a chessboard,
where I am
the measure of pathos,
carrying the sorrow
of others that encircle me,
I am the bearer of the dance
to a darkened world.

Light. Darkness.
I move through the universe;
I stand in the shadows,
touch the ground
in bitterness and death,
but rise;
a tomb will never be
my resting place.

VIII.

I sing and the world
will hear my song—
ramparts made of stone:
canticle of morning,
opening its arms.

To be most like freedom,
I am in chains, unworthy;
a sea beneath the moon,
calculating the labor pains
of each month, lashing the shore,
suffering humility at disease,
and death, to a watery grave.

Softened, carried away
by the horse that rides
into the distance,
I fear the separation
of our souls,
the lack of words
to heal and bind us;
I am silent
at the years between us,
in anarchy.

And the pen that
will never be silent,
will never forget—
I will never forget
Liberty, as long as my heart
beats a thunderstorm
lighting up the sky.

Eternity

I.

Offer up this one sacrifice
and the next—
the morning,
a child that leads us,
the days like silver candles
not to be blown out.

The prayers of sinners
you collect,
a colorful rage
of cultivated flowers
in a staple bouquet.

The estranged world
of pride and injustice,
searched for a wooden nickel
to pay for the ride.

I lay on the ground,
looking up at the sky,
staring at the sun,
watching the long oblique day
turn to even’s dusk.

Your hair flows
like a river of incense,
dark and burnished
as a scarlet apple.

Forever is a long time,
a long time to be apart from you;
and so, I am held
in the circle of your mind.

II.

This is the age
of finality
when the night
of the end times
refers to a garden,
surrounded by a wall,
where once a man
could sweat alone—
drops of blood,
in great anguish,
wearing the cloak
of the martyrs.

Now
some remember
to pray and some
pray to forget.

III.

There is a river that flows
from the center of your heart
of contemplation
of the divine and its
mystery;
and your eyes imbue
the shadows, where
standing, your words
in the darkness—
glittering diamonds—
adorn a king.

In gowns of crimson fire,
the pure
are purified
in a furnace of seventy
times seven:
entering the great marble hall
of sorrow’s recognition,
once more
recreated
from mourning to joy.

IV.

And the two olive trees
that stand before the
eternal throne,
pouring out golden oil
for the seven lamp stands
sing day and night:
a tapestry of
the melodic
distance of prophecy,
beauty for ashes.

Justice and Liberty,
the icons of a tower,
and portals of a nation:
rekindling fire and birth,
the pains of the presence.

In gestation,
the fields shall turn to gold,
the seasons relinquish,
harvest time draw its spell;
the sun shall rise,
the moon disappear,
tracing the colors of the night;
if—to love, to heal,
forgotten, fades into surreal—
the silk and sapphire
gowns of a young empress,
are cast for lots in a galaxy of old
meteor stones.

V.

When the last shades are drawn
the last secrets
whispered in darkness
I will remain there
amongst the shadows
I will lie down
amidst the stones
my mournful songs
will fill the night sky
the regal stars will fall
in burning splendor before me.

VI.

Beloved countrymen,
my promise of first love,
your beautiful soul
was led away in chains,
held captive
for three years,
and your eyes blinked at the
injustice
and you said nothing.

For a world that
condemned you,
you gave only the most worthy gift,
a precious stone
became your birthright,
rising like a star
that lit the darkness,
traveling through
many nights and days
of hardship and suffering
to reach Israel’s dowry
of African lace.

The young child in the desert
lay down his head,
white-gold and gentle
beside the nest of the cobra,
and tried to keep the poison
from entering his soul.

VII.

In the fury of gods
wilted rile
in the cloister
of one draped love,
a peace beyond time
and in liberty, I shed my
cloak for your earth,
and this dignity pressed
mine;
when I found you
in virginity
and the rhythm of your gait
was like a silver courtyard at dusk,
then the prince of time
became my hands and feet,
and I imprisoned you in death
that I might be your
sorrow-stone.

IV.

The four walls
enclosed thy
soul, but
not thy spirit,
while
unrelentless,
the divine
pursued thee,
ravished thee,
undone,
word-worn,
torn:

O Innocent!


Domini est salus
Dominis est salus
Christi est salus
Salus tua, Domine
Sit semper nobiscum


Emily Isaacson