The Birth of Venus

by Richard Kuslan (July 2018)

Birth of Venus, attributed to Noel Nicolas

Time heeds his Mother’s cry
To stab and slice the Sky
Who upon Her fixed His sight
And with Him brought the Night.

His blade with jagged teeth
Dismembers stem and sheath
Which scatter on the wave
Afloat and gently laved.

While from the ocean wails
Chorines of nymphic peals:
For from immortal flesh
Sea foam wells a-gush.

On tides which carry home
Spread spawn upon the loam
To shape, from clay alone,
Another of Her own.

As crimson veil repeals
The orange dawn reveals
That seed received in womb
In Beauty springs, a-bloom.

A maidenhead sublime,
A-root in Earth, divine:
Extravagant and mighty
Hail, Venus Aphrodite!

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Richard Kuslan is an admirer of Donne, Sheridan, Byron, LeFanu, Trollope, Orwell, Sacheverell Sitwell, Christopher Logue and Jean Sprackland, among (many) others in the English language. He marvels at meaning’s fecundity when language is constrained by form and delights in the melodies that take to the air when the beautiful is read aloud.

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