Friday, March 12, 2010

Fire and Music #1

There is a line from All About Eve where Betty Davis refers to love (somewhat dismissively) as "fire and music." It seems fitting to find -- within my wife's favorite film -- three words so apt in describing her. I thought I would use "Fire and Music" as a series title for my uxorious sonnets.



Fire and Music #1
by Gideon Burton

Not to a flower, not to mornings bright
Can I compare her whom I call my wife.
Her skin, her eyes, though lovely to my sight,
Conceal what matters: food and drink and life
To me, no less than water, bread and air.
And so of her topography, though fair,
No map I make for onlookers to stare.
I cannot dress with metaphors the bare
And simple substance of her company:
Companion strong in mind and single will
Who will to me so much so long so free
So give herself my hunger hungers still.
    While other men analogies compose
    She rhymes with me beyond a poet’s prose.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship

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