{"id":354,"date":"2011-08-21T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-21T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=354"},"modified":"2011-08-21T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-21T11:00:00","slug":"thomas-orszag-lands-casanova-the-madonna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/thomas-orszag-lands-casanova-the-madonna\/","title":{"rendered":"*Thomas Orsz\u00e1g-Land's 'Casanova & The Madonna'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Casanova & The Madonna<\/span>
              <\/span>Three Portraits<\/span>,<\/span>
              in Praise of Love<\/span>


(1)<\/span>

Naked Flights<\/span>

 \u3000<\/span>
Yes, sweet cheeky smile, I like you too,<\/span>
and yes, we could have a world in common up here<\/span>
in my sun-splashed, squeaky bed just now and again<\/span>
for an hour of your busy life that no-one might summon;<\/span>
each tiny hair awake, your naked body<\/span>
would bathe in the sky without — the weary, weather-washed<\/span>
homes with their shiny moist roofs beneath us forgotten<\/span>
in this room that women often compare to an eyrie.<\/span>

Your shopping bag abandoned, your eyes would possess <\/span>
the great city below and your thoughts would soar to poetry<\/span>
and plays, nothing stopping their flight until the mother<\/span>
and wife awakened inside you, frightened of more.<\/span>
Being considerate adults, we'd seek to protect<\/span>
your home from our passion, and let the madonna in you<\/span>
take charge of the cheeky girl and bid her to sail<\/span>
a safe course in the clouds — lest she be stained by the foam.<\/span>

At home, the madonna would cheerfully tend to the needs<\/span>
of so many brittle, exposed and raven emotions,<\/span>
the madonna who feeds herself to the piercing milkteeth<\/span>
of family, serving a sentence without committal.<\/span>
A fellow martyr, your husband would play the blind page,<\/span>
the most liberal husband-in-law one might have selected,<\/span>
and his savage rage at your naked flights in the sunshine<\/span>
would surface as pulsing friendship — directed at me.<\/span>

And I would play the intimate friend of the family,<\/span>
I'd be the first with the flowers if you should give birth again,<\/span>
a friend to relax with, on whom to depend, with my brand<\/span>
of brandy kept in the house for our restful hours.<\/span>
I'd warm my loneliness by your peaceful fire;<\/span>
I'd repay your kindness, according to the rules,<\/span>
in my favourite restaurants — only to make you feel<\/span>
sublime, and him a sophisticate, and me foolish.<\/span>

Our pleasantly prudent lives would stroll on forever<\/span>
if the passion of mortals yielded to prudent control.<\/span>
But listen! — the toll of decay is recording and setting<\/span>
our finite lives by the absolute terms of eternity…<\/span>
Listen! I like you. We may have in common a world.<\/span>
But our naked affection up here in my sun-splashed bed<\/span>
might free the alive and cheeky girl to summon<\/span>
and to burn the madonna into a grey recollection.<\/span>


(2)<\/span>

Flowers<\/span>

         A lover prizing generosity in bed and at table, <\/span>
I, Casanova, survey the town at play from my tall balcony,<\/span>
delighting in the restless, resonant whirl of the world. <\/span>
I watch the women. They are off to the shops, accompanied <\/span>
by their curly babies and furry pets. They are naked in their hearts<\/span>
beneath the lazy, unblinking gaze of the Mediterranean sky <\/span>
and they softly purr their promising, moist preoccupations,<\/span>
immersed in the golden honey heat of the early autumn.<\/span>

          I, Casanova, hold the horizon from this noble apartment <\/span>
replete with the treasures of a graceful procession of beauties. <\/span>
Each one has left behind, like a cherished bridal veil, <\/span>
the memory of her very own fragrance and flavour and weight, <\/span>
the testing peck of her kiss on my skin and the taste of her teeth, <\/span>
her sly evasions and grins and cries, and the shy and the hesitant, <\/span>
humble, yielding, waiting, yearning, greedy, arching, throbbing, <\/span>
all-revealing welcome through the gates of her body —<\/span>

          I'm Casanova: I give and I take without counting the price.<\/span>
I gain both ways. For the gift of one's person enriches the giver<\/span>
allowed to share the secret trembles of a fellow creature,<\/span>
as close to becoming one with another as two can ever reach.<\/span>
I look and delight in the sight of this daily display of splendour, <\/span>
the charm and beauty of colours, shapes and movements below, <\/span>
this bedful of beckoning female flowers in the sunshine reminding<\/span>
me of one who is briefly away and who took my heart with her.<\/span>


(3)<\/span>

The Banquet<\/span>

Never dared he risk an error,<\/span>
Casanova with a ring,<\/span>
handsome, tame suburban terror,<\/span>
Casanova on a string,<\/span>
          Casanova, the best:<\/span>
          a lovely beast, a beast to feast<\/span>
          from pillow to post,<\/span>
          a beast to boast.<\/span>

 Strictly keeping love on ration,<\/span>
flagging unions he would fling<\/span>
into quivering pain and passion,<\/span>
Casanova on a string,<\/span>
          Casanova, the best:<\/span>
          from pillow to post,<\/span>
          a lovely beast, a beast to feast,<\/span>
          a beast to boast.<\/span>

He was feared and much desired<\/span>
through his life's eternal spring<\/span>
till the repetition tired<\/span>
Casanova on a string, <\/span>
          Casanova, the best: <\/span>
          a beast to boast,<\/span>
          a lovely beast, a beast to feast<\/span>
          from pillow to post.<\/span>

But he has been tied where it matters the most<\/span>
to Casanova, and the sting<\/span>
still urges him on from pillow to post<\/span>
each time his wife gives a pull on the string —<\/span>
          O Casanova, the best: <\/span>
          a beast to boast<\/span>
          from pillow to post,<\/span>
          a lovely beast served up for a feast.<\/span>
<\/p>\n



*Thomas Orsz\u00e1g-Land<\/span> <\/span>is a poet and award-winning foreign correspondent based in Budapest. His last major work was <\/span>Christmas in Auschwitz, Holocaust Poetry<\/a> Translated from the Hungarian of Andr\u00e1s Mezei (Smokestack, England, 2010).<\/span>

\u3000<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Casanova & The Madonna              Three Portraits,              in Praise of Love(1)Naked Flights \u3000Yes, sweet cheeky smile, I like you too,and yes, we could have a world in common up herein my sun-splashed, squeaky bed just now and againfor an hour of your busy life that no-one might summon;each tiny hair awake, your naked bodywould bathe in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}