BY THE LAKE / THE GILDED BALL

By The Lake

Modest in your evening dress,
You sit among the grass of gold
Amid the wavering watercress,
Lost in sumptuous raptures of old.
And in your sunlit reveries
While a symphony sighs on the balconies,
The mountains in the distant, saffron light
Gleam beyond the courtyard's statues of white
Where the first diamond orbs of night
Approach in veils of purples bright.
How I long to touch you in those reeds by the lake,
And inhale the many perfumes that your sable tresses make
Which carried on the wind leads me to dream
Of a silent wood, and a flowing stream.

The Gilded Ball

Dante and Beatrice, Shelley and his lovely Mary,
Robert and Elizabeth, William and his Juliet,
Robert and his dignified Clara once met
In the mist of love, in cupidity's airy
Romantic ball.
They live on, they live on, everyone and all!
Welcome to the palatial hall.
The vassals will take your furs and coats,
And usher you into the drawing room
After your excursion by the lake on the soft, sunlit, wavering oats
Glistening in the light of the alabaster moon.
Each bride has her groom,
Each man has his mate.
Rejoice, for earthly gloom
Is forever beyond our fate!
The trumpets soon
Shall trumpet.  All silence shall abate.
Leave your worldly life behind you in the hall.
Welcome one and all, to the dance, to the ball.
The marble floors await your paces.
All of us saints are gleaming with enraptured faces.
And all the places we have seen
Though beautiful beyond all expression
Are but the beginnings of eternal delights
Always new within our sacred possession.
The pleasures here are potent yet serene.
Let the astonished angels light the lights!
The ballroom awaits with views of the majestic heights
Seen through the grand bay windows.
I shall take your fair hand and undo your braided bows
In the corner where the candlelight glows,
Aside the piano, next to the books
Where Sappho traces her adoring looks
Over her new poetic volume
Which speaks of roses in radiant bloom.
Let the dresses swirl across the room!
The piano plays, the trumpets blare
Melodiously amid the fanfare,
And the silver stars within your eyes
Beckon me: "Take me dancing until the skies
Are lit with the lightening of a thousand sighs,
Are shaken with the thunder of harmonies,
Of ecstasies,
Of flowing, white wine descending from flasks
Pried open by the cherubim, by fluttering, adamantine wings."
(Such glorious tasks

Are special things.)
And the band serenaded the musicians and the other saints
Until the dawn rose upon the meadow
With glorious, wondrous, purple paints.
And every shadow
Sent a shudder through me
Of happiness without an end,
Of light without a pall.
O, take me, take me
To where the willow trees bend,
With a carafe in your hand
To the boundless fields over the dew-clad land
After the wonderful, gilded ball.
We shall lie as dreamers, yet wide awake
We shall give of ourselves, and still give more
And with gratitude take
The kisses which make
The things of folklore
Even here!
Let us wander by the belvedere,
And caress among the glistening fountains
Beneath the breeze-blown trees, green, slender and tall
As the revelers depart from the hall
In the dance of the dawn, in the cradle of the mountains.

-  John Lars Zwerenz (From Eternal Verse) (c) Copyright 2013

John Lars Zwerenz (1969- ) is an American poet and writer. He is known for his romantic, impressionistic and mystical works. He has published five books of poetry: Selected Poems, Mist And Flame, Visionary Wanderings, Sonnets of Dusk and Dawn and Songs Of Rapture And Other Poems. His fifth book, a novelette, is a controversial and steamy love story entitled "An American Romance". According to Zwerenz, the book is a "purgatorial" work of fiction. It has been published by Penguin this autumn of 2012. The volume includes an appendix and an epilogue, both of which comprise his fifth collection of verse. A new book of Zwerenz's poetry will be focused on the subject of "paradise". It is called "Eternal Verse" and will be published by a major house early in 2013. Zwerenz is a mystical romantic. His writings are deeply spiritual in subject matter and tone. Much of his verse employs transcendental language and is rich in meaning and musicality. He often makes use of classical rhyme and meter in both his poetry and prose. One literary critic compared his poetry to "the labor and results of Rembrandt". Yet in his writings, especially in his verse, Zwerenz seems to dismiss the current age as something ostensibly irrelevant, and he likes to surround and place his subjects within a vaguely medieval setting. Some critics have suggested that his anachronistic qualities detract from the potency of his verse. Zwerenz owns a B.A. in English from The City University Of New York At Queens College and has traveled extensively throughout The United States and Europe as a kind of "literary wanderer". He holds a rather "bohemian" reputation since his youth. He currently resides in New York City, and is 44 years of age.
R.Canter

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