The Ninth Degree

Came she serpentine,
salacious something’s murmuring
through wine-purpled lips
into the echoing conch-whorls
which were his fearless ears.

Too soon, near-full swooned again
perceived he the sharp-edged
omnipresence of life's best jewels
pulsing in the improvised melody
whistling through his pursed and impish lips.

A gifting impulse bold and undeniable
appeared in his opened mind/heart/hands;
as history’d have it, this was deeply unreliable.

For hard she was
in all the wrong places,
best Mysteries kept occult
in the fierce facets
of the faces she thought
went unobserved.

Unnerved of this
new-cautious Charles
attempted, wincingly,
a gently wrought extrication
from this fast, false intimacy;
relentless lashed himself of nights;
prayed and fasted;
whispered weird-wrung,
apoplectic apologias and
sleep depraved ditties;
to sing or dance refused
the Muses being most unamused.