The Theatre of Desire

On the summit of Cynthe,
Artemis, daughter of Leto
who gave birth to Apollo
under a solitary palm,
on sacred Delos,
is being crowned queen of Hellas,
in the midst of a vast chorus
of virgin nymphs from the mountain,
cheering and applauding
spontaneously!


And on the opposite bank,
Mykonos is taking pleasure in love,
draping herself over the sea
like a young woman
on her white bed
with blue sheets,
while her lover, already up,
gazes at her in the mirror
where cupids fly
and dreams of fixing there for ever
the image of his Beloved
who's sleeping in the heat
after tasting
the pleasures of Aphrodite!


Later, her hair crowned with serpents,
she'll leap from beach to beach
like a dancing Maenad,
seized with the frenzy of Dionysus,
the god of intoxication,
the stranger prince from the East,
from Thrace!


Far, far from there,
on the slopes of mount Hymettus,
in violet Attica,
I'm resting by a spring,
in countryside fragrant
with rosemary and bay,
under the vast strawberry tree of your breast,
near the fine tamarisk
of your hair!


And, like one the faithful on Palm Sunday,
I trail a box branch
across the pale quinces
of your hospitable buttocks!


I dream of taking you
to a beech forest,
at the foot of Olympus,
where the soft meadows of Macedonia
move like the plumage
of a sacred peacock,
susceptible to praise!


That is how your plump thighs
and your fine belly
decorated with the pearl of your navel
and crowned with the dark lamina
of your sex,
unfurl before my amorous eyes
like the stage of the theatre of desire!


It's in this sacred space
that I elaborate the numberless spells
of a priest of Venus
and the luxuries of my erotic empire!


And it's there, in the circle
of this sanctuary,
that the foam of Uranus splashes down,
Uranus god of the firmament
where the goddess of Cythera was born,
Aphrodite, Dione, Cypris!


That is how, each time I enter you,
in the middle of salt salvoes,
my sperm makes you die and be reborn,
like a radiant young queen,
emerging from the sea at Paphos,
where the assembled people wait,
those same people who later
will dedicate to you the temple
where I will officiate
under the name of Teucros,
the latin Teucer,
founder of the rich Cypriot
kingdom of Salamina!

FROM THE COLLECTION OF POEMS "PELERIN DE L'AURORE"

PUBLISHED BY ENCRES VIVES-FRANCE,
ON MARCH 2005