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SCARABAEUS, by                    
First Line: The lady was white as ivory
Last Line: Split wide for passion's sake.
Subject(s): Love; Love - Loss Of; Love Affairs; Murder


The lady was white as ivory,
Was cool as drifts of snow;
She wore her loves at intervals
As the north winds blow.

Love, if it served her purpose well,
Always an enigmatic smile
Was suitable an hour;
Did tenderness deflower.

But one man came from Eastern lands
Where love blooms in strange forms;
"Thus shall I break her will to shards
Through harsh and devious storms."

Some seas are damned and grow in strength --
His love surged round her knees;
She flicked the drops from her finger tips
With never an "if you please."

* * * * * * *

There was no sight, no sound within
This lonely, torturous tomb;
He sensed the flowers, the lapis, gold,
That waited in the gloom,

That waited for the journeyings
Of one who lay asleep
Stretched on a carven golden couch,
Swathed in linen deep.

This one had loved as flesh should love
Had reaped a vintage rare;
Her body was wreathed in stars of blood,
Her feet in jewels fair.

"Anubis, god, forgive, I pray,
Such sacriledge as this" --
He bore her heart with him away,
Left on her lips a kiss.

* * * * * * *

Before his lady now he knelt,
Felt her derisive scorn;
"My dear," she laughed, "why have you come,
Why always so forlorn?"

Useless to importune her now,
Useless his flame to cool;
He breathed a word once Thoth had said
To use upon a fool.

She swooned upon his waiting arm,
Her eyelids sank to rest;
He drew his dagger, cruel steel-cold,
Plunged it in blue-veined breast.

Inserted carefully the heart
He had plucked from the dead,
Watched her the while he held her there
With searching nascent dread.

So fragrant, slim, so fair she lay,
The throbbing light stood still,
The flowers held their very breath --
Could she evade his will?

She moves, she sighs, her thoughts run free,
She questions with her eyes;
Her hands like white moths drift apart
Then rest in sure surmise.

The blood flows red through her flesh of snow,
The indurate shackles break;
Kheperi preens himself; the skies
Split wide for passion's sake.





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