My sweetheart…

…left me the most beautiful thing on my Xerex sequence. I really thought it the fitting and most perfect end and answer to the thing. So beautiful. So now the sequence has seven sonnets. It sounds to me together like wedding bells and wedding vows and honeymoons and love everlasting.

And … what am I to do now with the order of things. Should I move the whole Xerex sequence–all seven brothers–up to the front to be with its sister? Something along those lines will have to be done, I think.

Xerex, Coda: Here…

…will you find the first version as it had been penned originally so many decades ago.  The dotted lines have been added to indicate whence the sonnets come:

O, my sweetest love,
Share thou with me
The sweet Xerex

Which I do proclaim
As the nectar which
Returneth me to

Thee, my sweetest love.
Quiet my restless mind
With the still, sweet

Grape which is the
Blood of lovers and
Of conquerers.
—————————
Such is the stuff
That would quiet my
Mind and my heart

For thee, and ease
Thy pain easily
With a pure flavor,

And with little regret
From thyne Angels’ heart.
Remember thou, my love

That even in this
Cruel
Earth there art

Those elements which
Heal in their right
Proportions.
———————
Remember thou, my sweetest
Love, that many
Forms Are yielded

Up by the Fickle
Grape: The subjective
Grape yields

Up poison and
Medicine for the
Soul.
———————–
As Baudelaire, my
Father, my twin,
My dearest

Poet knew this drink was
Fine; so shall I
Proclaim: My sweetest

Love, As my
Devoted, As my
Servant, As my

Slave; bring thou
Me of the sweetest Xerex
Grape and I

Shall become returned
To that which
Thou most admireth.
————————–
But, that thou shouldst
Know:  Once I have To
thine arms return’d

Thou shalt be my
Wine and my
crystal.
————————–
Thou shalt be
Mine Angel–superior
To all the grape is

Able to be.
I shall thenceforth
Drink of thee,

My love and I
Should never again want
For wine.

Much has in me been yielded up by that fine grape so many long years ago.

Regarding Xerex I…

…in particular and the Xerex sequence, in general:  It has long been rhapsodized by many throughout history that wine most fine produces vision most fine.  It might appear, at first blush, that such a thing cannot possibly be the case; after all, such a notion seems to fly in the face of reason; the intoxicant in wine is ethanol; and one ethanol molecule conforms and behaves very much like any other.  Why then do dreamers, poets, writers, painters, musicians–artists of all stripes–continue to entertain this notion; or rather, why do they continue to have just such an experience, be inspired by their awe of it, and subsequently, feel compelled to recount it? Continue reading

Regarding Xerex, I did, indeed…

…let an older sonnet drop down onto September 23. I didn’t truly need to, but otherwise, I would have posted “today’s” entry at maybe 8:00 pm. I think I prefer it this way though, because now I may think about the subsequent elements of the sequence. I’m posting this entry in real time but the sonnet and its introduction will not have posted until September 24, 2012, shortly before 1:00 am.

All this for a drop Oloroso Sherry? I know, It seems like It’s a big to-do about such a subject; but some things are like that. They’re bigger than you at first thought they would be.

Sonnet VII: Respite

In peace, my love, forever do I goe,
That blessed nectar I adored to seek,
That gave thee rest and ease in its mystique
That long ago hath poured and I bestow.

Take thou, my love,  these tears that overflow
To quench thy soul; restored, do they forespeak
To thee; I shed them gladly, take my cheek
To drink–so blush, as though with wine aglow.

But soft, my sweet, and drink thou ever deep;
Breathe now the vapours of my soul–and heart:
Read thou its sonnets, and thou wilt mee know.
But peaceful, shall I lay thee down to sleep,
Bequeathing thee, when we awake, such art
And dance that from thy hearth shall never goe.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all: